Just a quick observation from my experience today...
After a eagerly awaited four months of initially gunning for 13 pros from the 13 pro threads on here, the 16pros and UE18's have since come along and finally went to my UK dealer today now funds in place to demo them all and get my impressions done and make my choice and get the order in.
Duration of listening time; 3 hours
Source; Sony X with wav files ONLY.
Tested;
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JH5, 10, 11pro, 13pro & 16 pro demo's
UE18's demo.
Listened to all the JH range in numerical order from the base model and all sounded good until i got to the finale of the much anticipated JH16 pros and everything suddenly stopped in it's tracks as they did not sound right even two minutes in of listening and after 20 minutes described the SQ to the UK dealer who all experienced the same sound as i did and concurred with me that i was not going mad and they are now sending them back to JHA for assesment to see if they are faulty or not, so am in limbo on what my choice will be as after my previous experience of just universals they all sounded good and got better with each step up i took until i got to the 16's.
It seemed the 16 sound compared to the 13's even though the 16's immediately had more bass emphases to be heard and went a lot deeper it was at times a distorted bass and the soundstage was a lot narrower to the 13's with loss of detail on a worrying scale and had a congested feel to it with no air around the intruments like the 13's had, so i take it the 16's are not meant to sound like this even compared to the 13's as i was under the impression the 16's are meant to retain the clarity, detail and everything that is good in the 13's with just more headroom to be had out of the 16's on top?
Anyone else had this experience or can clarify and reasure me this is not the normal 16 sound?
For note yes i realize these are just generic demo versions and not custom molds specific to my ear's but all the other demo's sounded great and to put it into context the JH11pros sounded better than the 16 demo's i listened to.
Plus i listened to it with wav files only on my Sony X and the guys at my UK dealer said they had all experienced the same type of sound signature (two of them sound mixing engineers) and they used different sources to me so know it is not just my player.
My initial impressions though was how good the UE18's are and how much closer the 11pros are to the 13pros than i imagined they would be and am wandering even though the 13's are better in terms of micro details, clarity and soundstage is it worth shelling out the extra $250?
The UE18's sounded like the 13pro's to me in a neutral sense but with the extra added bass depth which is how i thought the JH16's would sound.
The 18's had a good tempo to it with a natural sense of timing and sounded quite balanced and neutral but with the bass depth giving it a punchy feel at the same time, but cannot quite remember if the soundstage was any bigger than the 13's which impressed me for a pair of in ear monitors.
I am despite the current 16 demos excluded whilst awaiting autopsy report from JHA enjoyed even the 11pros not to of 100% ruled it out and enjoyed the 13's and UE18's a lot but just need to hear the 16's if they where faulty, in their true intended sound before making my choice.
If that is the true sound of the 16's as Jerry intended it to be (hope not) i will have to say it was for me a disappointing experience and would then be opting for either the UE18's or JH13's which would be a hard call still.
One thing for sure i enjoyed my experience today and wish i had gone down the customs route a long time ago and just look forward to whichever one i go with eventually even if it is not the 16's or dare i say even a JHpro at all?
Such a long wait and now it feels like it has gone into overtime waiting to pull the trigger on a custom!
........fast forward time please.
