cooperpwc
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2006
- Posts
- 6,805
- Likes
- 544
Downloading. 
JH Audio JH-3A
DTSyX
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 30, 2010
- Posts
- 21
- Likes
- 12
I've got two questions concerning the JH-3A.
1. @the guy who were able to test the amp/phone combo: Did I understand the posts correctly? There was no possibility to compare the JH16 with the JH13 on the JH-3A, only the JH16 was available as "JH-3A version", did I get that right? (What a shame, if true.)
2. As Jerry was cited like "I need to know what you guys want", I would like to ask him/them, if it was possible to add a optical in as well. Has anyone already done that or does anyone advice me not to do that because the optical specs are inferior and it would be a waste of time to bother the JH team with such a request?
1. @the guy who were able to test the amp/phone combo: Did I understand the posts correctly? There was no possibility to compare the JH16 with the JH13 on the JH-3A, only the JH16 was available as "JH-3A version", did I get that right? (What a shame, if true.)
2. As Jerry was cited like "I need to know what you guys want", I would like to ask him/them, if it was possible to add a optical in as well. Has anyone already done that or does anyone advice me not to do that because the optical specs are inferior and it would be a waste of time to bother the JH team with such a request?
qusp
Member of the Trade: Twisted Cables
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2008
- Posts
- 7,743
- Likes
- 62
yep, standard 8 pin XLR
@ above: optical specs are indeed slightly inferior for resolution and jitter, but it is ultimately much more useable in a portable mode. only way to get coax is from some laptops and these new breed of (rather expensive for a transport IMO apart from the camera connection kit for ipad) devices that will pull digital out of the ipod/iphone/ipad. I really think it would be wise to include an optical spdif input, there would of course be a slightly higheer battery power overhead for an optical receiver, but I think its worth it as it widens the cstomer base considerably instead of tying peoplke down to use of the digital input only at home, or with a very sparing number of other input devices
@ above: optical specs are indeed slightly inferior for resolution and jitter, but it is ultimately much more useable in a portable mode. only way to get coax is from some laptops and these new breed of (rather expensive for a transport IMO apart from the camera connection kit for ipad) devices that will pull digital out of the ipod/iphone/ipad. I really think it would be wise to include an optical spdif input, there would of course be a slightly higheer battery power overhead for an optical receiver, but I think its worth it as it widens the cstomer base considerably instead of tying peoplke down to use of the digital input only at home, or with a very sparing number of other input devices
wow, im actually really surprised that there arent more impressions of these on here, they easily had consistently the longest line of any product at canjam. And i think its not too far of a stretch for me to say that ive heard them more than almost anyone but jerry himself. I listened to them over 4 times while i was at canjam, and the 4th time was for close to 10 minutes.
A little bit of a preamble here first. I went into canjam hoping to find a dsektop amp for my jh-13's, choosing from between the Sonnett and the phoenix. And i also really wanted to find a fullsize can that i liked as much as my 13's. The first thing i listened to on saturday morning was the new LCD-2 from Audeze. And i want to say, this headphone is amazing, it matched the 13's at pretty much everything, and the soundstage was larger. I was floored, and super excited all at the same time. I knew that in a couple months i would be buying them. I heard them out of the new Cavalli liquid fire amp, which is a hybrid design. I was the first one in the room and no one else was there to listen so i got a good 25 minutes with them. I left grinning from ear to ear knowing i had found some fullsizers to use that i didnt feel was a compromise.
unfortunately this feeling did not last very long. my next stop was the JH room upstairs. I patiently got in the line to hear the new 3a. Jerry is an amazingly nice person to talk to. Very humble. Each time a new person got to the front of the line he would tell them all about the amp, how the new crossover worked, and how the the amps worked. then he would place the monitors in their ears for them. In no time i was at the front of the line getting my introduction to the 3a from jerry. The amp is considerably larger than my protector, but not overly large, perfectly fine for taking to work, or the bus or plane. Though definitely too large to use like while running for instance. Its got the circular 8 pin connector on the front. Along with a trrs connector for the analog in and the coax spdif input on the extra pin. Also there are the rocker switches that are used for controlling the volume and the bass amplifier level. As has already been stated the bass adjustment isnt a traditional bass boost, it directly controls the output of the two bass amplifiers and works incredibly well. Also the volume control is done entirely in the digital domain, but since the dac is 32 bits, they are truncating down to 24ish with the volume control so there is not audible loss in quality. The setup that they were using was an analog line out out of an ipad into the analog line in on the front of the amp. They had a decent assortment of music loaded into the ipad.
