final E4000-E5000 : no choice is possible

final (a brand owned by Kanagawa (JP) based S’NEXT Co Ltd, who sympathetically insists it should be written with a lowecase f) is so deservedly renowned for the quality of their headphones and IEMs that I won’t spend a single line introducing who they are, what are their E-series IEMs or anything. If you don’t know them I do urge you to stop here google around then come back.

Unlike other devices in my audio arsenal, I purchased E4000 and E5000 – final E-series’ TOTL models – more at an instinctual level than as a result of an analythical assessment of their features and of the wonderful reviews many have composed about them (some links, as always, at the bottom of this post).

As many other times in my life, my instinct rewarded me big time.

E5000

final’s own colophon about this model:

“Immersive sound that seems to envelop you in smooth music; it’s as though you can feel the harmony of the orchestra tactilely.“

As in the pure spirit of this site, I presume you are not here to read “yet another analythical review” – especially given how well written those linked below are. That said, my take on E5000 is under the spoiler her below. For world-class competence look elsewhere. For quick votes too.

The most outstanding value of E5000 to me is its ensemble.

Bass is a lot, and beautiful, and while it’s not bleeding anywhere yet it sets the “general room lighting” at “shadowy / dark” level.

The room is in shadows and that’s the entire intimacy sensation I get. Low light does not imply small space here. Soundwise the stage is in facts huge, and imaging is at high levels too.

Bodied vocals have plenty of self-authority to stand their case vs all that bass which – although un-bleeding – does require quite some muscle, and at the same time they appear designed to never light any illogically bright light around. A bull’s eye is following the singer on the floor, that’s it.

Similarly, trebles are playing an extremely calibrated role: if at first sight hearing one might feel them “low” although so greatly articulated, soon it becomes evident that amplifying them even 1dB further would change the overall scene completely.

The resulting ensemble is greatly self-consistent, and feels bodied as much as vocals are. The atmosphere is thick, not heavy – dramatic, not tragic. The term “tactile” chosen by final is utterly appropriate.

E5000 is a high-end orchestra featuring world-class singularities on main instruments, and a great conductor on the podium. This individual is an extremely skilled professional, possibly formed at Santa Cecilia Academy and as such bearing a superfine classical preparation, a solid foundation for a nonetheless modern, engineeristic, “agile” personality featuring glowing coordination talents. This conductor’s creed is “full-bodied perspicuous sound, as score-compliant as possible, with no concession to mushyness”. Timbre apart, that’s a Von Karajan – or thereabouts.

On a more particular level, I have a special passion for acoustic jazz, and in relation to that a sweet ear for contrabass notes and their articulation.

Plucked contrabass is a hell of a problem to render as it calls for superb attack and decay, which perfection is very often sacrified in all or part to the altar of “adequate” rumble and body for kickdrums and toms. Many say that technologically wise optimal contrabass rendering is a BA driver prerogative, which will on the other hand too often deliver a sort of unwanted “neatness” on drums. I’m no expert but I can testify this is often the case. And I presume it indeed took final to giving contrabass nearly-BA-rendering on a single-DD IEM, offering “punchily rumbly” kicks, toms and snares at the same time. That’s just masterful.

Piano and violin are also greatly rendered all along their spectrums.

I suspect Glenn Gould would have loved listening to his Mozart’ K333 on E5000 – and for those who know what sort of ego I’m talking about, that means saying something. Staying on Mozart, Bart Van Oort’s style on Sonatas is not my preferred but the sound of his Forte Piano is just irresistible on E5000. Ilya Kaler’s take on Caprice #24 is also astonishingly covered on all frequencies (and there are many there).

As for vocals all my preferred Italian songwriters – Fabrizio de André, Paolo Conte, Giorgia to name a few – are just greatly represented, no hesitation about that.

Paolo Conte also is a significant jazz composer and performer, and E5000 is great at mixing his somewhat gruffy voice onto his often 24+ elements acoustic orchestra including high winds, cellos and guitars, even accordion, together with female back vocals.

