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Headphones
Engineer headphones and IEMs from a half-century of Japanese transducer work, from budget E-series to planar flagships.
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about final audio
Final traces its origin to 1974, when Kanemori Takai founded the original company in Japan around high-end audio reproduction. The current operating entity, S'Next Co., was established in 2007 by Takai and former Sony engineers and went fully independent through a management buyout in 2014. The brand now concentrates almost entirely on personal audio: headphones and in-ear monitors developed with an emphasis on measurement-driven tuning. The catalog covers a wide price spread. The D8000 planar-magnetic headphone is the flagship at roughly $4,299, the A8000 pairs a beryllium diaphragm in an in-ear monitor at about $1,999, and the E-series budget IEMs sell for double-digit and low-triple-digit dollar prices that made the brand a frequent recommendation among headphone enthusiasts. The line also includes the ZE-series wireless and the Sonorous closed-back headphones. Final is well known in the headphone and IEM world and less so in the speaker-centric dealer trade, which is where Vienna exhibition exposure matters. It competes with the other Japanese personal-audio specialists and the planar-headphone makers at the high end. US buyers reach the line directly through final-inc.com and through New York retailer Audio46, with USD pricing across the range. Headfonia has reviewed multiple models, and coverage extends to Tom's Guide and Audiophile Heaven. Development and production are based in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan.