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Final Audio DX3000CL: Two-minute review
The DX3000CL are, in the least pejorative way, a very Final Audio product. There’s nothing flashy about the way they’re designed, there’s nothing remarkable about the way they’re specified (although the provision for both balanced and unbalanced cable terminations is something some alternative brands might want to take notice of), and there’s nothing unusual about the way they look (apart from the fact they’re a little wider on the head than most alternatives).
All of the effort that’s gone into them seems to have been concentrated on the way they perform, and that can only be a good thing as a means to enter our best wired headphones guide.
The quality of build and finish is well up to standard, don’t get me wrong, and they’re as comfortable to wear as any price-comparable rival and quite a lot more comfortable than some. But it’s the 40mm free-edge dynamic driver, and its paper/carbon composite diaphragm, that’s the real star of the show here.
All the relevant numbers (frequency response, sensitivity, impedance) are very promising – but that’s nothing when you consider the way the DX3000CL actually sound. At this money they’re up against some extremely credible competition – the open-backed Sennheiser HD 660 S2 are an obvious alternative, and the planar magnetic FiiO FT5 are no slouches either, but the Final Audio have some very specific tricks up their sleeve.
They’re not the most dynamic or engaging listen, it’s true – but if you value insight, eloquence and a soundstage so large you feel you could walk around it, the DX3000CL will keep you listening for the foreseeable future.
Final Audio DX3000CL review: Price & release date
- 13th November 2025
- Priced $599 / £549 / AU$1099
As briefly mentioned above, at $599 / £549 / AU$1099, these Final cans are up against some serious competition – I might mention the open-backed Sennheiser HD-660 S2 as a go-to alternative, or the planar magnetic FiiO FT5, but again, the Final Audio headphones do have some (very specific) aces up their sleeve.
Final Audio DX3000CL review: Specs
|
Type |
Wired closed-back over-ear |
|
Drivers |
40mm paper/carbon composite |
|
Weight |
410g |
|
Cable length |
2m |
|
Sensitivity |
96dB/wm |
|
Impedance |
37Ω |
|
Termination |
4.4mm (with 6.3mm adapter) |
|
Housing: glass fibre-reinforced resin |
Glass fibre-reinforced resin |
Final Audio DX3000CL review: Features
- 40mm paper/carbon composite dynamic drivers
- 96dB/wm sensitivity / 37Ω impedance
- 3: 2m OFC cable with 4.4mm termination
To be honest, I’m not quite sure how any pair of passive wired over-ear headphones could score less than ‘5’ for ‘features’. After all, products like this require very few features – and if the necessary features are present and correct, then ‘5’ is basically mandatory. And there’s no denying the Final Audio DX3000CL have the necessary features.
The headphones are supplied with a two-metre length of relatively hefty oxygen-free copper cable in a nicely flexible polymer sheath. At one end it splits into two 3.5mm terminations, as each ear cup must be wired. At the other there’s a 4.4mm balanced connection, and there’s also a rather over-engineered 6.3mm adapter included too.
The cable supplies audio information to a pair of 40mm dynamic drivers. They’re a free-edge design, made from a paper-and-carbon composite – they’re good for a claimed frequency response of 10Hz – 40kHz, and are fully designed and assembled in-house by Final Audio in Japan.
Sensitivity of 96dB/wm and 37Ω impedance means the DX3000CL aren’t especially tricky to drive, and no reasonably powered headphone amplifier will have to break a sweat in order to get worthwhile volume out of them.
Final Audio DX3000CL review: Sound quality
- Remarkable powers of insight and detail retrieval
- Big, organised and explicit soundstaging
- Could conceivably sound more engaged and engaging
If you’re prepared to concede that you can’t have everything, even from an expensive pair of headphones, then the Final Audio DX3000CL are in many ways a deeply accomplished listen. As long as you don’t want to be grabbed by the lapels, the sound they make has plenty to recommend it.
Where they score very heavily is in the level of insight they summon, their ability to retrieve, reveal and contextualise even the most minor, most fleeting, most transient details in a recording and give them precisely the right amount of weighting. If it’s there in a mix, no matter how far back or how far down, the Final Audio will seize on it and let you know all about it. And the fact that they can generate a large, spacious and carefully organised soundstage doesn’t do any harm in this respect, either.
Do you remember when Scarlett Johansson collaborated with David Bowie on her album of Tom Waits cover versions? That was a weird old time, wasn’t it? Their version of Falling Down can sound quite foggy and indistinct, but when the Final Audio get hold of it all is revealed. The recording is opened up, with every element individualised and distinct in its own little pocket of space – but without sounding remote or dislocated. There’s still unity to the way the song is presented, but it’s a bit like the view from a freshly washed window – everything comes more fully into focus.
It doesn’t do any harm that the tonality of the DX3000CL is so neutral and naturalistic, and the fact that the journey from the (deep and solid) low frequencies to the (crisply substantial) top end is so smooth and uneventful. They’re deftly punchy without ever threatening to get out of hand, and the balance they strike in these respects is judicious in the extreme.
