Final Audio makes a wide array of earphones at prices anywhere from $29 to $1,999. While they may vary greatly in price, Final’s mission seems to be to uphold quality throughout. Today we’ll be looking at one of their most popular models, the A4000, which runs for $139. The A4000 has garnered a bit of buzz for its low price point and association with Final Audio’s well-respected brand, so let’s take a detailed look at it.
Look and Feel
Final Audio uses a few different shapes for their earphones, the A4000 sporting their flatter, geometric look. Coming in a neutral, matte navy blue, the A4000 have an unmistakably unique and modern design. They fit very comfortably in the ear, and sit firm enough to keep them from accidentally falling out.
Design
Final Audio used their sound evaluation method, implemented in their much higher priced A8000 model, to achieve a “transparent sound” on the A4000. A 6mm f-core dynamic driver was designed from scratch and produced by Final for this unit, which they claim allowed them to produce its high quality sound for such a low price. The shape of the A4000 is also supposed to make for minimal contact with the ears in order to create maximum comfort. They come with a 2 meter OFC cable with rubber ear hooks that avoid friction with your skin to reduce cable noise.
Sound Signature
The A4000 has a crowd pleasing character. It’s not the type of headphone with any sound extremities that jump out at the ear immediately, straying far from any sort of polarizing or controversial timbre. They have a well-tamed resonant sound and their response has balanced distribution of cuts and boosts across the frequency spectrum.
Soundstage and Imaging:
Final Audio seems to value the soundstage greatly, as it seems to be impressive across all their models. The A4000 has a fairly upfront sound to it for the most part, and conveys a fair amount of distance along with plenty of width. They have highly distinctive sound separation and layering, especially for their price point, creating an organized space for music to shrink and expand within. You’ll find these wider than your average earphone and consistently immersive.
High End:
The A4000 take a more fluid approach to the high end than they do a shimmery gloss. They take more advantage of the 16k range than the 8k range, which helps them avoid a metallic character. They’re perhaps more middle of the road on brightness; I’ve heard headphones twice as dark and twice as bright. But most will find them to be on the brighter side, with a full, smooth sound far from any shrillness. I listened to the serene guitar ballad “Journey” by Sipprell and her vocals flowed beautifully on the A4000s high response. They have a pleasantly pure, gentle presence.
Mid Range:
This has a brighter sound in its mids as it does in the highs. They have a natural-resonant tone, definitely driving a lot of presence but staying relatively at bay in the 500Hz-2kHz range. The 1kHz+ range has a bit more bite to it, enough to create a satisfying edge that’s still devoid of harshness. These definitely have warmer low-mids than they do high-mids as is not uncommon, but still retain enough silkiness in the high-mids to create an overall smooth, comfortable tone and give up front, realistic sound.
Low End:
The A4000s low end is fairly clean and contained. These rarely struck me as bass-heavy but also never felt bass-lacking. I played Lafawndah’s “Substancia,” a hard-hitting percussive track with a wide variety of low end timbres. The A4000 felt like it fully conveyed the kicks and bass both in their liquid and grating iterations. It did not feel to be significantly boosting the low end much, but certainly not grazing over any of it. This balanced handling contributes to its crowd pleasing ability. It’s a fairly standard low end level, not intensely boosted, but far from typical in its quality. It’s impressively tight and hard-hitting, giving a great sense of realism to percussion or any floor-lurking tones.
Compared to:
Final Audio F3100: The A400 has a much brighter, crisper sound with a bit more low end. The A4000 is significantly more resonant and less warm in the high-mids and high- end, but fuller in low end and low mid. Their soundstages are about on par with one another.
Final Audio E4000: The A4000 is notably more resonant, however the E4000 easily matches if not outdoes it on the low end leveling and warmth. The E4000 is about as bright as the F3100 but warmer and smoother overall. It’s perhaps a bit less intensely defined than the A4000, but both still have ample detail retrieval.
Final Audio A3000: They have more similar lows and mids, but the A3000 has thinner, warmer high mid and a smaller width high end boost. It has an overall less resonant sound than the A4000 but is much closer to it in brightness than the E4000 or F31000 is.
Overall
The A4000 is a very competitively priced headphone and upholds Final Audio’s standard of audio quality and performance. If you want substantial presence and considerable brightness without too much resonance, these have a very well tailored tuning. Their low end fills out the basement of their sound signature very successfully without creating an oversized sound. Their comfortable fit and stylish looks tie up the package nicely, making the A4000 pretty hard to beat.
You can purchase Final Audio’s A4000 at Audio46
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