Introduction

Now I could give you a long-winded rundown of the HA-FD01 and its significance, but Drop already did my job for me so give them a little traffic.

Basically, the FD01 was an IEM that SuperBestAudioFriends user james444 discovered had some untapped potential within it, with the proper damping and tuning performed. It was subsequently picked up by other prominent members, and now it seems that it’s good enough for Drop to convince JVC to mass produce at a commercial scale. What a jump.

Now, the FD01 I heard was actually noticeably peakier than the “stock” FDX1 (which is supposed to be the same as a regular FD01) so I’m not sure if my personal experiences translate 1-to-1 with everyone else’s. I thought the FD01 was extremely bright, extremely peaky, beyond sibilant and worst of all: had a metallic timbre that made nearly everything sound unnatural. Now at that point I already knew of james444’s efforts and success in modifying the FD01, but I was listening to a store demo unit anyways so I wasn’t at liberty to do any sort of tinkering.

With the FDX1 also comes my opportunity to test out what is one of SBAF’s most critically acclaimed transducer modifications. I’m certainly excited.

Product page: https://drop.com/buy/drop-jvc-ha-fdx1-dual-carbon-iem/

MSRP: $280 ($250 for pre-sale)

Driver configuration: single DD