JH Audio Layla universal!
First of all I have to admit, I’m not an audiophile or hi-fi oriented person. I’m sound engineer and music producer. This can significantly affect my point of view on Layla or any headphones in general.
I do consider only a good headphones or bad headphones. Good are those who can translate the sound exactly, or closest possible way to how the song is meant to be heard (how the original artist / producer intended).
On the other side the bad headphones are all those, where are any of the parts or frequencies played differently than they should be (coloration, smoothness, emphasised certain parts of freq. spectrum, etc). I do not understand the point of having the headphones which makes the song sound different. So this can be some hard fight with the audiophiles, who actually find something like this as an advantage
Some of the other audiophile terms used to describe qualities a different way, are mostly psycho acoustic hard to measure feelings, which are difficult to describe, and hard to explain (at least to me, being a non-english native). So I will just keep it short, what I hear compared to my other IEMs or studio setups I’m used to work with.
Last note - most of the professional studio reference monitors used to create the recordings by vast majority of artists and producers are near field, or mid field type produced by Focal, Genelec, Adam, Dynaudio and many others. Most of them are 2 speakers, 2 way or 3 speakers, 3 way. In a few extreme cases up to 7 speakers, 4 way - Adam S7A Mk2 / $48,000 pair.
So the ‘driver war’ is not any kind of measurement. 2 way 2 drivers can produce same quality sound as the 4 way, 4 drivers.
Perfect similarity is shown there in headphone world - when you look at the only two ‘producer reference’ IEMs on a current market - Ultimate Ears In-Ear Reference Monitor (3 way / 3 drivers) vs. JH Audio Layla (4 way / triple quad driver - 12 drivers).
The hardest part is the fit. They are huge. I mean more huge than I thought from the already published photos. Significant part of the Layla stick out of the ear. I don’t care about that - but someone who consider to use them in a public needs to have that in mind - you look weird.
Provided tips are just the basic selection - not sure what aftermarket companies (Comply / Spinfit) will introduce for this Siren series, but for now the choice is very limited. All the tips are completely unusable for me (this can explain some negative comments over the forums from US / UK listeners). Only tips which can perfectly seal my ears are the smallest foam tips - and I can imagine I’m not the only person with the same problem, as my ears are average size - nothing special. All the other tips are fully out of the game and makes the Layla not usable at all.
I’ve got like 4 hours of listening only, but I consider the Layla as exactly what JH promotes - a reference / mastering IEM.
The sound is perfect. Whole frequency spectrum is amazingly translated without any flaws. I have found, that there is big similarity with IERM, but the sound from Layla is much “bigger” yet preserves still superflat sound signature. Bass frequencies are with better impact than what IERM can do, very fast and exactly as they should be.
NT6 as the ‘king of clarity’ is also very close, but Layla wins over there. NT6 has slight emphasis on mids which doesn’t sound exactly as the source.
Sound of Layla is perfectly flat and when I compare it to the reference studio speakers like Adam S4X-H, Genelec 8250A, Event Opal, Focal SM9 it is unbelievable how close the signature is. JH Audio made finally possible what I have been looking for. To have your own personal sound studio in your head without any problems of a room treatment, listening position and other things you have to care about in a real studio environment.
Final conclusion - Layla outperforms IERM and NT6 (both the current best reference IEMs on the market).
I’m fairly impressed - if you are looking for the best in ear headphone. There it is. Custom version will probably solve the fit problems. If you don’t care about the price, don’t look any further.
(There are tons of other manufacturers who makes amazing designs, amazing IEMs/CIEMs but they do not play the music correctly, so there is no contest when compared to Layla).