a-JAYS Five Quick Review

a-JAYS Five Quick Review

Thanks to JAYS for the sample.

Brief:  JAYS notice that there are phones not made by Apple.

Price:  £80, Euro 90, US$100 or SEK795

Specification:  Remote: Full feature Android remote, Driver: JAYS custom A5, Isolation: -40 dB @ 2 kHz, Sensitivity: 96 dB SPL @ 1 kHz, Impedance: 16 Ohm, Freq. resp.: 18 - 23 000 Hz, Microphone: MEMS Technology, Cable length:115 cm (45 in), Plug: 3.5 mm L-shaped (1/8 in)

Accessories:  5 pairs of tips, a shirt clip and a superb case.

Build Quality:  Excellent.  All matte plastic that is visually flawless.

Isolation:  Rather good for a dynamic but nothing exceptional.  As ever it’s still easily sufficient to turn you into a road stain if you aren’t looking where you’re going.  Not one for a long flight probably though.

Comfort/Fit:  Despite them clearly wanting to be worn down they were fine.  Really rather microphonic worn down though.

Aesthetics:  These I think are very nice looking.  All matte black (they do a white version too btw) they just look so premium.

Sound:  Good.  These are not the most exquisitely beautiful sounding IEM’s you’ll find but they do a pretty good job.  Acoustically they are rather more balanced than a-JAYS of old but they still have a rather warm and bass heavy sound.  It’s a popular sound signature too and it pairs nicely with cooler digital amps.  The sort you are likely to find in most phones along with not the most powerful amps in them too.  It’s made with phones in mind and this version is specifically looking at Android phones.  (They do an Ios and Windows version of these too.)  You’re not going to be feeding them 24/192k files anyway and your much more likely feeding them some middling bitrate MP3 with brittle and broken highs that these do a nice of job of being highly forgiving to.  The warm “organic” sound is easy on the ear.  The bass is pretty big on these so it should be a winner with those that like that sort, it’s not “Beats” comedy levels though.  Big, warm, with a bit of bounce.  Great for poppy stuff that Spotify likes to suggest you play and with the inline controls, including volume controls you can raise, lower, or skip to your hearts content.  Oh and you can even get an app from Jay’s that lets you customise what the buttons do.  One word of caution, not all androids play nice with the controls, older things don’t stick to the standard used and as I found the N4 is one of these.  All worked perfectly on my Nexus 5 though.

Value:  You pay a bit of a premium for how pretty these are, how nicely put together they are and that these have a real party trick.  Those android phone controls.  As an all-round package its very vice with a so far very rare ability that I’d think would be very welcomed by those who listen to music on their phone. 

Pro’s:   Beautiful, build quality, Android controls! (and windows and Ios in the other versions)

Con’s:  Tad over bassy, you pay for those controls and looks.