Joinhandmade Jelly Doux

Pros: Handmade, Artsy, a great gift for creative types
Cons: Too much uncontrolled bass. Average sound quality.
 

 
 

 
Introduction
 
Handmade earphones are a unique and rare item in the audio industry, so I was happy to review the new Jelly Doux for Duong and Joinhandmade out of Vietnam.
 
About me
 
I’m a price/performance value shopper in everything I purchase. I spend an extensive amount of time researching purchases and always look for a good value.
I have also spent many years as an A/V and music enthusiast. I have owned some high end audio equipment, from amps, speakers, subs, to just about anything audio related you can think of. I eventually moved on into building my own DIY custom speakers, as I felt the value and performance of most commercial speakers were lacking. I found out through this process that you could create high end setups from equipment costing thousands less than most branded commercial setups.
Since I cannot play music at 100+db all day and night in an apartment complex, I started looking for similar values in the Headphone/Earphone/IEM world. In a Beats dominated world, I was very disappointed.
I then found out about some excellent headphones/IEMs at great prices being made by Asian companies that are not known of here in the US. It renewed my interest in headphones and became the basis of the Asian audio thread.
 
REVIEW
 
Specifications
8mm Dynamic Driver
Impedance: 16 Ohms
Sensitivity: 113db@1000Hz
Frequency Response: 18 – 21,000 Hz
 
 
Accessories
 

 


Package contents:
Silicon tips (3 Pairs)
Ceramic Case
 


Housing
 


 
The best quality of the Doux is the fact that it is handmade. Available in over 12 different colors and many variations, the Doux is a work of art… fashionable, and eye catching. A hand symbol adorns the right housing (clever). The housing goes through a 26 hour building process, creating individually unique units every time. Each Doux is technically “one of a kind”. Artistic and creative types may appreciate this quality of the Doux.
 
The housing itself is small and looks ceramic due to its highly polished sheen and glisten. Build quality is high, as the housing is very sturdy.
 
 

Cable

 
The Doux’s cable is thin and rope like, covered in fabric to help prevent tangling. It gets the job done, but it isn’t awe inspiring in its design.
 
 
  
Functionality
The fabric/acrylic pad which houses the 3 button controller is nice in design, but poor in practicality. There are no icons showing which button is which, leading to confusion at times. The Doux does work well as a quick “go-to” earphone while you’re on the go as its microphone worked pretty well off my smartphone.
 
 
Fit and Isolation
Due to its small size, the Doux fits perfectly in my ears. They stay firmly in place, and they feel comfortable doing so. They can be used actively without worry. The fit also allows excellent isolation and minimal cord microphonics. 
 
 
Sound Review
Testing Gear (in order of quality)
 
LH Labs Pulse X Infinity 2.0
LH Labs Geek Out V2+ Infinity + Moto X Pure
Moto X Pure
MSI Gaming 7 amped onboard DAC
 
Testing Songs
Random Metal, Rock, EDM, Rap, Top 40, Hip Hop, Blues, and anything else that comes along. I focus on songs I know well to spot differences in frequency amongst a/b comparisons. 
 
Amplifier Needed?
No. The Doux is easily driven and doesn’t benefit much from higher scaling equipment.
 
Sound Signature
V shaped. Lots of bass. Too much. The bass focuses so much on the midbass that it muddies up subbass and midrange frequencies more than it should, despite Joinhandmade’s claims that it does not. A treble boost adds clarity amongst this, while detail and resolution are comparable to other ~$35 sets. It is priced right for the performance.
 
Resolution
Average. Vocals and cymbals are clear and present, yet they are missing the layering and precision of more expensive equipment.
 
Bass
I’m an analytic basshead. I love big deep bass and got excited by the Doux’s deep, thunderous, fun midbass. I quickly realized that it overtook and bled far too much into other frequencies for my liking though. It provide more midrange than older Beats in-ears, but needs eartip swapping to tone the uncontrolled bass down. Go with short, wide bore opening tips for the best results.
 
Midrange
Surprising. Most V shaped, consumer tuned sets miss out on getting midrange right. The Doux does a very good job in keeping the mids at levels they are supposed to be at. This is the strongest asset of the Doux’s sound, and it bests many other similarly priced earphones in this area.
 
Treble
Treble extension is also very good, with obvious small peaks scattered across the frequency range. The treble isn’t too over-emphasized (which I like). A lot of companies do that to create a perceived clarity enhancement, but it actually hurts the overall sound, so I’m very glad Joinhandmade avoided that. The small increase complements the bass and pushes the vocal/cymbal ranges above the bass levels to allow them to be heard. In the process, it creates a bit of fatigue for long term or loud listening. I can’t see myself spending hours engaged in music because of it, but low volume commuting is a perfect scenario where it is beneficial.
 
