Jade Audio JD3 Review
A Value King
Pros: + Excellent price to performance ratio
+ Balanced and technically accomplished
+ Clear and well defined sound
+ Mildly warm and musical tuning suitable for all kinds of music
+ Great bass for the size
+ Very comfortable fit
+ Compact and discreet
+ Nice looks
+ Good build quality
+ Carrying pouch and four sizes of silicone eartips
+ Quality cable
Cons: Nothing for the price
The Jade Audio JD3 was provided free of charge in order to provide my subjective and unbiased evaluation of it.
The retail price is only $20 and you can buy it using this not affiliate link FiiO.eu
About Jade Audio
Jade Audio is a subsidiary brand of FiiO that was established in order to focus on the budget line so the parent company could use all their human resources in developing the main catalogue of their products.
The company is built around a team of core members who are subject experts with empirical knowledge in acoustics, focusing on the ultimate exploration of sound quality, with a commitment to independent research and development.
Jade Audio brand aims to create products with core functions and select accessories to provide audio enthusiasts with products of high quality at a competitive price.
The beginning was a little awkward with the release of a couple of discontinued FiiO products that got just rebranded.
It didn’t take long to understand that this practice was leading to a dead end so they decided to get back to the drawing board and start designing from scratch.
Now Jade Audio has released three new products, two earphones and a DAC/amp dongle, the KA3 which strangely is also sold under the FiiO brand name.
The JD3 single dynamic driver iem
The JD3 has a 9.2mm dual-cavity driver that makes for excellent bass transient performance.
In addition there is a specially designed sound reflection-absorbing setup for the JD3, which helps to greatly reduce unwanted sound waves occurring inside the cavity with extremely minimal distortion.
It also features FiiO’s patented system of balanced pressure relief between the front and rear cavities. The result is more natural sound, and more comfortable listening in longer sessions due to greatly minimized pressure on your eardrums when listening.
The JD3’s driver employs a neodymium magnet with high
magnetic flux for ample energy reserves while the voice coil is
made of CCAW, which is lightweight and easy to drive.
Build quality and cable
Build quality is excellent and certainly much better than the humble price would suggest.
The compact, unibody shell is made from stainless steel with very good finish and a beautifully contemporary design.
The left and right earpieces are easily distinguishable thanks to the differently colored blue and red venting patterns.
The JD3 features a cable with line controls, allowing to place calls, control the playback of the music and adjust the volume.
The cable is of good quality with strain reliefs at all critical points and aluminum alloy plugs, it doesn’t get tangled and has just a slight microphonic noise.
Wearing comfort
The JD3 is very compact and lightweight featuring the old classic, “bullet” like shape that is a rarity these days.
As expected the fit is snug, highly discreet and ultra comfortable, the JD3 disappears into the ear and after a while you forget that it is there, an excellent all day companion.
Due to the semi open design the noise isolation is good but not top notch nonetheless it gets the job done in a sufficient way and can be successfully used in noisy environments.
Accessories
The JD3 comes bundled with four different sizes of silicone eartips and a small carrying pouch.
Listening impressions
With an impedance of 16Ω and a sensitivity of 107dB, the JD3 can be used straight out from your mobile phone jack but it is susceptible to noise.
Noise aside, don’t let the humble price fool you as the JD3 can do a lot better and an entry level DAC/amp, like the ddHiFi TC35B or the Periodic Audio Rhodium that I mostly used for the evaluation, is highly recommended.
As per usual practice I left the JD3 playing music for 70-80 hours prior to listening tests.
The sound performance of the JD3 is phenomenal and punches well above the low asking price, in fact you are not going to believe your ears.
The tuning is very balanced, almost reference type, something very rare and unusual at this price point where almost everything sounds like a messed up mix of undefined sounds with generous amounts of boosted bass and treble.
The JD3 is playing some seriously good music, instead of just making a loud fuss to mask the environmental noise.
We are talking about an earphone that is not only suitable for the usual contemporary tunes but it can also be used for listening to more demanding genres like classical music.
Bass is mildly boosted starting from the lower end and gently downsloping to the mids.
Mid – bass is definitely colored but in a very gentle way resulting in a pleasant and warm tuning that is not too focused in this region nor clouds the rest of the frequencies.
Technicalities are held on a good level with quite tight and controlled response where bass sounds clear, textured and well defined.
Mids are a touch recessed when contrasted with the slightly accentuated treble but they don’t lack in presence nor suffocate behind the lines.
On the contrary they sound spacious, clean and well defined with some fine texture and timbre.
Voices might sound a little under – projected but the clarity is exceptional for the price point and there isn’t a single note missing from the mix.
As said above, the treble gets some extra highlight in order to compensate for the warmish tuning and add the necessary sparkle and the needed energy.
The JD3 is fast, not sluggish, with satisfying detail retrieval and while it might struggle a little when it comes to the higher frequencies timbre, which do sound somewhat metallic, it never ends in being too bright or harsh.
Interestingly enough the whole frequency band is presented with the same intensity and equal decaying characteristics, so the JD3 is perceived as coherent and homogeneous.
The soundstage is flat without any significant depth but on the other side it is quite spacious and open with precise imaging, a remarkable job at this price point.
In the end
The Jade Audio JD3 is a fun sounding but technically accomplished earphone.
With great sound, nice looks and excellent build quality it is a hell of an achievement that sets the new standards on price to performance ratio giving it a hard edge against the competition.
Honestly, for $20 this is a must have and every music enthusiast should own one.
Test playlist
Copyright – Laskis Petros 2022.