I have to admit here, even being as much of an audio nut as I am, I’d never heard of JAYS before. However a quick look online soon confirmed that the Swedish team behind JAYS knew what they were on about and the name JAYS is fast becoming that of a recognised leader in the earphone market.

We asked JAYS to supply us with a high end earphone for us to review, and we soon received the fantastically small q-JAYS. JAYS promote the q-JAYS as the smallest dual armature earphones in the world.

Dual armature – means dual speaker. A tweeter for high notes and a sub for bass notes

When the packaged arrived I thought, “Wow, it’s a big box for the worlds smallest anything!”

c-JAYS and q-JAYS in box awaiting review

And I soon realised why the box was so large – the q-JAYS come with a huge range of accessories for your earphones. Almost everything under the sun – the only thing missing in my mind is the iPhone adapter which you have to buy separately.

Flipping the box over gives you a detailed view of what’s inside.

Back of the box

There is a huge collection of stuff, from the earphones themselves, to a full range of soft rubber tips, extension cables and adapters along with a lovely little (too small if you ask me) leather case.

I have to steal a moment here to talk about packaging … yes a lot of it (if not all of it) ends up in the recycling bin, however to me packaging is important. If your product is worth it’s price then package it correctly. Thankfully JAYS seem to believe in this too as their packaging is very tidy. I love the vivid green against the black, and everything has it’s own place.

Let’s take a look at the items in the case:

The included q-JAYS accessories.

As you can see there is a great range of stuff, starting on the left with the leather pouch, we then have an airline adapter and a single to double adapter. Then you have 6 sets of tips in differing sizes, a straight plug extension and an L plug extension, soft Comply tips and 4 sets of filters.

The filters are very small and seem to be solid but are in fact a fine metal mesh designed to keep ear wax and dirt out of the earphones.

Using the earphones

As I mentioned these earphones are tiny, not much bigger than the 3.5mm plug on the other end of their cable and they make the Apple ear buds look huge.

Apple and q-JAYS earphones resting on the iPhone

When you first slide these into your ears, you almost feel as if they are going to keep going in until they are swallowed into your head. Thankfully they don’t and they do fit really nicely into your ears. The first thing you’ll notice is how light these are, there is very little weight on them. The cord while strong, doesn’t add that much extra to them.

As with any earphones, take the time to try the different tips to find the best for you. If your tips are not fitting well, they won’t seal and you won’t get the power out of the speakers you’d expect.

Another tip I’ve learned recently is to run your speakers at 75% volume (of your iPod or iPhone) for an hour. Of course you don’t have them in your ears when doing this. I’ve found that this takes the edge off and helps the drivers to perform better.

The sound

Okay, I’ll admit it. While I know that Bose is able to get incredible sound out of small drivers, I didn’t think anyone could get the sound that q-JAYS get out of these with drivers this small.

The clarity of the audio is … well I put this down as a “Wow” moment. I was listening to Again by Kutless, which starts off with a scratchy guitar sound, good drums and a vocal echo. For the first time in a long time, this song burst to life for me. The q-JAYS bought the sound to life. I closed my eyes and could almost see the guitarists fingers sliding over the ridges of the strings. The clarity was incredible.

Once I got over this, I started to really listen, to explore different songs from Guns N Roses newest album to POD, throw in a bit of Paul Potts and Brooke Fraser, and a smattering of Carrie Underwood and I felt I had a good range of music to test these out with.

Overall I found the q-JAYS to have a great audio range (don’t worry I’m not going to talk frequencies as for most of us this doesn’t mean much), although I do feel they are a little too high pitched. For music like Paul Potts this is fine, as you want the beautiful highs of the strings, but with POD or Kutless you really want more bass.

I did notice that after a while my ears got used to this. I was talking to an audio engineer about how when I first started using them I noticed the highs. He said “Oh, your ears have gotten used to them, you won’t hear those any more”. He also told me to run my earphones in – hence the tip above about running them at 75% first.

The dual drivers in the q-JAYS are able to deliver clear sound, across different music types with such clarity at times you forget you are wearing such tiny earphones.

Being noise isolating earphones you do have to be careful wearing these if you are walking .. with these in and the music up, you are really hard pressed to hear anything else. If you are crossing the road, or riding a bike while rocking out with q-JAYS, you are going to need to be very attentive.

Any issues or concerns?

I do have a couple of very small issues with the q-JAYS, none that would stop me purchasing these, but ones that you do need to be aware of.

• Cable Length: the q-Jays come with a very short cable length, perfect for say an iPod Nano on your arm. For those with an iPod or iPhone in their pocket you need to use the cable extensions – which end up making the cable way too long.
• Microphonics: this was a word I didn’t know existed before embarking on these reviews. Microphonics is the amount of noise the earphones carry through, say, the cable. The q-JAYS have a great, solid cable, however if you run this down the inside of your shirt to your iPhone, you will get a LOT of scratchy sounds – until of course your music drowns it out. You can fix this by wearing the earphones with the cable going over your ear – but I don’t find that all that comfortable.
• Size: the size is a pro and a con here. I love the fact they sit so comfortably in your ears, however when it comes to taking them out, you struggle to get hold of them and end up using the cable (a big NO NO) to remove them.

So, what are the positives?

q-JAYS are one of those products that come along and change your mind about so many things. Sure I’d had in ear earphones before, sure I’d listened to small speakers, but I was not expecting what I got from the q-JAYS.

• Amazing clear sound: other than being a little pitchy for me (my wife loves them though), the sound clarity is incredible – I’ll go out on a limb and say they probably are the clearest sounding on the market
• Size: they are very small and very comfortable. I can easily wear these for 8+ hours at a time and not get sore ears. They do fit well, and don’t really move around much. Sure once every hour or so you do correct their placement, but I’ve not had them fall out – even during rigorous gardening and mowing the lawns etc.
• Cables: to have not one but TWO extension cables out of the box is fantastic. I love the L shaped connector as it means when the iPhone is in my pocket there is no undue stress on the cable/plug connection.
• Adapters: again to have not one but TWO adapters in this set, just goes to show that JAYS have really thought about who is going to be using their earphones.
• Design and Materials: the materials selected by the JAYS team are great. The plastic casing for the earphones is solid and smooth, rubberised on the back. The cable has a great soft feel too it, and I love the “click” you get when you connect the extensions, great reassuring sound.

Of course I just don’t listen to music, I spend a lot of time listening to spoken word through podcasts etc. So while the treble is great, the mids are smooth and the bass is in your bones, does this transfer to spoken word? In a word – yes. I have a couple of podcasts that with other earphones I have to have turned pretty much right up to distinguish the speakers voice. The q-JAYS clarity comes to the fore here allowing me easily filter out the background noise and hear the speaker.

Summary

Overall I really like these speakers, their clarity is second to none, their range is well thought out and allows you to really experience your music the way it should be listened too. A little too much treble for me, the q-JAYS are a solid contender for our Best of the Best earphone.

q-JAYS, small yet so big

If you are looking for a set of earphones that are small and comfortable to wear, yet deliver big sound, then take a look a the q-JAYS. At US$189.99 they are not the cheapest, but then they are not US$500 like some Shure ones and these will challenge the big brands in this earphone space.

Links

• View our review photos on flickr
• Learn more about q-JAYS @ JAYS.SE
• Purchase q-JAYS @ Amazon.com

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