Soundstage and Imaging
Good. Everything is balanced quite nicely, but separation is a bit hard to notice at times. Instruments can blend with each other due to the bass levels. 
 
Comparisons
There is no comparison in build. The handmade unique nature makes it a collectable work of art. Sound wise, they are similar to many of the $20-35 sets on the market from bigger brand names such as Skullcandy.
 
Conclusion
 
If the Jelly Doux was available sooner, I would have bought several as gifts for friends and my Cousin’s daughters. I appreciate the painstaking process to make these little pieces of art, and I feel that they sound good enough that they warrant the price tag. The Doux is fun and exciting, both in looks and sound.
For future sets, I would like Joinhandmade to focus more on improving the sound quality with better internal drivers and tunings. Another audiophile tuned model in Joinhandmade’s lineup (with nice bass and a good price) would be a welcome edition for those of us who need that extra bit of precision to make us happy.
 
 
The Jelly Doux can be found via their Indiegogo campaign here, with retail versions hitting the market next month:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jelly-doux-redefining-handcraft-earphones#/
 
https://www.joinhandmade.com/

 

Preamble:

Since there are crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, private persons as well as companies have the ability to realise their ideas and products with the financial help and support of the community.
Through this, many interesting concepts have been formed, like for example Echobox Audio who I also support and backed for their DAP, just as I recently reported on my German site (http://kopfhoerer-lounge.blogspot.de/2015/12/Echobox.html).

A new company in the audio business that has really started from zero with their Jelly Galaxy in-ears crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in the beginning of this year is Joinhandmade. With the Jelly Doux in-ears (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jelly-doux-redefining-handcraft-earphones/x/12951541#/, https://www.joinhandmade.com/vi-vn/Jelly-Doux.html), the Vietnamese company has introduced their second crowdfunded product.
Joinhandmade’s goal is to create fancy, customisable and well-built products that are (according to their statement) also supposed to fit people with really small ears (like for example Asian females and children).
More than 80% of the production process is handmade and takes at least 48 hours, according to Joinhandmade. An edgeless unibody design with sublime build quality is the company’s main goal and design philosophy.
Besides the regular version of the Jelly Doux (retail price after the campaign: ~ $35) which is available in 12 colours and two different cables, there is also a “Vogue Edition” (retail price after the campaign: ~ $55) which offers additional colours, cables and even more refined custom individualisation and colour options for every single piece (in-ear bodies, y-split, remote control, 3.5 mm plug) and the remote can be individualised with a custom text (up to 12 letters).

After Joinhandmade’s Lam Cam Duong contacted me and asked if I was interested in checking out their in-ears, I accepted after some initial hesitation.
Just as usual, my review reflects my actual thoughts and opinion on the product.
 

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Technical Specifications:

Drivers: 8 mm, dynamic
handmade


Delivery Content:

My evaluation sample arrived in the Jelly Galaxy’s brown cardboard box; the packaging of the Jelly Doux’s retail version as well its included accessories may and will vary.
Included was a really nice, handcrafted carrying case (more about that further below) as well as three valuable, sturdy thick silicone tips.

Here, I also want to give out a huge thanks to the German Customs Clearance who raped blemished the package, just like back then with my iBasso DX90 (this sentence might contain cynicism). Seriously, one can be a little more careful when opening the box and losing or destroying included things either on purpose or accidentally (just like the DX90’s warranty card and black sleeve) is not the way to go.

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Looks, Feels, Build Quality:

Not much surprising, the in-ears’ bodies, y-split as well as the 3.5 mm connector are valuable, well-made and contain many small metallic particles in their nicely polished surface. The left side has got Joinhandmade’s signature feature, a white hand which is also there to identify the left side.
The remote control with three buttons (which does not follow the Apple Layout) is halfway made of the same valuable plastic composite, but the side with the buttons is covered with coloured cloth that does not appear valuable at all.

The cable is also something that does not really fit to the nice finish: it doesn’t only lack any strain relief, but also feels cheap and its coating is far away from the DUNU Titan 1’s really good fabric coating and seems rather as cheap as the Awei ES-Q5’s cable. A standard rubber cable would likely have been the better solution, honestly. At least, that cable is quite flexible but lacks a chin-slider.

The carrying case is a small highlight for me: it is very sturdily made, consists of the same valuable plastic composite with metallic particles and has got holders for all of the excellent ear-tips. Solely the short threads are a bit loose, wherefore the lid may unscrew unintentionally – longer, “real” threads would have been better suiting.


The in-ear bodies themselves are valuable, the cable (which might also fray over time) unfortunately isn’t.
 