Now onto actual listening impressions, the only album loaded on the ipad that i actually knew was Lateralus by Tool, which is an amazingly well recorded/mastered album, that i have listened to quite a bunch, even within the last month or so. Since i have the 13's, i asked jerry what level of bass would be approximately the same as my 13's and he said -10dB on the slider on the computer, so i set that and off i went. I played the song the Grudge which is the first song on the cd, and as soon as i started i knew that what i was hearing was better than the lcd-2's that i had just finished hearing not more than 5-10 minutes earlier. The soundstage on the 3a's is unbelievably large, it was larger than the lcd-2 by a fair margin. but SS isnt the only area where these beat out the 13's and the lcd-2's. The entire frequency spectrum is so much more coherent than i have ever heard before. its ability to image and localize the information on a record is astounding. the highs are even more sparkly than i have heard with my 13's, the mids smoother,and the lows even more impactful.
on my many consequent listens i took my own iPod with me so that i would have more music that i am used to. I listened to everything from tool to lady gaga to lamb of god to black dahlia murder, to brand new and lastly i listened to Origin. everytime i went back i found something new to love about the sound. When i listened to the black dahlia murder's song Deathmask Divine, i realized that these headphones were presenting to me more details in the music that i had ever heard before, and it was just a high end boost like many say certain headphones to. there was more detail across the entire musical spectrum with this track than i had ever heard before. For the first time i noticed that on the song, the singer is standing at different distances from the microphone depending on whether he is doing the deep death metal vocals or the high pitched screaming vocals. With Brand New i had a new appreciation for the the quality of the males vocals that could be produced, better than anything i had heard before. with lady gaga, which i use to test bass, it went just as deep if not marginally deeper than even my 13's with the protector which goes deeper than anything else ive heard. And now onto my last musical impressions. On my last listen with the 3a, i decided to run my final torture test, which is to play the song Aftermath by Origin off of their album Antithesis. This is the single most complicated album that i own. There is more sonic information being presented by this cd than any other i have ever heard. Origin is Technical Death Metal to the extreme, and surprisingly well recorded with extremely minimal clipping even though it is completely brickwalled. The thing about the cd is that it brings almost every headphone except the very best to their knees, its turns into a garbled mess of noises, that are hard to pick out instruments let alone localize them in any sort of soundstage. When i got my 13's i was thrilled that it gave the record a bit of depth and aloud me to hear all the instruments on their own, though still not do to great of a job localize a position for them. This whole idea that the record was a lost cause went right out the window with the 3a's. Its like the 3a's diced up the music with a knife and layed it out in front of me to pick apart as i pleased. till now the singer always sounded like he was being hidden by the rest of the music. with 3a's he had his own space in what could only be a a SS to my surprisement. each instrument had a location as they were on a stage in front of me, all the instruments even had air around them and were individuals rather than one big wall of sound. There is a reason why i put more words out there about origin than any of the other music i listened to, and that is because it had the biggest effect on me, except for maybe when i first started that tool cd. I had frankly never imagined that origin ever would, or could sound that amazing, it blew me away.
i can answer any other technical questions you guys might have, though most have been answered already in the thread. I spoke with matt, the guy that designed the whole amp thing. The amp does not use a separate dac. The dac is included as part of the DSP that is used, and its a cirrus chip. They are only using roughly 5% of the processing power of the DSP in the active crossover. all 6 channels of amplification can provide up to 100mA's of current simultaneously which is way more than you will ever need, the amount of power in reserve is amazing. I didnt actually ask about this, but since matt also designed the Rx for ALO, im assuming that the amps in the 3a are very similar to just having 3 Rx's in the box.
Any shortfalls that i was worried about going in (the quality of the dac/amps, digital volume control) were instantly dismissed once i heard the unit. This is the best audio that i have ever heard.
I have owned the jh-13's since the end of december, i do almost all my listening with a Audio GD dac 19 plugged into my RSA protector, so i think that my source and amps are of pretty high quality. The 3a beats them at everything. Even the neko audio rig at canjam, using neko audio's dac and the sonnett, which i loved with the 13's( it is completely hiss free even at max volume with the 13's) and liked more than my protector + dac19 rig, couldnt compete. The 3a is the real deal. it is the best audio that i have ever heard.
I know several in this thread have stated that it is more likely a evolution in iem tech than a revolution. I whole heartedly disagree with this statement. the 3a is a easily a revolution in the IEM market, nay the headphone market, nothing that i have heard in the past or that i heard at canjam even came close, it appears that Slim.A has always been right saying that phase/time is the most important part of the music, and the 3a proves that.
