Specifications
For the nit-picker and nerdy ones here, I’m giving the specs and technical sheets . For all the others, you can just go to the next page to see how the S8F performs.
Knowles Balanced Armature Drivers: “The more, the merrier” or so they say ?
The Fearless S8F carries 8 drivers. If that was exceptional a few years ago, you can find cheap IEMs nowadays with as many drivers as you like. The KZ AS16 we reviewed a while ago is another example.
That said, it’s still a lot of drivers and even if you pile up some transducers, that doesn’t mean you will end up with a flagship. You have to properly tune them, add the right filters and choose what kind of signature you want to develop.
Even though, Fearless sent us two multi-driver IEMs already, and all of them were very good. So yeah, unless they screwed up somewhere, we should get at least, sound performance as good as the S6 Rui. Maybe more refined ? I hope so.
The upper range of the spectrum is taken care of by Knowles drivers, where the lower range gets Sonion drivers. The Sonion are double-bodied, so one of them count as double drivers. The driver setup is as follows:
- 1x dual Ultra-High driver from Knowles
- 1x dual Medium-High drivers from Knowles
- 1x dual Medium-Low drivers from Sonion
- 1x dual Ultra-Low drivers from Sonion
Fearless goes for a 4-way crossover and 3 sound tubes on the S8F, and 4 tubes on the S8 Pro. As I don’t have the S8 Pro I can’t say if the difference induced is palpable, or not.
Another quick recap of the overall specs, and then we’ll finally start talking about the sound!
Full specs
- Type : IEM / CIEM
- Style : eight driver IEM with a four way crossover
- Drivers : 2x Dual Knowles + 2x Dual Sonion
- Socket : 2-pins 0.78mm recessed
- Cable : 8N 4 cores OCC silver plated cable
- Shell : acrylic with extended customization, CIEM possible
- Frequency response range : 15Hz – 20kH
- Sensitivity : 113 dB/mW
- Impedance : 26 ohms
The article continues on Page Four, after the click here
Justin
Correction: Unless they changed spec recently, the S8 Pro also comes with 3 tubes. At least the one I had, did 😉
Filippo
As an S8F owner i agree with your review….. I love my new babies so much that i’m losing hours of sleep ’cause i listen to music for hours on end. The only downside is that they are so much revealing that i’m starting to hear the limits of my LG V30 ( something that never happened to me with the Etymotic ER3XR )…. so here’s the 500$ question : better save for the Fiio M11 Pro ( or similar priced DAP) or bundle my LGV30 with the Chord Mojo??
Thank you fellow Music Lovers
Janis
Try the iBasso DC01 with your LG V30. It’s as cheap as an upgrade can be and beats the M11 in sound quality. I’m rocking a Oneplus One 5T, Fearless S8 Freedom, a balanced cable by Tripowin, I believe it’s the C8 and the ibasso DC01.
Sounds terrific!
Mantas
Fearless S8 Freedom or FIIO FH7? Help me to deside.
I’m looking for warmer sound with deep authoritive sub base notes.
Dilip vishwanath
Can you compare the s8f and the fh7, I’ll be upgrading from the beyerdynamic dx160ie