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Comfort, Isolation:

The housings are really small, wherefore the promise that the in-ears also fit “Asian females and children” will most likely hold true.
The silicone-tips are thick-walled, flexible and really comfortable, wherefore they are something that really helps with the excellent fit.
Well, there is at least one benefit of the cable’s cloth coating: even with the “classical” wearing style (cable straight down), microphonics are barely present.

Isolation is really good and clearly better than upper mediocrity, but a slice below fully closed in-ears.


Sound:

For listening, my main devices were the iBasso DX90 as well as my iPhone 4 that was jailbroken optimised for music playback. Music was mostly stored in FLAC and WAV format.
Just in case, the in-ears were burnt in before listening.

Tonality:

Beforehand, the sound is obviously consumer-oriented, but quite well made.

The in-ears are clearly bass-heavy, like most models in this price range.
Mid- and sub-bass feature the strongest emphasis with about 15 dB; upper bass and lower ground-tone are also quite strongly emphasised, but audibly somewhat less. From 100 Hz up, level starts evenly decreasing in my ears up to 500 Hz where a normal level is being reached. As a result of the strong bass emphasis, it is not much surprising that the middle ground-tone is emphasised as well (that’s unavoidable with such a hefty sub- and mid-bass emphasis), but of much lesser amount than with most other bass-heavy in-ears. Thus, sound gains some richness, but doesn’t become unnecessarily phat or thick and lacks boominess in the ground-tone.
The area around the mids is very clean and tonally correct in my ears, which is really nice to see (/hear) at this low price point. The presence area is not really recessed in my ears.
The following treble is only little in the background and very even. The small emphasises which are however still below ground-level at 3, 5 and 9 kHz are very broad-banded and therefore not obtrusive. Super treble extension is good.

With songs that concentrate on sub-bass, there is a fair amount of “cellar rumble”; despite the bass-heavy emphasis, it is well made and evenly matches the overall sound: the Jelly Doux lack the typical ground-tone bloat many bass-heavy headphones have. As a result, mids aren’t unnecessarily thick or warm.
Mids are surprisingly correct and treble is a bit more on the gentle side, but very even, wherefore it appears natural and lacks any metallic or veiled tendency.

Tonally, the Jelly Doux goes a bit into the direction of the Zero Audio Carbo Tenore and has got its main bass emphasis on the sub- and mid-bass. Though, this emphasis is even a bit stronger on the Jelly Doux. In the mids and highs, I find the Jelly Doux somewhat better tuned than the Carbo Tenore which is a bit peaky in the (especially midle) treble.

Here is a frequency response out of my IEC 711-like pseudo-calibrated Vibro Veritas with applied diffuse-field target:


 

This graph also matches what I hear for most parts.

Resolution:

For the price, overall resolution is on an appropriate level and isn’t any worse than other similarly priced models like the Carbo Tenore, despite the hand-crafted bodies. Though, one shouldn’t expect much more than a $35-level resolution.
As the bass (especially in its lower regions) is strongly emphasised, it somewhat strains the drivers and makes the lows appear a bit soft and slow, but not blunt or uncontrolled. Still, for the price, the bass is more than okay and retains a good control even with fast and complex music.
Although voices are away from sounding like behind a curtain, this area of the mids could be more detailed.
Treble sounds natural, even and quite well differentiated, although upper treble sparkling could have a bit more differentiation.

But as I said, for the price, detail retrieval is spot-on, though not much more, but fortunately also not any less.

Soundstage:

The imaginary soundstage is about average in terms of dimensions, but appears “round” and has a really good depth-to-width-ratio.
For the price, instrument separation in the sound-field is very precise and layering is decent as well.


Conclusion:

Sonically, the Jelly Doux are definitely worth the asked price, but no uber-value secret insider’s tip. Tonality is quite bass-heavy, but at the same time well done: the emphasis concentrates mainly on the mid- and sub-bass and doesn’t have too much unnecessary ground-tone bloom, as the emphasis stops at around 500 Hz and doesn’t really add thickness to voices. Positively, voices are also not too overshadowed and appear tonally correct. Mids as well as highs are very even and lack any dips or steep peaks, what I really appreciate. For the asked price, overall control is good; soundstage is not larger than average, but convincing and has got a really balanced ratio between width and depth.

Sonically, there is nothing much to criticise (keeping the price in mind) – the bass could be a bit faster and the mids slightly better resolving, but that was it. The IEM bodies themselves are very well finished and built, but the cable is annoying and doesn’t fit in: it doesn’t match the valuable bodies, has no strain relief at all and the in-line remote control feels cheap either. Yes, the cable lowers the overall rating and impression, but at least the in-ears offer solid value for the money and really nice and hand-crafted bodies.
My overall rating of the Jelly Doux is still good 3.75 out of 5 possible stars but could have been even better with a more appropriate cable.