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- Mar 16, 2009
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With all this talk of expectations with performance to price ratio to what universal iem's we may of had before we got a pair of 16's for me initially was "how much!" and then read the forums for a month or so with the 13's as that was my original target as the 16's where not even out then and was indecisive whether to start saving up for them and sell both my IE8's and SE530's to help fund them.
After a couple of more weeks talking to owners who already had them i came across someone from my neck of the woods that told me about a UK dealer that could do the impressions and demo all the JHA range plus all the other brands under one roof.
So with an outlay of 1K at stake i took up the opportunity to listen to them for the day at Hand Held Audio in the London area and from that could decide if they was worth it or not.
In a perfect world we would all say no, but i feel other factors come into play for the price as the Price is not just for the SQ alone, it is based upon the unique way these are made and hand crafted and you are paying a premium for that whether one likes it or not, that is part and parcel of buying something at the pinnacle of it's field it specialises in, so for me i do not look at it as $800 more in SQ inprovement's.
But for me on the subject of how much better than the universal iem's in comparison the first pair of JHA's i tried was the bottom model 'JH5' and straight away was more clearer, detailed, open than my IE8 or SE530 with nice vocals and from that moment i knew customs would be the way to go, but which model would remain to be seen as i thought maybe i could save the money and go with the sig i most liked which well could be a lower model, but after hearing the personal preferences that divide the JHA models up to the Pro series as they all having different interesting traits which all had their place and it seemed the JH11Pro just improved on those other models below it with a more fun warmer but punchy bass to it which really caught my ears and realy liked these and knew then i would be spending at least the 11Pro amount.
Then i heard the 13's and it took a while to appreciate their more accurate replication and the extra subtle details in sound that where added to the 11Pros, so did not immediately have that blown away experience after the long awaited anticipation of listening to them from reading all those reviews on Head-fi, but the longer i listened to them track after track i heard detail i had not heard in some instances even on my 30K hi-fi set up which really shocked me as i thought it impossible.
At this stage i was torn between the 11Pros more fun punchy sound that had nice midbass response and reminded me a bit of my old beloved favourite SE530's out of all the JHrange i heard and the 13Pro with it's more detailed and accurate, slightly more analytical to the 11pro which did divide me only on the bases of the price difference and was it worth the extra for the 13's sound as i thought to myself at the time if i knew no different and there was no 13 that existed theoretically i would be more than happy with the 11Pro's sound.
So bearing that in mind i decided to put the newly arrived 16Pros which had just been released and HHA had only just got them the week before and again, had an anticipation to what the extra headroom would sound like with the 16's compared to the 13's.
After not even 5 minutes i found the SQ to have more bass but was uncontrolled at the bottom end had no layers to it and was more like my JVC fx500's i had plus the soundstage was even more narrower than the 13's and the midrange just sounded mushed and non existent and thought surly this is not what the extra $50 buys you on a 1K pair of customs and took them out right away.
Mentioned my above findings to the Director of the dealership and he said they all had the same experience and now a customer had pointed it out they decided to send them back to JHA for examination.
So i went back and and finished my demo session going back & forth between the 11Pros and 13's to decide between them and finally decided in the long run i wanted the more neutral accuracy and detail of the 13's as at this level that was my priority over the more fun punchy midbass sound of the 11Pros. It was a hard choice as even though the talk is all about the 13's and 16's the 11Pro's are very much a good custom in their own right.
So could not make a decision on the day with out listening to the 16's, but a week later they came back and it turned out the mid drivers had blown, but my dealer HHA was kind enough to send the 13's & 16's to me at home to demo which i was lucky enough to have for four days in total so had plenty of time to be more a accustomed to the sound of 13 & 16's.
To cut a long story short i got to hear the 13's and 16's (as they should be) over a nice long four day test session and for the fist two days it was still the 13's but due to me finding the fit more difficult to get just right for some unknown reason to the 13 demo's it was not until then once i got the 16's demo's just right in my ear i was blown away at how well the 16'' s extra headroom worked without encroaching on the rest of the sound spectrum and been a person that has towed the more neutral type of signature totally swayed me over to the 16's in those last two days of testing and despite been a very hard decision i plumped for the 16's which even after actually four days of listening felt like some kind of leap of faith with it in the back of my mind, will they be the same sound as the demo's in my actual custom pressed pair when i get them?