Where I find E5000 less appropriate is on more apriori sided situations.

In the huge jazz panorama cool jazz, bebop, hardbop in my taste call for a quite opposite general approach than that taken by E5000. The emotional ambience I want is not at all shadowy there, I rather prefer it lighted, airy, even bright. That’s why for that application I indeed prefer masterfully airy and articulated highs and trebles, backwards completed with superfast, punchy and detailed bass. That’s the opposite of E5000, irregardless of its quality.

Quite similarly, “purposedly boomy” rock variations, EDM, Wagner, etc instanstly sound “excessive” in Von Karajan’s E5000’s hands.

Finally, but not for importance: as I tried to outline E5000 has a strong identity. It’s drama, not comedy, not tragedy, nor horror. Excellent drama.

I don’t believe “all-rounder” is a thing in general, but E5000 would be far from being one under all possible reasonable definitions of that. As much as it is gorgeously delicious to listen to, I may well be in a no-no day for it. Don’t take me wrong: what is normally called “listening fatigue” is miles away from E5000, yet in a cuisine analogy E5000 is a freshly cooked, perfectly executed Traditional Lasagne baking tin: I love that with all of myself, but I really wouldn’t want to eat that every day, twice a day.

The price for the show

In addition to its purchase price, E5000 good output does not come easy at all in terms of hardware support. E5000 features very low impedance (14Ohm) and sensitivity (93dB/mW). When undepowered they sound awfully dull, veiled – pure crap.

Not only a nominally powerful source is needed, but a less common than suspected might turn out to be required.

Most commonly available budget portable sources’ (DACs / DAPs) spec sheets indicate in facts a minimum supported load impedance of 16 Ohm, promising to deliver a few tens mW on that case. That might sound enough, sadly it often is not – and by far. When a 15 or even 14 Ohm load is plugged in those devices’ performances dramatically drop. Output power does not decrease linearly with impedance, and what’s worse the device spec sheet “stops higher than E5000 requires”. Long story short: it’s a try and hope.

My Fiio X3 mk-III “reportedly” outputs 120mW@16Ohm on the Single Ended port and 110mW@16Ohm (yes, lower than SE) on the Balanced Port. I plug E5000 and I go “yuck!” on both ports 🙁

Hiby R3 is supposed to offer 56+56mW@32Ohm SE and twice as much BE. E5000 is anemic and veiled almost all the way through on SE, but fares quite well on BE. R3 is a warmish source so it doesn’t tonally pair well with darkie-E5000 but that’s another story.

My behated Fiio BTR5/USB/BE (240mW@16Ohm declared) drives E5000 perfectly. Loud at 45/60 volume, very loud at 50/60, what’s even more important is that E5000 dynamics get fully activated and “open” already at 40/60 making the IEM sing in all its beauty even at modest Sound Pressure Levels.

Meizu Hifi DAC Pro (30+30mW@32Ohm declared, SE only) produces the absolute weakest of all outputs in E5000 and my guess is the internal Meizu impedance adaptation system miserably failing on a 14Ohm load.

Dosmix TPR22 (30+30mW@32Ohm declared, SE only) shows its usual unbelievable power. It drives E5000 like a walk in the park already at 30/100 volume level. Why this happens is still a mistery, but this is another story.

For the sake of curiosity, low impedance and sensitivity was an intended choice on technical grounds on final’s part which turned into an unexpected marketing mistake, as they recently openly stated :

E4000

Again, final’s own definition for their own product:

The sound has a sense of realism to it; you can feel the breath in the vocals and every single guitar distortion.

And again my analysis (a short one indeed) is under the spoiler here

In just one word, E4000 is “personal“.

It adds a sort of “global colouring” to music, in the good sense of course. I underline global as yes I may call its basses a tad too beefy at times, its highs are not masters of detail, and its mids may sound forward if I really want to be nasty.

But the ensemble … that is all liaised accross – I don’t know how, but it is – offering an integral sensation which is a circular, firm & soft, mellow, personal hug.