I know the whole impression seems a little fanboyish, and thats why i opened with the bit about the lcd-2, i was not expecting the 3a to be this good, i was not expecting to be blown away twice in the first 15 minutes of canjam, with the second anihilating the first.
I also understand that this is the first generation of this tech, and that most likely a more refined version will come in a year or so (purely speculation on my part here) but i feel this first generation will get us 95% of what a more refined version will do, and honestly i cant live without the 3a, its not that my 13's paired with my protector are inadequet now, just that all i can think about is how much better the 3a's truely are.
and to put my money where my mouth is, i got my free impressions for my pair at canjam, i cant wait till this fall when they start shipping.
EDIT: i see alot of people asking whether people are ordering with the JH-13's or the 16's. my view on this, is that since the bass is completely adjustable, you can easily give the 16 version the same bass as the normal 13's have, but can then also turn it up to the 16's level if you want, and even at the 13's output level, your still getting that little bit of extra bass refinement that the 16's have.
So i guess to put it blunty, unless you're really pinching pennies for those 50 extra dollars, there would be zero reason not to get the 16's version.
A little bit of a preamble here first. I went into canjam hoping to find a dsektop amp for my jh-13's, choosing from between the Sonnett and the phoenix. And i also really wanted to find a fullsize can that i liked as much as my 13's. The first thing i listened to on saturday morning was the new LCD-2 from Audeze. And i want to say, this headphone is amazing, it matched the 13's at pretty much everything, and the soundstage was larger. I was floored, and super excited all at the same time. I knew that in a couple months i would be buying them. I heard them out of the new Cavalli liquid fire amp, which is a hybrid design. I was the first one in the room and no one else was there to listen so i got a good 25 minutes with them. I left grinning from ear to ear knowing i had found some fullsizers to use that i didnt feel was a compromise.
unfortunately this feeling did not last very long. my next stop was the JH room upstairs. I patiently got in the line to hear the new 3a. Jerry is an amazingly nice person to talk to. Very humble. Each time a new person got to the front of the line he would tell them all about the amp, how the new crossover worked, and how the the amps worked. then he would place the monitors in their ears for them. In no time i was at the front of the line getting my introduction to the 3a from jerry. The amp is considerably larger than my protector, but not overly large, perfectly fine for taking to work, or the bus or plane. Though definitely too large to use like while running for instance. Its got the circular 8 pin connector on the front. Along with a trrs connector for the analog in and the coax spdif input on the extra pin. Also there are the rocker switches that are used for controlling the volume and the bass amplifier level. As has already been stated the bass adjustment isnt a traditional bass boost, it directly controls the output of the two bass amplifiers and works incredibly well. Also the volume control is done entirely in the digital domain, but since the dac is 32 bits, they are truncating down to 24ish with the volume control so there is not audible loss in quality. The setup that they were using was an analog line out out of an ipad into the analog line in on the front of the amp. They had a decent assortment of music loaded into the ipad.
Now onto actual listening impressions, the only album loaded on the ipad that i actually knew was Lateralus by Tool, which is an amazingly well recorded/mastered album, that i have listened to quite a bunch, even within the last month or so. Since i have the 13's, i asked jerry what level of bass would be approximately the same as my 13's and he said -10dB on the slider on the computer, so i set that and off i went. I played the song the Grudge which is the first song on the cd, and as soon as i started i knew that what i was hearing was better than the lcd-2's that i had just finished hearing not more than 5-10 minutes earlier. The soundstage on the 3a's is unbelievably large, it was larger than the lcd-2 by a fair margin. but SS isnt the only area where these beat out the 13's and the lcd-2's. The entire frequency spectrum is so much more coherent than i have ever heard before. its ability to image and localize the information on a record is astounding. the highs are even more sparkly than i have heard with my 13's, the mids smoother,and the lows even more impactful.