Where the Final Audio disappoint just a little centers around dynamics and overall engagement. There’s a suggestion of self-conscious good taste about the way these headphones are voiced that means they don’t always attack a recording with as much determination as might be appropriate, and they’re reluctant to properly let loose when the levels of intensity or simple volume in a recording begin to ramp up.
In the case of the Scarlett Johansson tune it’s not that much of an issue, but when you switch to something like Fanfare for the Warriors by The Art Ensemble of Chicago it becomes all too apparent that the DX3000CL are capable of being altogether too polite. ‘Wild abandon’ isn’t the be-all and end-all when it comes to reproducing music, of course, but a pair of headphones needs to be able to cut loose every now and then…
Final Audio DX3000CL review: Design
- Glass fibre-reinforced resin housing
- Screws and ‘O’ rings allow for easy servicing
- 410g (without cable)
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but for my money there’s an elegant simplicity about the design of the DX3000CL that isn’t always easy to come by. Final Audio has resisted the temptation to try to fancify these headphones, and the result is a clean and understated look.
This relative sophistication is thanks, in large part, to judicious choice of and use of materials. The single slender length of steel that adjusts the position of the headband relative to the ear cups looks and feels good – and unusually, it allows the ear cups to move in order to achieve adjustment rather than the other way around. The ear cups themselves are made of resin reinforced with glass fibre, and the hint of capillary waves in the housing constitutes perhaps the only design flourish here.
The ear pads and the headband feature memory foam covered with synthetic leather. There’s plenty of it for the ear pads, too, which makes the DX3000CL rather wider than most of their nominal rivals – you’ll have to be OK with looking a bit like a Cyberman when wearing these headphones. They’re comfortable, though, and are not as keen to retain and return your body heat than some alternatives I could mention. 410g is a fairly considerable weight, especially when you consider that’s without the cable being attached – but the clamping force and the hanger arrangement are both so carefully judged that the Final Audio don’t feel in any way burdensome, even if you’ve been wearing them for hours.
The fact the cable clicks into the front of the lower portion of each ear cup is slightly disconcerting (although it makes no practical difference). I’m so used to wired headphones connecting at the very bottom, or at the rear of the lower portion of the ear cup, I find myself checking that I haven’t got the headphones on backwards. That might just be me, though…
Final Audio is very keen on the fact that it’s entirely avoided the use of adhesives in the construction of the DX3000CSL. The use of precision screws and ‘O’-rings to ensure everything fits together nicely means the headphones can quite easily be dismantled, serviced and put back together again – and ‘no adhesives’ also means ‘greater sustainability’ and ‘reduced use of chemicals’ too, of course.
Final Audio DX3000CL review: Value
- Good standard of construction and finish
- Quite extensive specification
- Some sonic blind spots
Big, well-made and great-sounding headphones that use premium materials and stay comfortable for hours at a time seldom come cheap – and in all of these respects the Final Audio are right on the money.
If they could muster a little more sonic vigour in those instances when it’s essential their case would be watertight…
Should I buy theFinal Audio DX3000CL?
|
Section |
Notes |
Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Features |
All necessary features present and correct – and painstaking trouble has been taken over them too |
5/5 |
|
Sound quality |
Fantastic insight, detail and organisation, but could sound a touch more dynamically engaged and engaging |
4/5 |
|
Design |
Elegant, simplistic, clean and understated |
5/5 |
|
Value |
Excellent in most aspects, just a shade off the best-in-class for sonic vigour |
4/5 |
Buy them if…
Don’t buy them if…
Final Audio DX3000CL review: Also consider
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
Final DX3000CL |
FiiO FT5 |
Sennheiser HD-660 S2 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Price |
$599 / £549 / AU$1099 |
$449 / £429 / AU$799 |
$599 / £499 / AU$949 |
|
Drivers |
40mm paper/carbon composite dynamic |
90mm planar magnetic (open-back) |
38mm (open-back) |
|
Weight |
410g |
456g |
260g |
|
Cable length |
2m |
1.5m |
1.8m |
|
Impedance |
37Ω |
36Ω nominal |
300Ω |
|
Sensitivity |
96dB/wm |
96dB/mW @1kHz |
104dB |
How I tested the Final Audio DX3000CL
- Connected to a number of sources using both terminations
- With many different music storage formats
- With many different genres and styles of music
I connect the Final Audio DX3000CL to my iFi iDSD Diablo 2 headphone amp/DAC using the 4.4mm input – the iFi is connected to an Apple MacBook Pro and to an iPhone 14 Pro. I also connect them to a FiiO M15S digital audio player using the machine’s 4.4mm socket.
To listen to vinyl I connect the headphones to a Naim Uniti Star connected to a Technics SL-1300G – but it only has a 3.5mm headphone socket, so an ugly combination of the 4.4mm jack fitted with its 6.3mm adapter, in turn fitted to a 6.3mm-to-3.5mm adapter, is required.
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