Floaudio Lily: Overshadowed Flower

This Floaudio Lily is bought using my own money in the Floaudio IEM Store on AliExpress.

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Build and comfort
3. Sound quality
1. For the clueless: How audiophiles describe sound
2. Tonality
3. Technicalities
4. Comparisons
1. Floaudio Lily vs. Tanchjim One
5. Conclusion

Introduction

QKZ x HBB, 7Hz x crinacle Salnotes Zero:2, Tangzu Wan'er, Truthear x crinacle Zero:Red... These IEMs are likely to come to mind first if you're asking for budget IEM recommendations on an audio forum or something alike. What doesn't come to mind for a lot of people, though, is something like the IEMs about to be reviewed: the Floaudio Lily.

Floaudio Lily is a 50-dollar (or lower-priced) set of IEMs that uses one single balanced-armature driver on each side. It uses 3D-printed resin for the shell material. It comes with 3 pairs of eartips, each pair being a different size (S, M, and L). Lily has a sensitivity of 98dB/mW with an impedance of around 16 ohms. Additionally, Floaudio Lily also has a rated isolation of around 30dB, which is nice side information to have.

Build and comfort

Lily has a 3D-printed resin shell, which feels good in my ears. But what is not really nice is the shape of the IEMs. It does fit nicely in my ears, but I can already tell that some people may have an issue with the top of these IEMs, creating some kind of fatigue to the ears.

Furthermore, it has to be mentioned that the included eartips are very, and I really mean very bad stock eartips, which leads me to tip-rolling and trying to find the eartips that seal and fit in my ears. I personally recommend wide-stem eartips with Lily, like Final Audio Type E.

Generally, Floaudio Lily is a rather shallow-fit set of IEMs, which means that this set will not go deep into your ear canals. What is a big plus to me is the fact that the nozzles of Floaudio Lily aren't wide or long at all (5.1mm width, 4mm length) unlike a bunch of good IEMs in this price range (cough cough Truthear Zero:Red cough cough).

The cable on these IEMs is also very mediocre, it's your standard QDC cable, which you can find on a lot of KZ IEMs. It's also very badly pre-formed, so I'd also recommend using an aftermarket cable.

Another crucial factor of these IEMs is pressure buildup. Although technically vented, Floaudio Lily has a very noticeable pressure buildup which can result in discomfort and even headaches. So if you're sensitive to pressure changes inside the ears, this would be a bad recommendation for you.

Sound quality

My unit of the Floaudio Lily is driven by a Moondrop Dawn Pro plugged into a Xiaomi 11T running USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP) in bit-perfect mode to ensure that no digital processing was done. I used the wide-bore stock Tanchjim One eartips, as they fit me the best.

I will divide this section into three parts:

1. For the clueless: How audiophiles describe sound

2. Tonality

3. Technicalities

For the clueless: How audiophiles describe sound

You will notice on several other forums, Discord servers, YouTube reviewers, and websites/weblogs that, just like food, audiophiles use certain terms to describe how transducers—be they speakers, headphones, in-ear monitors (a fancy way of describing earphones with eartips), or earbuds—sound.

To better understand these terms, Headphonesty has published a site that roughly defines what each term used to describe sound means.

To understand the tonal and technical section even more, I would recommend reading The Tonal-Technical Dichotomy by crinacle first.

Tonality

Sub-Bass and Bass (20-200Hz)

Floaudio Lily has a noticeable bloom in the upper bass frequencies, leading to harder-hitting kicks and snares. Other than that, Lily seems to sound neutral in this area; basses are just there.

Music used:

ALESDA! - Electric Sunrise: Kick gets very bloomy, and the distortion in the Bass is just there.

Mids (200-4000Hz)

It's very obvious that the strength of Floaudio Lily is the mids quality. Not only does Lily not overdo the lower mids warmth, but it also makes the mids very close to sounding natural to my ears. It sounds much more natural than anything I've tried at the price of $50 and lower.

Music used:

Yiruma - River Flows In You: The piano sounds extremely close to what it sounds like in real life, to my ears.

Treble (4000-20000Hz)

Lily's Treble is definitely on the relaxed and dark side. Cymbals don't come across as harsh; artifacts on the upper end of the treble may be nowhere to be heard, even though they do extend up to the top of the hearing range. It's basically a -10dB Treble shelf after around 8-10kHz.

Music used:

Geoxor - Silverdust: This music has a lot of treble in general, but on Lily, it makes it sound bearable without any fatigue.

Technicalities

Starting off with the timbre, Floaudio Lily's timbre is close to natural, maybe lacking quite a lot in the upper frequencies due to the rather dark presentation. Again, River Flows In You would be the perfect example for this.

When you look at headstage and imaging on Lily, though, you will instantly notice that the dark presentation also appears to affect these two aspects in a negative way for most people. Personally, I found both of them to be fine and IEM-like. I could hear where the sounds are coming from in "Paradise" by Au5, Derpcat, and HA!L decently, and the headstage on it is completely fine. No "out-of-head" experience here, like 99% of IEMs.

Finally, coming to resolution, Floaudio Lily would likely be called "low res" by most audiophiles due to the lack of upper Treble and therefore lacking the "microdetails" in that region. However, listening to every piece of music that I mentioned didn't make it sound "low resolution" to my ears. Most of the small artifacts that are at lower frequencies are decently noticeable for me.

Comparison

Floaudio Lily vs. Tanchjim One

Comparing Lily with One, it comes across as obvious that One has much more upper Treble, creating more "excitement" for a lot of people. Moreover, Tanchjim One is also noticeably less punchy, but you can feel the bass more. What Tanchjim One really excels at, though, is the fact that it's much more comfortable to wear than Floaudio Lily as a bullet-style set of IEMs which is vented. Adding to the fact that most people would prefer more Treble than Floaudio Lily has, Tanchjim One would be preferred by more people.

Conclusion

Floaudio Lily is a quite good-sounding set of IEMs. But that doesn't mean that people are going to get it. In the case of Floaudio Lily, most people would look at how the Floaudio Lily graphs, and looking at how the mids are tuned and the lack of treble, it's definitely going to be completely ignored by the majority. This is why I won't recommend Floaudio Lily to the majority due to the darkness and perceived lack of soundstage and imaging. Floaudio Lily will be more fitting for those who want something dark while still retaining a pretty good timbre.