the Fairhead Feelings of Old Burning-Also Talking about Some Hot Issues of EM5

, our master kang released feiao's flat-headed flagship EM5 in Nanjing. in recent days, we have also seen a lot of discussions and received news from some old friends, praising and buying a lot. Therefore, although I have been writing less recently because of many things, I still can't help writing some words to talk about my flat plot and some topics that everyone pays attention to in EM5.

[The origin of the project]]familiar friends all know that my burning started in the walkman of the 1980 s. At that time, walkman were equipped with flat head plugs without exception. Throughout the 1990 s, SONY/Aihua produced many classic flat head earphone models. At that time, it was really the golden age of flat head.

of course, the past is just too much to talk about, because it is estimated that many people are more familiar with that period of history than I am. And the younger generation is probably not interested in listening to the old people rambling. It can only be said that with the substantial improvement of front-end audio performance, it is an irreversible reality that flat-head headphones are replaced by various in-ear earplugs with better sound insulation, greater dynamics, stronger analysis and wider frequency response in the fever circle. Therefore, there are actually very few brands with a little scale that are still pushing flat heads.

, the reason why Feiao produced EM5 is actually for himself and some familiar old burning people. If you consider business value, EM5 must be a loss-making business. The flat-head market itself is almost zero, coupled with bold and personalized (weird) modeling, expensive pricing (2000 yuan). We don't expect much from the market sales volume of EM5. It is already complete to be a flat head that we are satisfied with and willing to share with our friends.

[Why is there such a personalized shape]]EM5 project was actually established in 2017. At first, we wanted to directly re-engrave the most fashionable Shuangdi tube design in the flat head era. Friends familiar with that era should know about a generation of classics like V99. We even went to search for some old plug and old plug's bodies to explain to young engineers what a flute tube (low frequency catheter) is and what its structure is.

However, in the design process, we found that even the materials, design tools and manufacturing technology have improved. Today, it is impossible to make a flat head in the traditional form. So it's either a direct re-engraving or a different approach. Therefore, the progress of the flat head project has been very slow.

During this period, Feiao also began to introduce 3D printing technology to mass production models. From FA7-FA1-FA9, together with Haig and manufacturers, we have overcome many problems and have a deeper understanding and understanding of the application of 3D printing technology. On this basis, we thought of simply using 3D printing to make flat heads. After careful consideration, there should still be many benefits.

1. 3D printing can be used as a seamless process. Compared with the traditional flat head, which relies on many plastic parts to be glued together with glue, 3D printing is obviously much more advanced in fineness. Moreover, the high-end resin materials used in 3D printing have amber-like texture. There is no cheap feeling of plastic material at all.

2. The traditional di-tube design has a complicated structure. For example, it is easy to leak air and the effect is reduced. What's more troublesome is that for several classic Di tube models, in order to ensure the length and caliber of the catheter, the volume of the whole earphone is still not small.

3. If you want to re-carve, you will have to open many sets of molds. In this way, although the manufacturing cost of large-scale mass production is low, the research and development cost is too high. For models such as EM5 that are unlikely to move, although the process manufacturing cost of a pair of housings for 3D printing is close to that of 200 yuan, the comprehensive cost of choosing 3D printing is still equivalent if the mold cost is included.

Therefore, the ID designer made a very bold design according to our requirements (Di Guan Design), and specially separated the flute tube, forming a very interesting design visually. Some people look at this ID and feel like an alien, some say it looks like a snake, some say it looks like a dragon, and some say it looks like a predator. However, one thing everyone agrees with is that this ID is a bit unconstrained, bold and unrestrained, completely out of the traditional flat-head plug modeling frame.

to be honest, feiao's shape has always been relatively stable. after all, many commercial factors and users' preferences should be considered. Therefore, it is inevitably drawn by users, and the ID is more conservative and stable.

, so, in a small section, ID is actually the most time-consuming in the three-year design of EM5. In order to make some new ideas, we finally used the latest 3D printing technology of the 21st century to reproduce the classic flute tube 30 years ago in different ways. The collision between tradition and the present has created the full personality of EM5. In fact, from the feedback from netizens I have come into contact with in the past two days, this ID is particularly liked by those I like, and those I don't like are particularly disliked. But this is not important, EM5 itself is not a popular design.

The following is the appreciation time.

[Why Use Beryllium-Plated Dielectric Film]]flat-head headphones, after decades of development, are actually very mature in technology. Therefore, following the design of DiGuan is not enough to meet our expectations for this flagship flat head. After introducing beryllium-plated diaphragm technology from FH7, Feiao has successively applied it to earplugs such as FD1/EA1/FH3, and has also accumulated some experience and won favorable comments from users. I will not expand on the specific advantages. Simply put, the intensity is extremely high, which can achieve wider frequency response and lower distortion. In terms of diaphragm materials, it is still much more advanced than the diaphragm several decades ago.

