Victor HA-FX-150T

Introducing Victor! A Japanese company that gets it sales techniques passed down from Japan’s department of Immigration.

You essentially need a Japanese passport, Japanese address, linguistic skills and knowing whatever the hell the word “Neucan” means to purchase these.

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Or get an Amazon Japan account.

It’s rare to find a company that not wanting to sell their products outside of their relatively small little island nation. I’m on a relatively large island nation called Australia and we will translate our gas and ore into any language required just for the fun of buying it back at a premium. It’s called business…I think.

I digress.

The Victor HA-FW1000t is touted at one of the greatest sounding tws out there by some people on this humble little website. So when an update to the HA-FX100T the HA-FX150T (Good luck trying to figure out what differences the model code FX and FW represent) I was interested in getting down with the Victor brand.

Product information was incredibly hard to come by with the Victor/JVC website designed by whoever did Yahoo in 2008, while keeping everything in the language of the empire, it was more of a guess and trust in their reputation that lead to this purchase.

So lets see what we got

Box – The arrival box was smaller than I’m used too with branding to let me know what was what. There was no special design techniques being implemented on my psychology to trick me into keeping the box for the next 5 years in a dusty draw which believe it or not, is a nice change.

Inside you get the industry standard useless charging cable and some more useful eartips with the spiral dot design.



Design – You can get these in all black or in Bronze. I picked Bronze cause I’m a classy bish. Both look nice. The buds themselves don’t stick out too much but are present and visible from front and sides.



Comfort Fit – The assumption would be that the rounded bottom of the earbud should rest against the corresponding part of the ear. Due to the length of the stem I could only get this deep fit with the smallest size of spiral dots which is new for me. This however reduced stability. I couldn’t determine any sound quality differences when using the spiral tips vs others so eventually went for the small sized Comply ear tips for stability.

I’ve taken these for a pathetic run (Ankle issues) and to the gym and not needed to apply any readjustments. No discomfort for the periods in which I’ve worn them (1 Hour at a time) and fine for back sleeping but not appropriate for side sleeping (unless you’re an expert at nestling your ear in between the gap of two pillows).

Features / App Functionality – Like the Japanese Department of Immigration there was no app support for us foreigners at time of delivery. However as of Monday 21st of November there was a weird way to get the app using an APK downloader that I haven’t come across before.

The app is quite well made and very functional. You can select the tuning presets much easier than cycling through them one by one when holding the left bud for 1 second.

One of the things I do like about the earbud is the Touch and talk feature you can access via the app or by single tapping the right bud, it reduces volume and brings in ambient sounds which is pretty cool. It gently increases volume back to previous levels once pressed again. Not sure if the ambient aspect of this feature worked, at first all I thought it was doing was lowering music volume which I still determined as a cool feature.

The presets themselves are aight but not groundbreaking. The main selling proposition of the buds was the “tuned by Victor” slogan that I found everywhere I wanted to find technical specifications.

I had a big diatribe written on the presets but there is no point going into detail. No setting really widens the soundstage or makes one genre stand out over another but there is no doubt we will all find our preferences.

You could say that the standard Victor tuning is so good no serious changes need to be made. I’m notoriously kind and nice (Ask anyone) so that is what I’m going to say.

Sonic Performance – I wanted to be more enthusiastic about the SQ upon first listening but couldn’t quite get myself there despite not being able to figure out why.

Bass is fantastic. It has attack, punch and power without leaking into mids or sticking around too long. It shakes my eyes and tingles my toes. In all way the lows are great. They also don’t come across as fatiguing. Sub bass rumbles nicely electronic kick drums have a true power to them.

The mids are placed forward, clear and well separated from other mid tones. The forwardness isn’t an issue as bass presence is so thicc. They overrule the treble slightly which means there is no harshness but perhaps also feels like I am missing some sparkle. This isn’t an issue in simpler tracks but when the mids are quite convoluted everything feels like it’s being played on the same layer and a shine is lost.

Treble otherwise is there and causes no sibilance or harshness, this is true for music and voices coming through from calls on the other end. One of the professional preset 2 brings hi hats more forward but there is a certain lustre that is missing from the high ends.

And here is the thing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the sound quality. Even when I A/B test it with the Nuarl N6 Pro 2 I find myself wondering what it was I loved so much about the Nuarl. But when I just listen to the Nuarl without trying to be critical I find myself having a better time.

I’ve tested it for entire days without comparing to anything else and used a consistent track list to stay consistent. I’ve judged the feeling of enjoyment I got listening to the tracks across the days and found that despite absolutely solid sound separation and clarity I find myself not ‘feeling’ as emotionally.

The Victor is missing a wideness and certain sparkle. The sound is all there, and there is also plenty of separation despite the soundstage not being super wide. The lows are the best I’ve heard at this price range and are incredibly energetic. They’re great for simpler edm and progressive psytrance but for more complicated or emotional songs with lots of layering they miss something. It feels like there is a certain resonance absent that isn’t a fault of the tuning but of the driver or something more hardware related. It’s an airiness or a depth, I still can’t put my finger on it and keep wondering if I’m crazy.

You know the feeling that is left in the air at a concert or festival as there is a break in the music and it feels like there is still a frequency in the air? The spirit of what just happened lingering for a moment longer? This is what seems to be missing, once the sounds are stopped in the recording it is like they were never there.

The width of the sound field could make up for the lack of shine … if it was wider. But you wont find yourself forgetting that the music is being played through two little speakers in your ear holes. That being said, it is impressive that they have achieved such great musical separation without the space.

Overall, despite everything being well placed and clear, bass awesome and zero harshness there is a lack of emotion which may just come down to some subjective factor I am not aware of.

Call Quality – Is really good, my voice comes through clearly on calls as well as on recordings of myself.

Summary – Overall I don’t know how I feel. If I used them just to listen to the styles of music that they exceed at then there would be no issues. But I want that sense of resonance that lingers in the air after a tone is played and these just don’t have that.

If you are a bass boy or a low-end gal then these might be for you. Your head will shake and eyes will roll with the power of the bass.

However, if you like to sit on seaside wharfs and solemnly look at the sunset while inducing melancholy through musical choice these might not be the move for you.