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What looks like a toy, and is priced like a toy, and sounds anything but?

FiiO EH11 Bluetooth Over-Ear Headphones

The Basics:

The FiiO EH11 is an over-ear Bluetooth headphone that has a playful retro 80’s look. From its wooden earcups to its transparent plastic headband and brightly colored foam earpads, the EH11 makes it clear these headphones are meant to be fun. Though the appearance is playful, the drivers are seriously good. It is a bass-optimized 40mm long-throw driver with a high-dampening composite diaphragm that allows the EH11 to extend bass down to 17Hz.

Woman wearing the FiiO EH11 Bluetooth Over-Ear Headphones over her head as she is holding a cassette tape of some kind

The Rundown:

The EH11 may be tiny, but it is a Bluetooth powerhouse equipped with Bluetooth 6.0 and LDAC/AAC/SBC codecs. It can connect to two Bluetooth devices simultaneously and utilizes the FiiO Music app, which is available for Android, Windows, and iOS mobile devices. The FiiO Music App provides parametric EQ for the EH11. The FiiO Music App also has an Ultra-low latency setting for gaming scenarios. In addition, the EH11 has a high-definition microphone that provides accurate voices for gaming and phone calls.

The design is semi-open with ventilation ports and damping filters, which provide a more natural sound, without the closed-in feel of many over-ear headphones. The damping system controls airflow to minimize sound leakage. The design results, according to FiiO, in a more open soundstage, clearer mid-to-high frequencies, as well as more transparent and natural vocals.

The EH11 comes with two sets of foam earpads in two different colors. The earpads are easy to take off and replace for cleaning. The spare earpads are included because the original pads will eventually need to be replaced. The wooden earcups are also knob controls; the right knob controls volume, and the left knob controls track selection. Weighing only 92g, the EH11 is comfortable for hours of listening.

I recently read that Gen Z and Gen Alpha age groups have fallen in love with the Y2K look in fashion and have a nostalgia for the 80’s. Clearly, FiiO has its corporate finger on the pulse of these generations and has given them (and the rest of us) a brightly colored Walkman-looking headphone with classic chops but with today’s superior technology.

FiiO EH11 Bluetooth Over-Ear Headphones Specifications
Driver:

40mm dynamic with a composite diaphragm

Impedance:

16Ω

Frequency response:

17Hz-40kHz

Bluetooth version 6.0

Bluetooth codecs:

LDAC/AAC/SBC

Battery life:

about 30 hours.

Charging time:

about 2 hours

Colors:

black transparent, transparent off-white, burgundy, and cyan

Weight:

about 92g

Product Name:

EH11

Product Type:

Over-ear Bluetooth headphones

MSRP:

$29.99

Website:

https://www.fiio.com/eh11

Company:

FiiO

The Follow-up:

Fiio has several R&D teams that are given free rein to innovate, as well as savvy marketing teams who seem to be prescient about knowing what the audio world wants before we do. The reviewers at Secrets have written about several FiiO products, including the FT7 open-back planar headphones and the K17 Desktop headphone DAC/Amplifier.

When I opened the carton and pulled out the lightweight plastic headphones, I didn’t have high expectations as to audio quality. I figured they would be, at minimum, a fun Bluetooth headphone for casual listening. At first listen, I was startled at how good they sounded. I think I took them off and looked at them, almost expecting some kind of trick device hidden somewhere. There was detailed, punchy bass, clear mids and highs, and a surprising three-dimensional soundstage. They were feather-light and gentle against my ears, a welcome change from some of the much bigger flagship headphones I usually listen to.

I look forward to exploring all the features, including trying out EQ from the FiiO Music app, and will come back to Secrets with a more detailed review in the near future.

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I was born to love audio. My grandfather was awarded a patent for a “METHOD OF PRODUCING TALKING-MACHINE RECORDS” in 1912. He also sang opera. He passed his passion for music and the early days of recording on to my mother, who then passed it on to my sisters and me. My father, a professor of electrical engineering, was also an amateur jazz guitarist. He loved Heathkit’s home-built electronics, and as a little girl I was his “assistant builder”. He always talked to me about what he was building, and we always had the biggest T.V. and the most advanced HiFi gear. Music was always on in our house, and my folks really listened to and discussed what was playing on the turntable, and later the reel-to-reel deck. I grew up with jazz, the classics, and my father’s goofy and extensive collection of comedy albums and sound effects records. He always made sure I had the latest transistor radios, which were my prized possessions; I could be found late at night, trying to listen in on the faraway stations that magically appeared through the static between my local stations. In the early 70s, I discovered the remarkable world of Japanese audio on my layovers in Japan as a flight attendant. I remember lugging home a huge, very heavy wood-clad Kenwood receiver back from Japan, thanks to a kind captain that made space for my treasure in the cockpit. That receiver powered my two Bose 901s that I had hung from the ceiling in the living room. I also fell in love with the early Sennheiser open-back headphones that had come on the scene in 1968 and which sparked my passion for headphones that continues to this day. After traveling the world as a flight attendant my work led me to the restaurant world of the San Francisco Bay Area, where I spent several years working in a “farm to table” restaurant. I developed a passion for photography while co- writing a cookbook with the chef. My skills as a food and garden photographer grew and I added working as a photojournalist with assignments that usually included the food scene in the Bay Area. A year ago, I joined the San Francisco Audiophile Foundation (https://audiophilefoundation.org), where I discovered my tribe. It was humbling to find out that compared to almost everyone I met, I actually have a long way to go to call myself an audiophile! I was also shocked to find out that out of over 300 members, there were only three women (including me). It was a source of pride, however, to know that the president and a founding member is a woman. Yay, team! You can find me outdoors hiking and photographing landscapes and wildlife and trying my hand at nighttime landscape photography.

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