Introduction

The VR3000 is the most expensive member of Final Audio's VR IEM lineup. Coming in at $80, it's not an expensive set per se, especially compared to the VR2000, which costs only $10 less. Let me start by pointing out that these two products are strikingly similar. Other than the color scheme, with the VR3000 being matte black instead of olive green, the only other difference is driver tuning, but there's fairly little separating them even there. It's worth noting that the VR3000 was released all the way back in 2020, while the VR2000 had its debut earlier this year, so it's that much harder to figure out if the VR2000 is envisioned as a successor to the VR3000, and if so, why it has a lower numeral in its name, and a lower price tag.



Much like the VR2000 (and the $40 VR500), the VR3000 is aimed toward mobile and VR gamers. You can use it on your PC too, although in that case you'll probably need an extension cable because the VR3000 comes with a non-removable 1.2-meter 4-pole (TRRS) cable, which works fine for handheld consoles, smartphones and gamepads, but likely won't be long enough to reach your PC case.

Like the VR500 and VR2000, the VR3000 are wired IEMs, so there are no batteries or wireless latencies to worry about. In other words, they're ready for the most demanding games in terms of reaction times, such as online shooters and rhythm titles.

Specifications

• Drivers: Dynamic (f-Core DU, 6 mm)
• Impedance: 18 Ω @ 1 kHz
• Sensitivity: 101 dB/mW
• Frequency response: Not specified
• Design: In-ear
• Microphone: Omnidirectional (in-line)
• Connectivity: 3.5 mm
• Cable length: 1.2 m
• Weight: 20 g
• Accessories: 5x E-Type ear tips (SS/S/M/L/LL), in-line controller, a pair of ear hooks, cloth carrying pouch

Packaging and Accessories

The design is almost identical to the VR2000's box. There's a picture of the IEMs on the front, along with a mention of some of the product's features, such as the existence of an in-line controller with an integrated microphone. Aside from the IEMs, attached to a 1.2-meter rubberized cable, the box contains four extra pairs of ear tips (SS, S, L, LL), two rubber ear hooks, and a cloth carrying pouch. There are no differences in materials between aforementioned ear tip sizes – all of them are made of silicone.

Closer Look and Comfort

As I've mentioned in the introduction, the angular design of the VR3000 IEMs is identical to the VR2000. After pushing the ear tips into the ear canals, you have to loop the wires around your ears. Final supplies the IEMs with a pair of ear hooks, which you can attach to the loops to prevent the wires getting into direct contact with your ears, should you want to do so. The hooks can be a bit fiddly to put on, although once you do, they stay on, thanks to the clever channel and locking mechanism, holding them on the wire securely. I found the overall wearing comfort quite good. The shape of the earphones fit my ears nicely, and I was able to wear them for multiple hours at a time with no fatigue to report. Final uses sturdy ABS resin for the casing of the VR3000. The wires are likely to give up much sooner than the earphones themselves. That could be a problem, as they're not detachable, but perhaps I'm expecting a bit too much from an $80 pair of gaming IEMs. The color scheme is matte black, which is the biggest point of differentiation compared to the VR3000, aesthetics-wise.


Taking the silicone ear tips off reveals moderately thick nozzles. They cause no issues with ear tip removal or installation, mostly because the bendable silicone of the ear tip bores easily slips over the nozzles. As with the VR2000, I had the best experience with the medium-sized ear tips, which are the ones applied by default. There are four other options to try: SS, S, L, and LL.


The in-line controller has a pair of clicky volume buttons and a single multipurpose button on the front, and a pinhole microphone on the rear. The multipurpose button is used to play and pause music (single click), skip songs (double and triple click), and answer phone calls (single click when receiving a call). The controller is so small and light that it requires no clothes clip.

