[HiFiChris]

...now just hoping its not rainbow colored with unicorns.

* No, I'm not trying to give you ideas, Piotr! (Or am I?)

 

[subguy812]

* No, I'm not trying to give you ideas, Piotr! (Or am I?)

Thanks a lot Chris...geesh and I am one of the good guys here

 

[ostewart]

Very nice...I am thinking one day I will get an email with the chef's surprise...since I asked Piotr to come up with the design. I gave him a total creative control to come up with anything he wants...now just hoping its not rainbow colored with unicorns.

I don't know... I'd be happy with rainbows and unicorns, they would sound magical

 

[Deezel177]

Hey guys! I've just returned from Singapore and I've finally gotten the opportunity to meet my FIBAE 3's in person. Thankfully, they're at least as beautiful in real life as they are in photos. Fit and finish is the best I've experienced thus far from Custom Art. Considering this pair was made with the same set of impressions I sent them over a year ago, achieving such a perfect fit is an incredible feat. It's been an absolute joy watching the entire Custom Art team hone their skills in both sonics and cosmetics, and I'm sure it can only get better from here.

Now, let's talk sound...

I've only heard the pair for a couple hours, but the FIBAE 3’s most immediate merit is its outstanding transparency. This may sound like an exaggeration, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard this much information at once from an IEM before. Of course, I’ve had the luxury of hearing IEMs like the Tia Fourte, the U18t and the Zeus-R in my lifetime, but the FIBAE 3 - regardless of its driver configuration or price - proves mighty competition. However, there were compromises made for this achievement, most prominent of which is a slightly brighter tone. This isn’t the most natural-sounding monitor, but that’s not to say it isn’t musical or rich either. @flinkenick wrote something in his Samba review along the lines of, “There’s beauty in precision, and musicality in purity.” The FIBAE 3 executes its top-end lift to near-perfection; with elegance, smoothness and linearity in spades.

Piotr has also been mindful when balancing the FIBAE 3’s treble with the rest of its spectrum. Unlike IEMs like the Samba or the U18t that place emphases on their extremes, the FIBAE 3 pulls a surprising amount of focus onto vocals. Singers - much like the instruments around them - float on thin air, and yet they sing with a palpable strength. It won’t compete anywhere near the Zeus in terms of raw vocal prowess, but it does trade a blow or two in presence and resolution. Its bass impresses too, in quantity especially. Although compromises were made with regards to its tone and warmth, its extension and impact are nothing to scoff at. Sub-bass especially impresses with both a skull-shaking presence and a disciplined authority. Jazz and EDM tracks are equally fun to listen to, and that’s not often said when discussing reference-tuned IEMs.

Just like the FIBAE 2, the FIBAE 3 showcases incredible left-right separation. Part of the reason why its signature works so well is due to its spatial resolution. Its transparency and cleanliness isn’t only fuelled by its leaner presentation; a well-organised stage as well as a black background are the FIBAE 3’s unsung heroes. Like I mentioned previously, vocalists and instruments alike are portrayed with stunning separation; airy, silky-smooth and defined to the very last dot.

Now, I’m afraid this is as much detail as I’ll go into, otherwise I won’t have any material left for the full THL review. But, it’s safe to say, the FIBAE 3 is one of the most impressive performance-per-dollar IEMs I’ve encountered in recent memory; this time, with a more reference-oriented tuning. Granted, it’s a title I've given to almost every IEM I’ve reviewed thus far, but it’s a testament to how well the budget market thrives even with the ever-escalating driver wars taking place just beside. With the FIBAE 3, Piotr has in his hands one of the most successful product lines this industry has ever seen, and here’s to hoping for more great releases from Custom Art and beyond.

 

[proedros]

As you may know by now FIBAE 3 is out and ready for pre-order. https://thecustomart.com/fibae-3/

Pre-order starting price for both silicone and acrylic is 1680PLN or equivalent of €420 versus 2100PLN (€525) MSRP. This time pre-order is not limited by number but rather by time and we plan on it to last till the end of January 2018 allowing everyone, who is interested, to jump on the train. By now we received all necessary components and the IEM is ready for production.
We will be sending demo to your local distributor at the earliest convenience - again - so that everyone has a chance to audition it and make the decision in time.
Pricing strategy comes after our experience with Music Two - Ei.3 pair when we gave our customers choice based solely on sound signature, rather than dictating it by number of drivers or price.

Many have been asking me to reveal sound signature or more details about the IEM. I decided to prepare a write up about FIBAE 3. My reviewing skill might be a little rusty - haven’t done this in a while - so bare with me. I don’t want it to be a review per se either, rather a (hi)story behind a product - of how it came be and my aims for its sound signature.


FIBAE 3 comes as a natural continuation of Custom Art’s line up. The concept was straightforward - simple design; three separate drivers - woofer, midrange, tweeter; target sound - flat, reference, but not boring.
In my years in this industry I came across variety of IEMs with flatter signature that produced unappealing, “dry” sound. While I understand that listener might want to “dissect” the music with surgical precision of a scalpel and overanalyze every bit of information produced by an IEM, my position is that we couldn’t do this at an expense of engagement and emotions - that wouldn’t be a Custom Art’s way.

