As promised, here is my honest first impressions of the Jaap. But Teo warned me that these were tuned wrongly by the factory; everything on this unit should sound the same as the actual production unit except for the bass which is TURNED UP TO 11! But more on that later. Anyway, rest assured that the production unit will have much less bass.
The exterior:
For a low price of $50 for bluetooth earphones, I wasn't expecting top class build quality and I was proven right with the use of plastic and rubber. HOWEVER, these feel like they can be abused, scratched and still carry on working, exactly like how I expect a pair of workout earphones to be. No complaints here, except that maybe I'll prefer matte to shiny plastic.
These guys are light too, so to me, they actually weight about the same or LIGHTER than normal overear IEMs which have the cables dangling this way and that way. I didn't do any violent head movements but they should be able to stay in my ear better than most.
One concern though is that they seem to lose connection every now and then, frequent enough for me to point it out to Teo. I think it has to do with the venue; when I switch on my bluetooth, like 30 devices show up lol.
Sound impressions:
Like I mentioned, these have the bass turned up unnaturally high and it does feel like I'm putting my ear right next to a subwoofer. BUT! The weird thing is, this is really really good quality bass! When playing EDM music it feels like I'm sitting right in front of the DJ, but when the song doesn't call for the bass, it doesn't appear and overwhelm the mids. This is really different from those crappy mainstream gears that just pump out bass ALL THE TIME. I was half tempted to recommend Teo to keep this configuration but I'm sure all of you won't appreciate it.
Aside from the bass, the rest of the sound is actually quite average but more importantly, not offensive. For eg, it's not thin but not overly warm; the treble is not well extended but it's not screechy and fatiguing; the mids are not upfront but they're not distant too. Soundstage is average and not expansive nor narrow.
And this is exactly what I want in a fitness earphones: A non-fatiguing earphones that blocks out the noise but is not intrusive to my workout, something that I can listen to for long periods of time without getting tired of the sound, something that will just fade into the background.
In conclusion, I really do feel that this will be my perfect workout IEMs: Wire free, low priced so I don't have to worry about damaging it, and a "comfortable" sound signature.
, well, still all according to schedule 