ovo
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2010
- Posts
- 13
- Likes
- 0
Ok, Ive had the jH7's for over a year now and am finally getting round to giving back to the community. Ive been into music for about 20 years, just in my own studio in various projects so my needs in sound range from above average to way above. So when I decided to find out what a $800 pair of IEM's would sound like my expectations were pretty high, not studio mixing high but band practice and everyday listening with my phone high.
I don't speak the audiophile lingo so I will just have to try and describes things as best I can!
Right from the beginning I was disappointed with the sound, the mid range was just so harsh and messy with a ringing to them, so much so I sent them back and JH quickly replaced the drivers which improved things a bit. This however isn't saying much as they were useless for anything before and now they still show a lot of mid range over tones, It reminds me of what happens to sound when you turn it up loud on a cheap PA, the sound thickens from the over tones produced and it quickly sounds like a dense mess if there is to much going on. So heavily compressed mixes like radiohead can be really hard on the ear.
This might be par for the course with IEM's but the JH7's have almost no sound stage to speak of, where only a sense of left and right being conveyed really, but close and far away isnt really at all, their bass is adequate but I put this down to the perfect air tight custom molds as much as the JH7's. The sound is so tiring to listen to they are useless for rehearsal at loud volumes that can go on for a few hours. My electric guitar sounds harsh and exposed making me want to put a reverb on it to get it 'out of my ear', I could go on with some elaborate descriptions of where I think the problem frequencies are but I think you get the point
So to everyone thinking about getting these?
If I could go back in time I would have saved my money and bought some good earbuds and got that putty that sets in a few hours with air and heat and tried to make my own as Ive seen a few ppl doing on the net by shoving the putty in their ears followed by the earbud on top and then carving the canal out later, I wouldn't personally put putty in my ears so Id get the Molds done professionally and then use them to make negatives with plaster and then use the putty in that. That way you can easily make another pair if needed, At well under $100 to do I couldn't see them sounding any worse as Ive heard some awesome earbuds in my time, of course they are uncomfortable and lack bass without a good seal but both of these would be solved by putting them in the custom putty Molds. The only way I could see this not working is if the sound bouncing of the ear canal of the mold created some bounce phasing in their response (which makes me wonder if this is what is happening to the JH7's) as the molds are a rock hard smooth plastic (imagine how bad the acoustics in a room would be made for this material?) Id actually like to hear from some ppl who have tried it, especially those familiar with the JH7's?
So was I expecting to much from the JH7's?
I don't think so, when I think about how the sennheiser cx300's for $50 sounded when u held them in with your fingers I was expecting a night and day improvement in detail but honestly, put the cx 300's in a custom mold and I think Id probably prefer them to the JH7s. Sure they lack detail and have a slightly plastic tone but they also lacked the mid range dogs breakfast of the JH's. I was never expecting them to be used for mixing as I use my HD280's for that but for me to not even want to use them for rehearsal is just pathetic for a $800 pair of monitors.
Im sure there are more musical IEM's out there but at the kind of money companies are charging I doubt I will try again, Now where are those DIY IEM's I saw.
I don't speak the audiophile lingo so I will just have to try and describes things as best I can!
Right from the beginning I was disappointed with the sound, the mid range was just so harsh and messy with a ringing to them, so much so I sent them back and JH quickly replaced the drivers which improved things a bit. This however isn't saying much as they were useless for anything before and now they still show a lot of mid range over tones, It reminds me of what happens to sound when you turn it up loud on a cheap PA, the sound thickens from the over tones produced and it quickly sounds like a dense mess if there is to much going on. So heavily compressed mixes like radiohead can be really hard on the ear.
This might be par for the course with IEM's but the JH7's have almost no sound stage to speak of, where only a sense of left and right being conveyed really, but close and far away isnt really at all, their bass is adequate but I put this down to the perfect air tight custom molds as much as the JH7's. The sound is so tiring to listen to they are useless for rehearsal at loud volumes that can go on for a few hours. My electric guitar sounds harsh and exposed making me want to put a reverb on it to get it 'out of my ear', I could go on with some elaborate descriptions of where I think the problem frequencies are but I think you get the point
So to everyone thinking about getting these?
If I could go back in time I would have saved my money and bought some good earbuds and got that putty that sets in a few hours with air and heat and tried to make my own as Ive seen a few ppl doing on the net by shoving the putty in their ears followed by the earbud on top and then carving the canal out later, I wouldn't personally put putty in my ears so Id get the Molds done professionally and then use them to make negatives with plaster and then use the putty in that. That way you can easily make another pair if needed, At well under $100 to do I couldn't see them sounding any worse as Ive heard some awesome earbuds in my time, of course they are uncomfortable and lack bass without a good seal but both of these would be solved by putting them in the custom putty Molds. The only way I could see this not working is if the sound bouncing of the ear canal of the mold created some bounce phasing in their response (which makes me wonder if this is what is happening to the JH7's) as the molds are a rock hard smooth plastic (imagine how bad the acoustics in a room would be made for this material?) Id actually like to hear from some ppl who have tried it, especially those familiar with the JH7's?
So was I expecting to much from the JH7's?
I don't think so, when I think about how the sennheiser cx300's for $50 sounded when u held them in with your fingers I was expecting a night and day improvement in detail but honestly, put the cx 300's in a custom mold and I think Id probably prefer them to the JH7s. Sure they lack detail and have a slightly plastic tone but they also lacked the mid range dogs breakfast of the JH's. I was never expecting them to be used for mixing as I use my HD280's for that but for me to not even want to use them for rehearsal is just pathetic for a $800 pair of monitors.
Im sure there are more musical IEM's out there but at the kind of money companies are charging I doubt I will try again, Now where are those DIY IEM's I saw.
