China-based FiiO Electronics launched new in-ear monitor earphones, the FiiO F3, that make use of a graphene-enhanced diaphragm driver. FiiO says that graphene enabled the development of a thin and flexible driver, which enables the F3 to faithfully reproduce music with a clean, rich, yet transparent high-fidelity sound.
The FiiO F3 is now shipping in China and in the US, you can buy one at Amazon.com now for $24.99. We talked to FiiO and they confirm the graphene membrane and explained that it was not developed by FiiO in-house. You can see a close-up of the graphene driver below.
Graphene-based speaker applications have been under development for a long time, and one of the earlier initiatives in this area was in 2011 when researchers from Seoul's National University developed a transparent and lightweight speaker made from Graphene. In 2013 researchers demonstrated that a graphene-based speaker can outperform even the best commercially-available earphones.
Xiaomi's latest Piston 3 Pro earphones, launched in November 2016, also make use of a graphene membrane. Israeli audio pioneer Waves Audio is developing an innovative electrostatic speaker using a nanoscale active membrane based on graphene. ORA, a Canada-based early-stage start-up that develops graphene-enhanced audio equipment, recently unveiled its graphene oxide-based composite material, dubbed grapheneQ