Oriolus Finschi: Down To Earth
Oriolus is a portable audio manufacturer co-founded by Hibino (Japan) and Rao Sound (China). It’s relatively a young company as they started their business in 2015, though they’re very well established and already considered to be a major portable audio brand. Their pre-flagship model, Oriolus 2nd, is probably the most well-known IEM from them and I also had a good experience with it too. Most of their products were quite expensive but they recently started to provide some affordable choices. Oriolus Fosteni was the first, and then followed with Oriolus Finschi. With an approximate price tag of $180, Finschi is the most affordable product from Oriolus so far. Let’s take a look and see how it performs for the price.
Packaging
Finschi comes with the usual style packaging that Oriolus has been using for their other products but comes with a plenty set of accessories. Other than the earpieces, it comes with a 3.5mm cable, 3 pair of silicone tips, 3 pair of foam tips, a pair of double flanged tips, carrying case, a cleaning brush, and some paperwork. I’m much satisfied with the packaging, especially due to the included case. This pelican-like case is waterproof, solid, and light. The insides are finished with foam cushions to prevent the earphone from rattling around and is the most useful case I’ve tried so far.
Earpieces
Finschi has a 2 driver hybrid design, utilizing a 10mm DD with a single Knowles BA driver per unit. The design itself looks very similar to Oriolus 2nd or Reborn, though Finschi is visibly smaller in size with better ergonomics. The smokey black housings are made of resin and slightly transparent when exposed to light. Oriolus applied their sub-frequency technology just as their other line-ups, improving the bass to go even deeper and denser. The earpieces are terminated with recessed 0.78mm CIEM 2-pins and T500 nozzles with 2 bore designs.
Cable / Eartips matching
The included cable is made of silver-plated copper with gold plated connectors on each end. Its L-shaped 3.5mm jack has an extra step between the housing and the plug, making it compatible with devices covered in cases.
Sound impression – Lows
The sound signature on Finschi is W-shaped with elevated mids. The bass feels clean and delivers an adequate amount of thud and weight. The sub-bass quantity is similar to general IEMs with a slightly v-shaped signature. It shows quite a nice extension to the ultra lows with a small amount and possesses good boldness and darkness, making the bass existence clear yet always tightly controlled. Ultra-low shows average performance, managing to present decent depth and details but generally keeps the quantity low. Overall Finschi’s bass is more than enough to deliver a powerful punch to the lower ends but controlled to keep the sound delicate.
Sound impression – Mids
Mids take a slight step forward from the bass and possess a sweet tone to the vocals. This sweetness on the mids feels more like a natural coloring than being artificial and most users will simply find it pleasing. The dimly bright upper mids shows a good amount of airiness, giving some sense of open-feeling. Finschi’s sound characteristics remind me of Kinera Idun Deluxe in many ways. These two are very similar signature-wise, though I found Finschi to be sounding more upfront as well as having more dynamics and bass punch.
Though at the end of the day, the performance level is almost identical and all comes down to personal preference, so I’ve put these to be in the same league. It also has a slightly crunchy texture on the mids, but nothing close to being dry or lacking details. In fact, this makes the vocals to be sounding more revealing and makes it better to focus on how the surface feels. The only drawback would be its unforgiveness to low-resolution tracks. Mids flow up with decent stability without any spikes or sibilance and naturally flows towards the trebles.
Sound impression – Highs, etc.
Highs follow the same characteristics from mids. It doesn’t leave much reverbs and keeps the thickness thin, clearly presenting various treble instruments but doesn’t take the main stage. I could feel the silky division on the upper frequencies with precise separation. The size of the headroom is pretty darn good for this price range. I would have loved to see more depth downwards, though this is probably due to myself remembering the good impressions I got from Oriolus 2nd Gen. Well, at least you can take that as Finschi being that good to remind me the 2nd Gen.
Verdicts
Oriolus have done an excellent job with the Finschi. In fact, I’m actually more impressed with it than Fosteni, despite Finschi being a lower model from the line-up. I found the mids from Finschi to be sounding more coherent and BA drivers seamlessly fused to the dynamic driver. Along with that, Finschi serves as a perfect tryout for audiophile beginners to have a plentiful taste of so-called ‘Oriolus sound’. Majority of users would find Finschi to be a watered-down version of Oriolus MK2 as these two show very similar sound signatures. It would be hard to go wrong with these and I’m looking much forward to see how Oriolus would pursue with their budget earphones.
Thanks to Xtenik for providing Finschi in exchange for an honest impression/feedback.
I am not affiliated with either Xtenik or Oriolus and none of my words were modded or asked to be changed.