on my many consequent listens i took my own iPod with me so that i would have more music that i am used to. I listened to everything from tool to lady gaga to lamb of god to black dahlia murder, to brand new and lastly i listened to Origin. everytime i went back i found something new to love about the sound. When i listened to the black dahlia murder's song Deathmask Divine, i realized that these headphones were presenting to me more details in the music that i had ever heard before, and it was just a high end boost like many say certain headphones to. there was more detail across the entire musical spectrum with this track than i had ever heard before. For the first time i noticed that on the song, the singer is standing at different distances from the microphone depending on whether he is doing the deep death metal vocals or the high pitched screaming vocals. With Brand New i had a new appreciation for the the quality of the males vocals that could be produced, better than anything i had heard before. with lady gaga, which i use to test bass, it went just as deep if not marginally deeper than even my 13's with the protector which goes deeper than anything else ive heard. And now onto my last musical impressions. On my last listen with the 3a, i decided to run my final torture test, which is to play the song Aftermath by Origin off of their album Antithesis. This is the single most complicated album that i own. There is more sonic information being presented by this cd than any other i have ever heard. Origin is Technical Death Metal to the extreme, and surprisingly well recorded with extremely minimal clipping even though it is completely brickwalled. The thing about the cd is that it brings almost every headphone except the very best to their knees, its turns into a garbled mess of noises, that are hard to pick out instruments let alone localize them in any sort of soundstage. When i got my 13's i was thrilled that it gave the record a bit of depth and aloud me to hear all the instruments on their own, though still not do to great of a job localize a position for them. This whole idea that the record was a lost cause went right out the window with the 3a's. Its like the 3a's diced up the music with a knife and layed it out in front of me to pick apart as i pleased. till now the singer always sounded like he was being hidden by the rest of the music. with 3a's he had his own space in what could only be a a SS to my surprisement. each instrument had a location as they were on a stage in front of me, all the instruments even had air around them and were individuals rather than one big wall of sound. There is a reason why i put more words out there about origin than any of the other music i listened to, and that is because it had the biggest effect on me, except for maybe when i first started that tool cd. I had frankly never imagined that origin ever would, or could sound that amazing, it blew me away.
i can answer any other technical questions you guys might have, though most have been answered already in the thread. I spoke with matt, the guy that designed the whole amp thing. The amp does not use a separate dac. The dac is included as part of the DSP that is used, and its a cirrus chip. They are only using roughly 5% of the processing power of the DSP in the active crossover. all 6 channels of amplification can provide up to 100mA's of current simultaneously which is way more than you will ever need, the amount of power in reserve is amazing. I didnt actually ask about this, but since matt also designed the Rx for ALO, im assuming that the amps in the 3a are very similar to just having 3 Rx's in the box.
Any shortfalls that i was worried about going in (the quality of the dac/amps, digital volume control) were instantly dismissed once i heard the unit. This is the best audio that i have ever heard.
I have owned the jh-13's since the end of december, i do almost all my listening with a Audio GD dac 19 plugged into my RSA protector, so i think that my source and amps are of pretty high quality. The 3a beats them at everything. Even the neko audio rig at canjam, using neko audio's dac and the sonnett, which i loved with the 13's( it is completely hiss free even at max volume with the 13's) and liked more than my protector + dac19 rig, couldnt compete. The 3a is the real deal. it is the best audio that i have ever heard.
I know several in this thread have stated that it is more likely a evolution in iem tech than a revolution. I whole heartedly disagree with this statement. the 3a is a easily a revolution in the IEM market, nay the headphone market, nothing that i have heard in the past or that i heard at canjam even came close, it appears that Slim.A has always been right saying that phase/time is the most important part of the music, and the 3a proves that.
I know the whole impression seems a little fanboyish, and thats why i opened with the bit about the lcd-2, i was not expecting the 3a to be this good, i was not expecting to be blown away twice in the first 15 minutes of canjam, with the second anihilating the first.
I also understand that this is the first generation of this tech, and that most likely a more refined version will come in a year or so (purely speculation on my part here) but i feel this first generation will get us 95% of what a more refined version will do, and honestly i cant live without the 3a, its not that my 13's paired with my protector are inadequet now, just that all i can think about is how much better the 3a's truely are.
and to put my money where my mouth is, i got my free impressions for my pair at canjam, i cant wait till this fall when they start shipping.
EDIT: i see alot of people asking whether people are ordering with the JH-13's or the 16's. my view on this, is that since the bass is completely adjustable, you can easily give the 16 version the same bass as the normal 13's have, but can then also turn it up to the 16's level if you want, and even at the 13's output level, your still getting that little bit of extra bass refinement that the 16's have.
So i guess to put it blunty, unless you're really pinching pennies for those 50 extra dollars, there would be zero reason not to get the 16's version.
Sonic 748i
VoLTaG3 re-registered
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2010
- Posts
- 855
- Likes
- 14
^ Thanks for your input. The JH-3A is a definite if you want to really hear your JH13 or 16 Pro's. My RSA Protector and TWag cable will be up for sale soon, no point in having their inferior sound anymore.
ianmedium
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2008
- Posts
- 4,302
- Likes
- 172
Sonic, you really can't make a statement like that mate until you actually hear the thing! I admire your enthusiasm greatly but for your reviews to be of use and relevant they must be based upon your actual listening experience.