Have to say around four - five weeks on from having my actual pair now and i do need my artwork rectified and slight refit adjustment for optimum sound when i have them in the right position with lossless files whether it through my Sony X Walkman hp out or lineout through the amp or my Arcam FMJ cd player through my Naim headline amp they sound impressive, so much so it is for me from what i mentioned quite a big jumo in quality all round to my SE530's and especially IE8's that i could not even go back to a pair for a second back up pair to these.
I can't even listen to my K702's with ALO SXC modded cable as it lacks everything that makes the 16's what they are which did sadden me as like my SE530's i loved the sig of the 702's which was totally different to the 16's but cannot replicate the true overall experience of accurate detailed sound that has a verve to it.
I guess that is my journey so far and even though the 13's or 16' are maybe at least $300 more than we would like or the price ratio to performance on your top line universal's, in my case my SE530's which i loved for a long time, are maybe worth their salt as they for me sound more impressive than i could of imagine and am relieved i made the 16 choice as the way i see it they will last around 7-10 years before a refit with ear changing shape and will stop the chopping and changing every year of another pair of universals at between £175 - 300 to find the overall sound experience i have been craving.
With having a fairly good speaker set up consisting of Tag Mclaren, Arcam, & B&W for me to go to the next level to get a certain percentage improvement would cost me around another £10K which do not have just for the increment of improvement i will get in return and these 16's offer a certain amount of comparable sound for a fraction of the price with the flexibility of using them in a home reference rig or sounding more than acceptable through a dap hp out on the go.
So for me, even though they cost a lot for a pair of ear monitors at face value i feel they pay back for themselves in the coming years and then divided that price by the years of enjoyment i will get form them then does not seem as bad as it is like an investment.
I was more worried i had chosen the wrong sig and gone against my own values in what i usually listen to like the more neutral 13's but they have improved in the first few week's also and just become more relaxed and naturally fluid in there sound which they was to start with, just in more abundance now, but until i get my fit sorted this lucid but full rich sound with a layered bass for that gives a very visceral sound experience even more so with live recordings makes me glad i own a pair of customs now.
Anyway, this did not start out as war and peace! but is just my take on my early experience in owning a pair of custom's which so far i am happy with.
Just hope i do not go through several refit's! ; )
After a couple of more weeks talking to owners who already had them i came across someone from my neck of the woods that told me about a UK dealer that could do the impressions and demo all the JHA range plus all the other brands under one roof.
So with an outlay of 1K at stake i took up the opportunity to listen to them for the day at Hand Held Audio in the London area and from that could decide if they was worth it or not.
In a perfect world we would all say no, but i feel other factors come into play for the price as the Price is not just for the SQ alone, it is based upon the unique way these are made and hand crafted and you are paying a premium for that whether one likes it or not, that is part and parcel of buying something at the pinnacle of it's field it specialises in, so for me i do not look at it as $800 more in SQ inprovement's.
But for me on the subject of how much better than the universal iem's in comparison the first pair of JHA's i tried was the bottom model 'JH5' and straight away was more clearer, detailed, open than my IE8 or SE530 with nice vocals and from that moment i knew customs would be the way to go, but which model would remain to be seen as i thought maybe i could save the money and go with the sig i most liked which well could be a lower model, but after hearing the personal preferences that divide the JHA models up to the Pro series as they all having different interesting traits which all had their place and it seemed the JH11Pro just improved on those other models below it with a more fun warmer but punchy bass to it which really caught my ears and realy liked these and knew then i would be spending at least the 11Pro amount.
Then i heard the 13's and it took a while to appreciate their more accurate replication and the extra subtle details in sound that where added to the 11Pros, so did not immediately have that blown away experience after the long awaited anticipation of listening to them from reading all those reviews on Head-fi, but the longer i listened to them track after track i heard detail i had not heard in some instances even on my 30K hi-fi set up which really shocked me as i thought it impossible.
At this stage i was torn between the 11Pros more fun punchy sound that had nice midbass response and reminded me a bit of my old beloved favourite SE530's out of all the JHrange i heard and the 13Pro with it's more detailed and accurate, slightly more analytical to the 11pro which did divide me only on the bases of the price difference and was it worth the extra for the 13's sound as i thought to myself at the time if i knew no different and there was no 13 that existed theoretically i would be more than happy with the 11Pro's sound.
