[REVIEW] Signature Acoustics Element O-16 Live

It might be a bit odd to name an IEM the O-16, as in ‘oxygen’. But given their first IEM is the carbon (C-12), I guess the India based Signature Acoustics does meant to create a real ‘Element’ series based on the periodic table. As their second product, the O-16 continues to target the budget IEM market and one can be found for just US$30 or so (*MSRP is double that).

Classic Reborn

JAYS has announced the relaunch of the company's previous flagship, the dual balanced armature based q-JAYS, but with a bit extra. For those who are too young to remember, q-JAYS was born in an era where multi-driver IEM were rather rare and q-JAYS was immediately held as one of the best sounding IEM around. It was supposed to be replaced by the quad-driver x-JAYS though the project was dropped after the 2009 financial crisis. Then q-JAYS was phased out more or less around the same time frame... and for all these years, JAYS has never really made any IEM that is worth to take the flagship title.

Though the new flagship is stilled called q-JAYS, with dual BA driver and similarly styled design, there are a few noticeable difference upfront. The first will be the user removable cable with what seems like a specially modified screw-in MMCX connector. I am not a fan of MMCX in general but a screwed in and secured MMCX should at least be less fragile. The second is the steel body, as oppose to the original plastic construction. Last but not least is the USD$450 price tag, which is quite a lot to ask these days for a dual driver, given a very good three driver hybrid can probably be had for $150 less. I can only hope q-JAYS will impress us again - even more so, will we see a comeback of x-JAYS as well? I am crossing my fingers now.

Natural Stereo Sound

Hong Kong based custom IEM and portable amp maker LEAR is looking for some kind of crowdfunding help to bring their new IEM to the market. It is simply called the 'NSS earphone', where NSS stands for Natural Stereo Sound, a technique LEAR developed for stereo sound enhancement. Judging from the picture, I'll have guessed it used a second transducer feeding an delayed sound of the opposite channel, which should gives you a crossfeed-circuit-like effect, but all done in the analog domain.

Check it out here.

[UPDATE] The crowdfunding price will is US$160 and the final retail price will be US$220+.