I humbly offer this advise as these forums are a place where folks come for advice on the quality of the product and saying something with authority has to be backed up by experience.
The post previous to yours was the perfect example of hands on experience and so is relevant and constructive.
Once again, I really applaud your enthusiasm though..Just a bit of thoughtfull adivce from an old fart!
I humbly offer this advise as these forums are a place where folks come for advice on the quality of the product and saying something with authority has to be backed up by experience.
The post previous to yours was the perfect example of hands on experience and so is relevant and constructive.
Once again, I really applaud your enthusiasm though..Just a bit of thoughtfull adivce from an old fart!
Sonic 748i
VoLTaG3 re-registered
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2010
- Posts
- 855
- Likes
- 14
Souprknowa: Thanks for impresions.
Now I must decided which route to take. I can go with Czech diy project of high-end dac and amp or wait few motnhs and take JH-3A.
Need more comparison against high-end rigs!!
Now I must decided which route to take. I can go with Czech diy project of high-end dac and amp or wait few motnhs and take JH-3A.
Need more comparison against high-end rigs!!
khaos974
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2008
- Posts
- 2,085
- Likes
- 121
Quote:
Since you had the occasion to listen to it out of the ipad/pod, can you tell if the input during your listening session was digital like the Wadia ipod unit or was it simply the ipad/pod line out that fed the JH-3A?
Anyway, thanks for your impressions, it makes me want to buy this unit. It would also be great if Jerry Harvey put more measurements on his website.
Since you had the occasion to listen to it out of the ipad/pod, can you tell if the input during your listening session was digital like the Wadia ipod unit or was it simply the ipad/pod line out that fed the JH-3A?
Anyway, thanks for your impressions, it makes me want to buy this unit. It would also be great if Jerry Harvey put more measurements on his website.
Quote:
Souprknowa: Thanks for impresions.
Now I must decided which route to take. I can go with Czech diy project of high-end dac and amp or wait few motnhs and take JH-3A.
Need more comparison against high-end rigs!!
i realize noe how deficient my little impressions post really was now. I didnt include very many comparisons. but i heard the Stax O2 coupled with the BHSE with a high end sony SACD player also at canjam, and IMO the JH-3a slaughters it, though i also liked the LCD-2's much more than the o2's.
boomana
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- May 28, 2006
- Posts
- 5,817
- Likes
- 27
Loved it. Bought it. Will post more later when I get back from Chicago.
Quote:
Since you had the occasion to listen to it out of the ipad/pod, can you tell if the input during your listening session was digital like the Wadia ipod unit or was it simply the ipad/pod line out that fed the JH-3A?
Anyway, thanks for your impressions, it makes me want to buy this unit. It would also be great if Jerry Harvey put more measurements on his website.
It was just the analog line out of both the iPad and the iPod that were feeding the JH-3a. Im not certain why they had no digital feed for it, but i bet they just wanted to use the iPad, it was a common fad at canjam this year
not to diss the ipad though, i love mine as has been stated already though, everything inside the jh-3a amp is done digitally until it get sent to the amp. if you input analog the first thing that happens at the input is that it gets run through a ADC, thats why a external dac to use with it is a waste of time and money, and that one should always feed it with a digital signal if you can.
I guess ill always wonder how much better they could sound using like say 3 Audio GD REF1's as the dacs and then a 8 board beta 22 as amplification, but as it is, i havent heard music sound better.
Quote:
i dare you to write more than i did vicki
and off topic, it really was a pleasure to finally meet you, though i guess i should apologize for my drunkeness saturday night, though i think that it was my birthday is a fair excuse
cooperpwc
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2006
- Posts
- 6,805
- Likes
- 544
ianmedium
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2008
- Posts
- 4,302
- Likes
- 172
Quote:
Can't wait to read your more detailed thoughts. I think the number of people who are posting and have heard this product and them immediately put their wallet's where there mouths are speaks volumes..These are after all not cheap enough to be impulse purchases.
I have always had the intention to wait a little while after a product is launched and then read through opinions based on a greater timescale and try to gain my own experience of listening then decide to go ahead with a purchase. So much hyperbole occurs with the latest and greatest to come out but I must admit having read some of you folks previous thoughts on other equipment who have tried these validate and make a convincing argument for these!
Users who are viewing this thread