Still, after months of working on the project I realized that achieving desired sound signature won’t come easy. See.. when you are trying to forcefully solve issues in the IEM you’re tuning, you start to overcomplicate your design by adding more and more unnecessary components, and still going nowhere.
I was quite set on how I want to implement midrange and tweeter speakers but the low frequency driver kept throwing everything out of balance. I had tried about every off-shell woofer on the market before I came to conclusion that I needed to approach things differently this time. I turned to driver manufacturer with a special request to create a true single woofer with output only within certain range of lower frequencies. I can hear you asking: “but why not use standard driver and just use heavy damping - like other manufacturers do?”, or “why not reuse the same driver and filtering method from your own Ei.3 - it’s proven to work?”. Well the answer is simple - “progress”. I want our drivers to be improving on what's available for the industry, instead of having to rely on recycling same drivers over and over with designs varying ever so slightly from our competitors. Custom Art has always been experimenting with untypical (for personal audio) drivers and successfully implementing them into IEMs, that way CA IEMs’ always manage to create “not-so-obvious” sound, our customers cherish.

With the brand new woofer driver FIBAE 3 tuning started once again, but this time as a carte blanche - all previous schemes have been scraped. Expectedly the design started to come together instantly and results were more than promising. I was happy with the output I saw on the graphs and thus first listening of the prototype began. It became apparent that the IEM lacked just a tiny bit push at the sub lows and resolution of the highs still wasn’t what one could call “reference”. Further test and tweaking commenced. One thing to note is that tuning IEMs with FIBAE technology is immensely complex task, the driver’s (and whole IEM’s for that matter) impedance changes, the driver’s electrical phase changes, the actual frequency output changes too! Add an extra driver and the problems start to multiply. I also didn’t want to add that much more bass, all I needed was that 1 extra dB. The solution was one more time an “out of-the-box” one, which allowed me to gradually change the output in small steps, and set on the level I meant to achieve.
Surprisingly, subsequent exploring and tweaking with new set up proved that I could push a single tweeter’s output to its boundaries, resulting in crystal clear highs extended flat past hearing threshold, simply unattainable from just a single BA up till now.

So how does FIBAE 3 actually sound?
It can be described as reference without sacrificing low end punch or being harsh or sibilant. It strikes a balance between sub-lows, forward, bright mids and airy open highs. Despite high frequencies being in focus of FIBAE 3’s signature they have been shifted to range responsible for presence and airiness, rather than sharpness. This allows FIBAE 3 to retrieve details at new levels for any Custom Art IEM. Lows are fast-paced, well controlled with gentle sub-bass rumble appearing only when needed. Mids are unmistakably Custom Art’s - inspired by our flagship.
F3 takes its highly musical and engaging character after older big brother - Harmony 8.2; consequently offering high coherency Custom Art is known for.
Soundstage is open and airy with fine depth.
FIBAE 3’s overall signature reminisces of electrostatic headphones with unmatched in its class extension from bottom to the top. Perfect for variety of genres and those who like analytical sound.
I'm happy to say that FIBAE 3 stands as a new reference what can be achieved with only three balanced armature drivers.

great post , love reading how ciems were born/perfected

looks like you have a winner here and at 420 euros - this is crazy good price

cheers

 

[piotrus-g]

great post , love reading how ciems were born/perfected

looks like you have a winner here and at 420 euros - this is crazy good price

cheers

Thanks, appreciated! Hope to see you joining FIBAE fam soon (re your posts in Nik's thread)

 

[Sylean]

Hey guys! I've just returned from Singapore and I've finally gotten the opportunity to meet my FIBAE 3's in person. Thankfully, they're at least as beautiful in real life as they are in photos. Fit and finish is the best I've experienced thus far from Custom Art. Considering this pair was made with the same set of impressions I sent them over a year ago, achieving such a perfect fit is an incredible feat. It's been an absolute joy watching the entire Custom Art team hone their skills in both sonics and cosmetics, and I'm sure it can only get better from here.

Now, let's talk sound...

I've only heard the pair for a couple hours, but the FIBAE 3’s most immediate merit is its outstanding transparency. This may sound like an exaggeration, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard this much information at once from an IEM before. Of course, I’ve had the luxury of hearing IEMs like the Tia Fourte, the U18t and the Zeus-R in my lifetime, but the FIBAE 3 - regardless of its driver configuration or price - proves mighty competition. However, there were compromises made for this achievement, most prominent of which is a slightly brighter tone. This isn’t the most natural-sounding monitor, but that’s not to say it isn’t musical or rich either. @flinkenick wrote something in his Samba review along the lines of, “There’s beauty in precision, and musicality in purity.” The FIBAE 3 executes its top-end lift to near-perfection; with elegance, smoothness and linearity in spades.