Recuping the analogy I introduced for E5000, more than a masterfully skilled and cultured musician, E4000’s conductor is an empathic individual that makes his something out of the skills of his players, adding his unique pathos on top, taking the best out of each one yet with a constant eye at keeping it all balanced and harmonious. He’s Muti conducting Verdi, a totally different story from Von Karajan on Wagner.

E4000 is natural but not neutral. Balanced but the opposite of uninfluential. E4000 might even be considered a given name instead of a model number, for how uniquely, ever so gently yet unhideably, it adds its own ego to the music it transfers. I know it may sound excessive or even silly, but every now and then I pull E4000 into use just because I want to hear its “voice”.

E4000’s room lighting is not dark at all. We’re not dazzled by the sun either. It’s all very natural, normal, earthly, human.

E4000 is just perfect – can’t use a different word – for pop music, prog and classic rock, some jazz variations and folk/songwriters as well.

Similarly to E5000 although for different reasons it’s not the ideal companion for other specific genres such as cool jazz and bebop, and some classical (to name only those I do listen to – for others, frankly, I don’t care).

Again, I don’t believe in “all rounders” – I don’t need to.

But if there is one IEM I own which I could wear for days without any boredom (let alone fatigue), and find at the very worst “good enough” for the least-ideal genres vs its designed presentation, that is E4000 without any doubt.

One last note about power requirements: E4000 is no E5000, luckily. It still is quite power-hungry, most phones will be unable to feed that. Yet, my Meizu Hifi DAC Pro is OK (although almost at full throttle) to make it sing, and that’s fine.

A few practical notes

Eartips

As I presume many do, amongst the first activities connected with the acquisition of a new IEM I rolled quite a few (read many) different eartips. And as everyone knows, my choice in the end means almost nothing to anyone else, as it depends 50% on the IEM but another 50% on how my bloody earcanals are made, which are possibly different from yours, and yours, and yours too. That said:

• Best eartips for E4000: final E black (the stock ones)
• Best eartips for E5000: final E white as they offer a wee-bee lighter subbass which I appreciate

Cables

Both E4000 and E5000 benefit from the higher dynamics coming with good Balanced Ended amping. That’s the main reason why I swapped both stock cables with balanced ones.

E4000’s stock cable (a.k.a. final sku# C112) is an OFC cable with a quite soft and flexible PE (?) sheat offering good skin contact. Sound wise I got nothing to object to that, except its single ended termination inconvenience and – to be overly critical – a vague “cheap look” which feels totally out of place vs the otherwise classy finish of the housings, the nice silicon case and the tips.

E5000’s stock cable (a.k.a. final sku# C106) is a Yunkosha SCC, also with single ended termination but with annoyingly rigid & knobby sheat finish. Unlike E4000’s, this one has a pricey look but its practicality and comfort leave much to be desired.

As unfortunately sometimes happens, only too late I discovered that final has “housing only” versions for both E4000 and E5000 – that is, the very same packages as the full version, but without the cable inside. Too bad.

Oh btw: both models can be worn either cable-down or around the ear, the latter being by far the most convenient and comfortable option.

Conclusion

Every so often I clean up my audio arsenal. I am not an audiophile addict, I am not into acquiring many let alone dozens all two similar variations of the same device just for the sake of rolling to the newest item. My push to a new acquisition is investigation for improvement, with a subsequent sell-off of the older stuff.

E4000 and E5000 pretty much “clean my table” regarding the genres to which they best adapt, as I outlined above. All my other IEMs having to do with those genres can simply go for good – they won’t be missed.

One day I even asked myself a further question: can either E4000 or E5000 replace the other ? They are so similar after all, the lists of genres for which each represents my ideal go-to driver are so overlapped… should I choose one and sell the other? …. No ! 🙂

Interesting links

• NO BS Audiophile E4000 review
• NO BS Audiophile E5000 review
• Headfonics E4000 vs E5000 review
• Twister6 & Friends E4000 E5000 review
• Headfonia E4000 E5000 review
• Everyday Listening E4000 E5000 review