So bearing that in mind i decided to put the newly arrived 16Pros which had just been released and HHA had only just got them the week before and again, had an anticipation to what the extra headroom would sound like with the 16's compared to the 13's.
After not even 5 minutes i found the SQ to have more bass but was uncontrolled at the bottom end had no layers to it and was more like my JVC fx500's i had plus the soundstage was even more narrower than the 13's and the midrange just sounded mushed and non existent and thought surly this is not what the extra $50 buys you on a 1K pair of customs and took them out right away.
Mentioned my above findings to the Director of the dealership and he said they all had the same experience and now a customer had pointed it out they decided to send them back to JHA for examination.
So i went back and and finished my demo session going back & forth between the 11Pros and 13's to decide between them and finally decided in the long run i wanted the more neutral accuracy and detail of the 13's as at this level that was my priority over the more fun punchy midbass sound of the 11Pros. It was a hard choice as even though the talk is all about the 13's and 16's the 11Pro's are very much a good custom in their own right.
So could not make a decision on the day with out listening to the 16's, but a week later they came back and it turned out the mid drivers had blown, but my dealer HHA was kind enough to send the 13's & 16's to me at home to demo which i was lucky enough to have for four days in total so had plenty of time to be more a accustomed to the sound of 13 & 16's.
To cut a long story short i got to hear the 13's and 16's (as they should be) over a nice long four day test session and for the fist two days it was still the 13's but due to me finding the fit more difficult to get just right for some unknown reason to the 13 demo's it was not until then once i got the 16's demo's just right in my ear i was blown away at how well the 16'' s extra headroom worked without encroaching on the rest of the sound spectrum and been a person that has towed the more neutral type of signature totally swayed me over to the 16's in those last two days of testing and despite been a very hard decision i plumped for the 16's which even after actually four days of listening felt like some kind of leap of faith with it in the back of my mind, will they be the same sound as the demo's in my actual custom pressed pair when i get them?
Have to say around four - five weeks on from having my actual pair now and i do need my artwork rectified and slight refit adjustment for optimum sound when i have them in the right position with lossless files whether it through my Sony X Walkman hp out or lineout through the amp or my Arcam FMJ cd player through my Naim headline amp they sound impressive, so much so it is for me from what i mentioned quite a big jumo in quality all round to my SE530's and especially IE8's that i could not even go back to a pair for a second back up pair to these.
I can't even listen to my K702's with ALO SXC modded cable as it lacks everything that makes the 16's what they are which did sadden me as like my SE530's i loved the sig of the 702's which was totally different to the 16's but cannot replicate the true overall experience of accurate detailed sound that has a verve to it.
I guess that is my journey so far and even though the 13's or 16' are maybe at least $300 more than we would like or the price ratio to performance on your top line universal's, in my case my SE530's which i loved for a long time, are maybe worth their salt as they for me sound more impressive than i could of imagine and am relieved i made the 16 choice as the way i see it they will last around 7-10 years before a refit with ear changing shape and will stop the chopping and changing every year of another pair of universals at between £175 - 300 to find the overall sound experience i have been craving.
With having a fairly good speaker set up consisting of Tag Mclaren, Arcam, & B&W for me to go to the next level to get a certain percentage improvement would cost me around another £10K which do not have just for the increment of improvement i will get in return and these 16's offer a certain amount of comparable sound for a fraction of the price with the flexibility of using them in a home reference rig or sounding more than acceptable through a dap hp out on the go.
So for me, even though they cost a lot for a pair of ear monitors at face value i feel they pay back for themselves in the coming years and then divided that price by the years of enjoyment i will get form them then does not seem as bad as it is like an investment.
I was more worried i had chosen the wrong sig and gone against my own values in what i usually listen to like the more neutral 13's but they have improved in the first few week's also and just become more relaxed and naturally fluid in there sound which they was to start with, just in more abundance now, but until i get my fit sorted this lucid but full rich sound with a layered bass for that gives a very visceral sound experience even more so with live recordings makes me glad i own a pair of customs now.
Anyway, this did not start out as war and peace! but is just my take on my early experience in owning a pair of custom's which so far i am happy with.
Just hope i do not go through several refit's! ; )