Piotr has also been mindful when balancing the FIBAE 3’s treble with the rest of its spectrum. Unlike IEMs like the Samba or the U18t that place emphases on their extremes, the FIBAE 3 pulls a surprising amount of focus onto vocals. Singers - much like the instruments around them - float on thin air, and yet they sing with a palpable strength. It won’t compete anywhere near the Zeus in terms of raw vocal prowess, but it does trade a blow or two in presence and resolution. Its bass impresses too, in quantity especially. Although compromises were made with regards to its tone and warmth, its extension and impact are nothing to scoff at. Sub-bass especially impresses with both a skull-shaking presence and a disciplined authority. Jazz and EDM tracks are equally fun to listen to, and that’s not often said when discussing reference-tuned IEMs.

Just like the FIBAE 2, the FIBAE 3 showcases incredible left-right separation. Part of the reason why its signature works so well is due to its spatial resolution. Its transparency and cleanliness isn’t only fuelled by its leaner presentation; a well-organised stage as well as a black background are the FIBAE 3’s unsung heroes. Like I mentioned previously, vocalists and instruments alike are portrayed with stunning separation; airy, silky-smooth and defined to the very last dot.

Now, I’m afraid this is as much detail as I’ll go into, otherwise I won’t have any material left for the full THL review. But, it’s safe to say, the FIBAE 3 is one of the most impressive performance-per-dollar IEMs I’ve encountered in recent memory; this time, with a more reference-oriented tuning. Granted, it’s a title I've given to almost every IEM I’ve reviewed thus far, but it’s a testament to how well the budget market thrives even with the ever-escalating driver wars taking place just beside. With the FIBAE 3, Piotr has in his hands one of the most successful product lines this industry has ever seen, and here’s to hoping for more great releases from Custom Art and beyond.

Since you have both Fibae 2 and 3, what difference would you make between them ? Is the 3 an upgrade from the 2 or a complete different thing, especially regarding sub bass ?

 

[Deezel177]

Since you have both Fibae 2 and 3, what difference would you make between them ? Is the 3 an upgrade from the 2 or a complete different thing, especially regarding sub bass ?

The F3 and the F2 are completely different IEMs. The former has a brighter, airier and cleaner signature, while the latter is darker, richer, mid-bassier and more v-shaped. Without going into specific frequency response differences, I think those modifiers suffice in summarising what each IEM is about, at least until I inevitably compare the two in my full review.

In terms of sub-bass, both impress technically, but they have differing approaches and purposes. The F3 has a sub-bass that extends just as well and rumbles just as viscerally, but it’s a tighter, crisper and grittier low-end. On the other hand, the F2’s sub-bass emanates a warmth and a richness that makes it more fun and accurate in tone, but less defined and less airy. This extra body also makes it seem like the F2 has a significantly more powerful sub-bass, but they’re actually close to equal in terms of raw strength; the F2 just has the thicker note presentation.

 

[Sylean]

Would you say the F3 is more fun to listen then ? If I do prefer a v-shape signature, F3 over F2 is a better choice ?

 

[jeffhawke]

Thanks, appreciated! Hope to see you joining FIBAE fam soon (re your posts in Nik's thread)

Can't seem to find it at the indicated pre-order price in the shop, even following the link you posted. Thanks for your help

 

[piotrus-g]

Can't seem to find it at the indicated pre-order price in the shop, even following the link you posted. Thanks for your help

https://thecustomart.com/shop/acrylic-products/fibae-3-acrylic/ use pofibae3 voucher at the check out - the price will be automatically adjusted in your cart. The pre-order discount is 20%

 

[Deezel177]

Would you say the F3 is more fun to listen then ? If I do prefer a v-shape signature, F3 over F2 is a better choice ?

Other way around, bud. The F2 is more dark, fun and v-shaped, while the F3 is brighter and more reference-tuned. In terms of long-term listening though, I actually find the F3 the more agreeable IEM. I think it’s because of how light and airy it is. The F2 can sometimes get a little heavy because of its inherent warmth.

 

[Sylean]

Other way around, bud. The F2 is more dark, fun and v-shaped, while the F3 is brighter and more reference-tuned. In terms of long-term listening though, I actually find the F3 the more agreeable IEM. I think it’s because of how light and airy it is. The F2 can sometimes get a little heavy because of its inherent warmth.

I'll keep my F2 then.

Thanks for your report ^^

 

[proedros]

https://thecustomart.com/shop/acrylic-products/fibae-3-acrylic/ use pofibae3 voucher at the check out - the price will be automatically adjusted in your cart. The pre-order discount is 20%

@piotrus-g seeing that you will be closed between 21/12-08/01 for xmas vacations, can you let us know when the pre-order discount for the F3 ends ?

thank you

 

[piotrus-g]

@piotrus-g seeing that you will be closed between 21/12-08/01 for xmas vacations, can you let us know when the pre-order discount for the F3 ends ?

thank you

End of January