This and That:
JadeAudio
is a new online direct selling sub-brand of FiiO.
What
makes the EW1, a “true wireless” Bluetooth in-ear, rather special
is the amount of features that it offers for the price (aptX support,
touch controls, touch volume control).
Unboxing experience
only average at best – uninspired brown cardboard box with thin
black plastic mould (that holds the ear pieces and charging/carrying
case) inside.
Four pairs of silicone tips.
One 6 mm
dynamic driver per side.
Bluetooth 5.0 with SBC, AAC and
aptX support.
No wireless charging of the
charging/carrying case.
Micro USB charging input.
The
charging/carrying case’s inside (not the outside that is absolutely
fine, though) and the EW1 feel fairly cheap.
The battery
indicator consists of one LED that flashes in different patterns to
signalise the battery status.
Fairly uninspired and
generic shell design. I really like the faceplates’ very
dark blue
metallic colour, though.
No battery status indicator when in the
shells (the only thing that indicates that the batteries inside the
ear pieces are not fully charged yet is that the ear pieces’
individual LEDs are on).
Good
fit.
Nicely
stable and good Bluetooth connection
without any dropouts on my smartphones
(BlackBerry Classic and Apple iPhone
4).
Sound:
My
main Bluetooth sources used for listening
to music: BlackBerry Classic (aptX),
Apple iPhone 4 (AAC),
ZOTAC ZBOX CI547 (SBC).
Largest
included silicone tips.
Unfortunately,
and it is very audible, the built-in audio architecture doesn’t
have the best signal-to-noise-ratio, so the EW1 is definitely
quite hissy.
Volume
Control:
Very
convenient: touching the left earphone’s faceplate once
lowers the
volume whereas touching the right earphone’s once
raises it. Well,
at least in theory, as the touch gestures don’t work
all the time, and the by
far biggest
inconvenience and design
mistake is that the touch-sensitive surfaces
are
so large that when
the EW1 ear pieces are in my ears, it happens quite frequently that
random touch
commands are
performed by
the EW1 touching my tragi, which
is highly annoying and also unpleasant as the audible feedback (beep)
when a command is performed is very loud.
By
the way, the volume control is not independent but synced with the
playback device.
As
a result, which is unfortunately true for nearly all Bluetooth
in-ears, the EW1 is far
too loud for me even at the quietest possible volume setting above
mute.
Very
bad as well:
extraordinarily loud status info (“power on” etc.) whose volume,
as it seems, cannot be changed, and
it cannot be deactivated either.
Also,
it’s annoying that each time a touch gesture (except for volume
attenuation) is registered, there’s an absurdly loud beep,
too.
Tonality:
In
short: warm v-shape with very, near
absurdly, strong upper treble peak.
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Bass elevation starts to
rise around 700 Hz, is about 10 dB north of flat-neutral (reference:
my Etymotic ER-4S) around 100 Hz (upper bass), and climbs even a bit
more towards the true sub-bass where it reaches an elevation of
around 12 dB above flat-neutral.
Therefore, the bass is punchy
and warm, but yet gentle-ish enough not to
become too boomy in the fundamental range.
The
lower mids are on the fuller, warmer side,
perhaps comparable to those of my Shure SE215m+SPE.
The
upper midrange and presence range are on the darker, more relaxed
side, wherefore bright voices are reproduced in a more relaxed
way.
The treble is generally somewhat more on the relaxed
side but not by much; it’s not what could be considered a dark
presentation but one that is somewhat below neutral in quantity and
mostly inoffensive.
That is up to 6 kHz, as above that, the
level rises again, and forms a very strong and bright elevation
around 9 kHz. It’s neither very narrow nor really wide. As
a result, the upper highs are bright and splashy; thankfully
this very strong elevation is at a very
high frequency wherefore it is not really annoying and high enough to
avoid sharpness and that it isn’t
encountered very often on music material, nonetheless the
peak is undeniably too strong and therefore rather plasticky and
artificial (subjectively, it is most likely placed there to create an
impression of “air” and details).
Above
that, in the super treble past 10 kHz, what can be heard is a
generally very bright sound, too.
Resolution:
For
what it’s worth, the audibly best sound
quality could be achieved using the aptX codec.
Nonetheless,
even with aptX, the EW1 doesn’t
reach the sound quality of cheap wired
in-ears and it is fairly easily audible that it is a wireless
Bluetooth in-ear (audible compression,
grain and a sound that appears forced –
which it probably, and likely, also is
(most wireless in-ears take advantage of tailoring the frequency
response to a certain target curve through
DSP as this technology has become fairly inexpensive over time),
as the measured
impulse response is
definitely, and
by quite much, inferior to other recent
“true wireless” in-ears such as the Shanling MTW100 (BA version)
or EarFun Free).
To
keep it short, the EW1 doesn’t resolve as well when connected to an
aptX source as other “true wireless” in-ears that
are not capable of aptX reception.
To
start with the bass, it sounds somewhat compressed and forced.
It
is neither really tight and fast, nor slow and spongy – it just
falls somewhere in-between, and is probably a bit closer to the
latter, and nowhere close to the speed and tightness of my Shure
SE215m+SPE (well, it doesn’t necessarily
have to be as a Bluetooth in-ear that is priced much lower).
Details
in the lows don’t seem as separated,
nonetheless bass
lines are still distinguishable as such. However, the lows and
details in them definitely sound more compressed than on cheap wired
in-ears, which quite easily gives away that the EW1 is a Bluetooth
in-ear.
Going up into the
midrange, the details and sound appears a bit grainy and compressed,
and I am sure that the EW1’s audible
hissing additionally contributes to this.
It’s
clearly not a well-separated or detailed midrange.
The
treble and its separation sound rather soft, which is however
beneficial to the sound due to the strong upper treble peak.
Nonetheless, the note separation and details appear somewhat grainy
as well, and only
concealed but not actually
improved by the peak’s brightness.
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While the EW1’s price is
low for all of the features and technology that it offers, the sound
performance is only barely acceptable to
average at best at the price. With a
somewhat higher budget, although still below $50 or $100, one can get
better performing “true wireless” in-ears, albeit with less
features than the JadeAudio. And there are so many much better
performing wired in-ears around the same price as the EW1.
Yeah,
it’s a budget priced “true wireless” Bluetooth in-ear and such,
however this level of performance is what wireless but not “true
wireless” in-ears were already able to deliver some years ago. The
features and codecs are really the only things through
which the EW1 is able to separate itself from the
competition.
Soundstage:
Large
and wide, which is quite typical for a
v-shaped tuning like this.
Due
to the subjectively perceived soundstage size, the instrument
placement seems to be fairly accurate. Nonetheless,
with more complex material, the soundstage starts to collapse and the
spatial details show some smear.
Conclusion:
Many
great features for the price, especially aptX and touch controls,
which is fairly
unique at this low price point.
However,
aside from that,
the JadeAudio EW1 is clearly
flawed in several
areas (hissy, too loud, status info too
loud and cannot be attenuated
or disabled, beeps
to indicate that the touch inputs were recognised too loud and cannot
be attenuated or disabled, touch
inputs are not recognised all the time,
touch-sensitive surfaces too large
wherefore touch control actions
are often accidentally performed by the
ears’ tragi, fairly
compressed sound that
appears “forced” even with an aptX
connection).