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Author Topic: JVC HA-RX700 - Review and Measurements  (Read 3112 times)

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Hands

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JVC HA-RX700 - Review and Measurements
« on: July 03, 2014, 02:05:37 PM »

JVC HA-RX700 Subjective Impressions

The JVC HA-RX700 is (Was? I rarely check Head-Fi anymore.) a popular budget headphone that is regularly available for $30-35. I remember it coming onto the scene around 2008/2009. While my first "nice" set of headphones was a Grado SR-60, which I ended up not caring for, the JVC was the first headphone to really get me interested in the headphone hobby. I sold my original pair years ago, but I decided to pick up another for kicks after seeing some measurements on a Russian site (personalaudio.ru).

The JVCs come in simple packaging but look and feel nicer than most other budget headphones. They can be a bit creaky, but they don't feel like they will fall apart anytime soon. They are fairly comfortable and have a really nice headband. The ear pads feel a bit cheap and thin, nor are they the easiest to get a seal with due to their design, fit, and material used. If you don't position them right, your ear will probably touch the baffle/driver. Still, given all this and their light weight, they're fairly comfortable overall and easy to drive.

When I gave them a listen, I had two immediate thoughts. First, these have some noticeable channel balance issues. At least male vocals sounded centered, I suppose. Second, I actually thought they sounded pretty good overall. I had to really fiddle with the fit to sort of balance the channels out, though there's only so much you can do with this headphone.

Imbalances aside, I felt these headphones to have a decent balance that was on the warmer side. On the other hand, they can sound balanced, harsh, splashy, hollow, and veiled at the same time, trending towards being more on the veiled side overall.

After a bit of listening, it's evident these are ringing somewhere in the 3-5KHz region. This is not very apparent on all music, but when you find a track where it is obvious, it's hard to ignore. I can't say I found it hard on my ears or horrible sounding, but it was a bit annoying at times. I'm usually sensitive to this but wasn't so much with the JVC.

Bass extension, power, and clarity are all acceptable, but I do feel they may roll off at the very last octave. Despite the downsides I mentioned above, they do seem to have some decent resolving power at times. It's sort of a mixed bag, but I'm thinking the issues cover up some of its technical abilities.

These offer very little isolation and sound fairly open and have a good sense of air for being closed. They might actually be semi-open.

Overall, I felt these are pretty good for the price, though the channel imbalances are hard to ignore even if these are a budget pair of headphones. Other than that, the subjective issues I noticed don't hurt my ears and might be acceptable at this price point.

Measurements

Note: Harmonic distortion measurements changed when exporting to CSV. See later attached ARTA graph to get a better idea how they perform with distortion (pretty good, actually).

Ah, these explain a lot. Channel imbalances are quite poor and very noticeable. At least the overall characteristics are similar, so mods might be able to address this (curious if it's the single-ended wiring differences or just driver inconsistencies). Frequency response is pretty good from 40Hz-2KHz. Decent response after 10KHz, but there's a big suckout in the treble before there that subjectively didn't sound quite as bad as measurements would indicate.

Distortion is generally pretty good, though there is a bit of elevation below 100Hz. Not much to worry about. The distortion spikes around 7-10KHz don't look good at all. Interestingly enough, when viewing the graphs in ARTA, these weren't present. I should have grabbed screenshots when I had the chance. I'm not sure what changed when exporting it to a CSV other than maybe not applying smoothing or being more precise than what the ARTA graph can show visually (at least at the window size I was looking at). I'm sure measuring artifacts are playing a role as well.

CSDs show a nasty amount of ringing between 4-5KHz, though subjectively this wasn't as bad as it looks. CSDs are fairly clean after that point.

I do want to note I have to use compensation in the bass, or else I get bass-light results. If I compensate based on pure hardware calibrations, I get too much bass (weird, but it is what it is). I do still occasionally tweak this, but it should be fairly close. Just wanted to point that out for anyone looking at the raw measurements (I also tweak the 2-5KHz and 10KHz+ areas).

Final Thoughts and Upcoming

The channel imbalances can't be ignored, though I could have a particularly bad unit in this area. Otherwise, I thought these have a lot of good characteristics for their price, and their issues aren't as subjectively bad as measurements might make you think.

But all of you know I'm not going to settle for a stock, budget headphone like this. I'm going to see what some simple mods can bring to the table on this headphone. It has a nice big enclosure and easy-to-work-with design that make modding easy. So, next on the table will be some modding attempts and results from that. Let's see how far this $35 headphone can be taken.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2014, 06:52:14 AM by hans030390 »
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Re: JVC HA-RX700 - Review and Measurements
« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2014, 08:28:07 PM »

I remember the RX700 hype days. Thing is, even knowledgeable HF-members liked this headphone. Some said "fuck it", my expensive Denon does fewer things right than this headphone so there goes the Denon.

Apparently the RX900 was even better sounding according to some.
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Re: JVC HA-RX700 - Review and Measurements
« Reply #2 on: July 03, 2014, 09:54:05 PM »

They look great for a $30 set of cans! Thanks Hans!!!
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Re: JVC HA-RX700 - Review and Measurements
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2014, 01:58:02 AM »

Never heard these.  Only the FX700 which had an extra '0' on the end of the pricetag.  That one was a crème de la crème hype IEM for awhile.  Had some very good and unique attributes apart from the horrible mids.
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JVC HA-RX700 - Mods, Impressions, Quick Measurements
« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2014, 04:16:16 PM »

I wanted to share some quick thoughts after modding the HA-RX700 along with very brief measurements. I'll provide complete measurements and mod details tomorrow, though I'm not using any unheard of mod techniques (Creatology adhesive foam galore, foam damping, etc.). And that's a good thing, because these can be cheaply and easily modded with great results.