Therefore, we naturally introduce beryllium-plated diaphragm into EM5. In this way, with low-frequency catheter, we can make up for the disadvantages of traditional flat-head headphones that cannot go down at low frequency and cannot go up at high frequency to a certain extent (but it is also possible that the flat-head intermediate frequency will become more prominent and lead to more personal charm).

in this way, it can also give the traditional flat head sound quality, on the basis of retaining the advantages of loud field, loose timbre, outstanding intermediate frequency, etc., it can be more adapted to the characteristics of the modern high-definition recording and front-end.

a few words by the way. A big reason for the decline of traditional flat heads is also the decline of walkman. Because the tape has low signal-to-noise ratio and narrow frequency response, it is just suitable for matching platforms. If it is in the ear, it is easy to hear the bottom noise of the tape drive because the sound insulation is too good. And now the wide frequency response of the ear plugs in the ear can not play an advantage on the tape drive.

[Tangled Wire]]was playing with flat head, if an earplug was used with oxygen-free copper headphone cord, it would have been high. Unlike now, wires of various materials/structures are blooming and there are so many choices. Therefore, most earplugs for HIFI market now adopt replaceable wire design to meet the needs of users to "burn" wires.

However, due to structural limitations, flat-head plugs rarely use 2PIN/MMCX to replace new interfaces. In fact, if you are interested, you can take a look at a few models that are designed with replaceable interfaces, either the handle is very thick or the cavity is very large and prominent.

So at the beginning, our idea was to refer to the structure of Senhai IE800. One part of the line was fixed and the other part was interchangeable. In this way, although the whole wire cannot be replaced, in terms of length ratio, a large section of wire can be replaced to play with different materials, and it is also convenient to replace different plugs such as 3.5/2.5/4.4.

, in the tuning process, the tuner also tried various wires made of different materials and found that the pure silver wire had the best sound. His opinion is that users are not recommended to replace the wire by themselves. Considering that EM5 is not a market-oriented model, we still decided to respect the opinions of the tuner. As for the problem of matching the front end of different interfaces required by users, we adopted replaceable plugs to solve the problem.

so, if you are obsessed with playing with the line, you can only say sorry.

[Is the price of 1998 yuan expensive?]after the price of EM5 was announced, some burning oil said the price was too high. In fact, the old users of Feiao know very well that Feiao's pricing is very real and kind, especially some recent models, such as M11/M11Pro/M15, etc., should not be lowered until the market goes down. On the one hand, in the production process of more than a year, the cost has not only not decreased, but also increased. On the other hand, it is also because the initial pricing has been in place in one step, very real. Besides, if the products are highly competitive, there is no need to cut prices to seize the market.

also said earlier that EM5 is different from other models of Feiao and is not a market-oriented product. Therefore, we don't need to consider how much sales and how much money we can make. Therefore, it is basically priced at a reasonable profit based on the hardware cost. However, I estimate that the EM5 project will eventually lose money, but as long as we can understand the wishes of us and some loyal fans, it is actually enough.

, however, I still want to briefly analyze the price of EM5.

1, 4th generation 3D DLP printing technology worth? I think a person said that 3D printing costs 40 yuan. In fact, 40 is said to be expensive. It is estimated that Taobao will be cheaper to look for it. The cost of 3D printing is related to resin materials, printing accuracy and surface treatment process. EM5 has a more complicated flute tube design inside, and is different from the traditional in-ear, the cover is also 3D printed. So we used the latest high-precision printing equipment. The materials are still imported from Germany. The surface is painted with varnish in order to ensure the effect of automatic painting (manual spraying cannot ensure the uniformity of oil injection, and it is easy to accumulate oil locally). I calculated myself that the overall cost of EM5 on 3D printing is close to that of 200 yuan.

2. How much is the single crystal silver wire? For some reasons, all our official materials will not publicize the purity of the wire. The wire of EM5 is 4N single crystal silver wire, plus the standard 2.5/3.5/4.4 replaceable plug design. If we sell this wire alone, the retail price will be set at about 1000 yuan (the retail price of Feiao's LS-3.5/2.5/4.4D single crystal silver wire is 698 but without replaceable plug design).

3, other more expensive units are beryllium plated units, because the caliber is different from FD1/FH7, so a new set of unit basin frame mold has been specially opened. Therefore, with the shared mold and development costs, the cost of each horn is also high.

development, Master Kang said that the cost is already so expensive that it will not be sold. I said, it's rare for us to be capricious, but we don't expect to sell much anyway. The most important thing is to do the product well. Besides, even if the cost is controlled, it is impossible to sell many articles on the most optimistic side. Just don't care.

[EM5 design evolution]]1 is the earliest design, and it can be seen that the earliest is familiar with the traditional flat-head structure. The reason is that most flat heads are made of plastic male molds, and I wonder if I can try it with metal CNC technology. 3 is the effect of scheme 2 that needs to be adjusted according to the actual sound/speaker. 4 is based on the further optimization done by hand. 5, 6 and 7 have already abandoned scheme 4 and plan to use 3D printing to make post-design scheme. 8 is an acoustic manual of the 3D printed flute tube structure tried in the middle. 9 is the first unconstrained creative plan, and it is also the final choice. 10 is the effect of the tried metal cover, which was later abandoned due to process problems. 11 is a schematic diagram of the original replaceable line scheme. The wire design of IE800 is referred. 12 is a further optimization of the structure. 13 is the final mass production.

In fact, there are many adjustments in the middle. I will not list them one by one. In short, it is still a challenging and fun project.

author:Feiao James07-27 17:03

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