Conclusions:
Fiio should be commended for delivering the EH3 NC they have at the price they’ve been able to. Ultimately, they’ve delivered a pretty competent pair of general-purpose wireless headphones that just so happen to have noise-cancelling and other multimedia connectivity/features as a very sharp price. It seems that Fiio has a way to go to get their noise cancellation quality and effectiveness up-to-par with the competition, but hopefully there’s a firmware-deliverable DSP tweak that’s able to lessen the effect that the EH3 NC’s ANC has on its frequency response, as for music listening it’s not great right now. Build quality will likely only improve from here on in, but for the sub-$200 price-tag there are certainly no complaints. Let’s see how they hold up to a few more months of commuting.
The fact that Fiio has also ensured that the EH3 NC is compatible with a range of modern Bluetooth codecs means that it will be relevant long into the future, meaning that an already good value purchase will be even better value down the track. Plus, you can simply plug them into a source via USB for bit-perfect playback, and you have yourself a pretty good pair of wired headphones at a pinch should you choose to power them passively.
The EH3 NC’s are worth considering for general wireless music and video enjoyment if you value sound quality and convenience over brand names and bells and whistles. The sound is on the whole enjoyable and tastefully implemented, and the wireless performance is generally flawless. So if you have an upcoming trip planned, perhaps you should plan on keeping a few bucks up your sleeve to spend at the other end, and still get yourself a great pair of headphones in the EH3 NC.
Andrii
Thanks for such detailed review. Do you know which firmware you had on your set? I own one too, and to me it is nearly perfect. I tried virtually all available models below 800 USD, and so far I like it more than all of them. ANC is exactly what I want. Maybe it is age specific. I am 55+ and cannot hear >16KHz 😉 Or, it could be different ver. of firmware. So, I am afraid to upgrade to latest firmware version and ruin my experience. My favorite wired set is Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro 32 Om, and EH3NC to me sounds very similar. In combination with FIiO F7 LDAC they sounds great. For the records, I do not have any affiliation with FiiO, just like some of their products.
Thanks one more time for the great review.
Matty Graham
Hi Andrii, great to hear it’s working out for you! I have the original 1.0 forward on my review pair, I believe the current firmware affects volume control. Thanks for reading, glad you enjoyed it.
432pro
A quick question- I’m thinking of picking these up sometime soon, but your mention of the extremely light pads makes me hesitate. Could you compare them to, say, AKG stock pads or Brainwavz pads?
Now I’m wondering whether the standard Brainwavz Ovals will fit them- hmm…
Petteri Hjort
Hi! I’m very interested in this headset. However one of my usecases is using it as a Skype-headset on a windows pc. Doing this with windows bluetooth is not a good idea at all. So does the device show its microphone over usb connection aswell?
Matty Graham
Hi Petteri, I’m not a PC user but can check out next time I have a Skype call on my mac.
Mauro Pinto
Hi! I’m very interested in the answer of this question, Does the mic work via USB?
Matty Graham
They don’t appear to on MacOS.
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