After mods, the mids and treble are noticeably more filled and even. Ringing seems dramatically reduced. The JVC is much cleaner and blacker sounding now, though there is still a bit of warmth. Very nicely balanced overall.

They seem to have less air and a more intimate soundstage now (still pretty good), but, on the other hand, the cleaner, blacker, and more dynamic sound easily make up for that. Much snappier sounding, and the resolving abilities show through more readily now. These are actually fairly good at resolving small details while retaining liveliness and dynamics.

I'm not sure what my measurements will show, but these might be a tad bit hot and uneven sounding compared to much nicer headphones. Also hard to place my finger on exactly what it is that is ever so slightly bothering me (definitely tolerable), but I could just be imagining things. Really, pretty good in this area. I do like how much crisper these sound with mods. I might try some further damping tweaks on the front side of the headphone.

I find these do quite well with vocals, especially male vocals. Female vocals might be a touch withdrawn, though it could have been the recording I tried.  Bass extension is about the same, i.e. the very last octave is a bit rolled. I really liked how well these headphones could keep up with fast drumming, subjectively.

Channel balances sound noticeably better, especially once the pads warm up and comfort better to my gross head. We'll see what complete measurements say later. Something is still off about them, though, in that the right channel can be a bit louder and/or have more bass, but it would appear to be highly mitigated with mods. On many tracks it is almost within the realm of not being a problem at all. Sometimes imperceptible. I identified a couple areas that were physically different on both sides of the headphone when modding, which I'll detail later.

I really like how the HA-RX700 sounds after mods. I just wish the channels matched more closely. But, for the low cost and simplicity of the mods I used (stock pads are good enough to keep around, for one), I think these are a bargain in the end and sound genuinely good...not just good for the price. I think these capture a nice sense of realism, and in one particular listening scenario, I did find myself thinking nothing but "...fvck." at how well it was keeping up with the music and engaging me in listening.

As a teaser, or whatever you want to call it, I'm posting some very quick left channel FR/HD and CSD measurements. Calibrated to ~90dB at 1KHz. Noticeable improvements across the board. I'll take more measurements and post them tomorrow morning. Didn't feel like exporting this to a CSV and making graphs from that.
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Moar Mod Measurements
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2014, 01:43:17 PM »

Well, it has become clear to me that ARTA is doing something weird with the exported CSV files. I'll toss up the measurements with the distortion results anyway, since I already generated them. The general characteristics are the same, so they hold some use, but the CSV numbers simply don't match the graphs in ARTA itself (generally characteristics in CSV are exaggerated). Compare the left channel with the quick measurement I put up in my last post. The ARTA graph show great distortion characteristics, and the CSV exported version just gets weird. I checked to make sure the original files were the culprit, and not an error on my part, so I will see if a new version of ARTA corrects the export process. Just keep this in mind when looking at the distortion results, as you can get a sense of how the distortion should measure on the right channel if comparing the quick measurement above and the one below from the CSV file. I think everything else comes out OK...

The area from 100Hz-4KHz is roughly the same. The two channels match much more closely below 50Hz, though most other areas show a similar level of imbalance as before. I still think it subjectively sounds noticeably improved over stock in this regard. I suppose this sort of variation can be expected at $30. The area above 4KHz is decently filled out and smoother relative to the stock response. This along with the slightly improved bass response makes the biggest difference in the end. If you refer to my previous FR/HD measurement (the ARTA style one), you'll see distortion is quite good.

CSDs look noticeably better. The left channel cleaned up nicely. The right channel improved but still shows ringing. Subjectively, I did not find this to be a problem.

The upper end of the FR can be boosted if a particular front damping mod I applied were to be removed, but I found this headphone to sound a bit harsh if the treble response was more evenly balanced. Less problematic if the treble is pushed down a touch. YMMV. In this configuration, they're not too far off the tonal balance of the PM-1, but subjectively much less boring and stifling (wider, more air, better sense of treble and clarity, more bass, etc.). I'm sure they could be taken further with more advanced mods than what I did.

I think the TH-02 might have less issues overall as a budget headphone, but I still think the HA-RX700 provides a damn good sound at $30 + cheap modding materials. Hell, I just thought they sounded pretty good, not perfect, regardless of price. The JVC is certainly quite comfortable, and with the TH-02, I couldn't get the stock pads to work for me. While I could more easily get a smooth, balanced response from the TH-02, having to use different pads did make the mod more complicated and more expensive in the end. If you're in the mood to tinker with a good $30 headphone, consider adding the HA-RX700 to your list...you might actually find you really enjoy the sound after mods. I'm just hoping most other pairs aren't as imbalanced as mine...
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Re: JVC HA-RX700 - Review and Measurements
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2014, 04:52:13 PM »

Wow. The "damped" version actually measures pretty well! The only headphones I've tried from JVC are their basshead SZ2000s (which I sold), the SZ1000 (which I have) and the HP-DX700 (which I just sold and shipped). Overall, I like their sound but find all of these a bit "veiled", too warm for my tastes. Seems this "warmness" is part of their sound though.

Thanks for the measurements and impressions! :)
Would you care to share pics on the mods?
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