Sound and Microphone Quality

As the VR2000, the VR3000 is equipped with a pair of custom-made f-Core DU dynamic drivers (one driver per earphone), 6 millimeters in diameter. The specified impedance is 18 Ω, and the sensitivity is rated at 101 dB/mW (1 dB/mW less than VR2000). During testing, I didn't run into any issues with a noisy floor with any of the devices I connected the headphones to, such as the Creative Sound Blaster X5 external soundcard (reviewed here), Topping A90 Discrete headphone amp, or Sharkoon Mobile DAC (reviewed here). Just about any USB-C audio dongle or a handheld console's 3.5 mm output will provide these with plenty of driving power, allowing you to listen to them as loud as you could possibly want. The same goes for PC sound cards. I'm pointing that out because some PC gamers prefer the convenience and minimalism of IEMs over traditional gaming headsets. If you're one of those, just keep in mind you'll likely need a longer cable, as well as a Y-splitter, that's going to separate a combined 4-pole (TRRS) audio input/output into two 3-pole (TRS) connectors, one for your sound card's microphone input, and another one for the headphone output.

I've measured the frequency response of the Final Audio VR3000 with the miniDSP EARS headphone test fixture, probably the least expensive such device on the market. It consists of two miniDSP UMIK-1 microphones placed inside a pair of silicone ears and affixed to a steel headphone stand. It's a USB-powered device, perfectly integrated with the fantastic Room EQ Wizard (REW) software, which is used for headphone and microphone calibration, as well as doing the measurements themselves. Every single miniDSP EARS unit comes with its own microphone calibration files, which are loaded into REW before doing the measurements. The miniDSP EARS certainly has its quirks. The most important one in this case is the fact that the artificial ear canals aren't particularly deep, and that makes the fixture less-than-ideal for IEM testing.

With that in mind, here's the results I got after fitting the miniDSP EARS with the Final Audio VR3000 and running a frequency sweep 10 times.



For reference, here's a direct comparison with the VR2000, measured in an identical environment.



As you can see, there's very little difference in the measured frequency response. The VR3000 has a tiny bit more bass energy, a similar slight dip in the 400-800 Hz region, and a smoother transition to the highs, with less emphasis in the presence region. This is a nice visual representation of what Final is stating in their marketing materials and a confirmation that they're not making things up. They claim that both the VR2000 and VR3000 use an identical speaker driver, which is tuned for extra clarity in the case of the VR2000, to make object sounds in game engines more noticeable. The VR2000 definitely has an increased sense of "hyper-awareness" compared to the VR3000, but it's also more fatiguing in the long run. The VR3000 has a subtler V-shaped profile, which I personally prefer for its more casual listening experience.

The bass, while not particularly textured, is quite solid and present even below 50 Hz, so you get a pleasant feeling of fullness in the lowest registers. It has a slightly slower decay compared to the VR2000, but it's far from sluggish. The soundstage is again surprisingly wide, to a point where it's the most pronounced feature of the VR3000. While the VR2000 fares even better in terms of in-game spatial awareness, the VR3000 doesn't fall far behind. That feeling of security where you're always aware of where your enemies are when playing multiplayer shooters, remains present, so you're really not sacrificing much by opting for the VR3000 over its younger sibling.

I complained about sibilance in the VR2000's review. It's still present on the VR3000 on certain (female) vocals, albeit not as pronounced. This falls in line with the overall impression of the VR3000 sounding marginally smoother and more laid back.

Finally, let's compare the microphone quality. The Final VR3000 uses the seemingly same pinhole microphone setup as the VR200. The microphone is placed on the rear side of the in-line controller. For comparison, I've included the sample recorded on both the VR2000 and VR500.





The microphone of the VR3000 seems to have a higher noise floor compared to the VR2000, so a bit of intelligibility can be lost in noisy environments. Neither microphone is what I would consider good; even calling them good enough is somewhat of a stretch. They'll do when no other options are available, but that's about all you can expect from them.

In the end, the VR3000 is a good pair of gaming IEMs, with a reasonable price of $80. The question to answer is why would you get them over the newer and cheaper VR2000. While I started this review thinking that the VR2000 essentially cannibalizes the VR3000, that's not really the case. The thing is, I don't consider the VR2000 a straight-up successor to the VR3000. Rather it's a slightly different (and $10 less expensive) variant of the same product, perhaps a tiny bit better tailored for multiplayer gaming. The VR3000 is a bit more of an all-arounder in comparison. While you can't go wrong with either, as both excel in similar aspects, if I wasn't after every single ounce of competitive advantage in multiplayer shooters, I'd opt for the VR3000.