REVIEW: Jamo In40i wEAR earphones

Name: in40i wEAR earphones (Jamo)

Type: In-ear earphones

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £90

Jamo may be best known for creating top-end home audio speakers and home cinema sets, but this summer sees them branching out into earphone manufacturing too. Made up of three sets including the In20m and In30, we took a look at their wEAR range’s premium pair, the wEAR In40i earphones. Can they match the quality that Jamo owners Klipsch’s earphones regularly present? Read on to find out.

Jamo’s knack for a good looking set of speakers continues here, albeit scaled down, with the Jamo In40i earphones. Available in black or white, we had a look at a white pair, finding the earphone’s grey accents to be unassumingly pleasing. Comfort isn’t something that really factors often into home speaker design, but Jamo have made a really snug pair here for their first earphone attempt, where comfort really matters. Nice and light, with 4 different sized oval tips to better match all ear shapes, they seal out external sound magnificently, hooking into the ear in a way that lets you almost forget that they are there.

Packaged with a small and functional nylon carry case, you’ve got about 132cm of white cabling to play around with, with a 3 button in-line mic/remote combo sitting a quarter of the way down from the ear buds. Designed specifically for Apple iPod players and iPhones, it’ll let you skip tracks, answer calls, pause music and adjust volume without reaching into your pocket for your iDevice, and is positioned sensibly enough to be able to see the buttons should you forget which one controls what. It’ll also work in a more limited way with other phone brands, letting you pause tracks and answer and end calls. The mic itself performed well, keeping voice intelligible and picking up only marginal ambient sound, making it a viable headset for handsfree callers.

In terms of sound, we were initially a little disappointed with the In40i earphones. They seemed flat and flabby, lacking the detail necessary to command a £90 price tag. However, given a few hours longer than usual to warm up the wEAR In40i earphones began to flourish.

Though hardly lacking in bass, the earphones sit a little further towards the brighter end of the sound scale, leading to a crisp and defined sound, particularly well suited to classical tracks and getting clear dialogue on top of film soundtracks. Cranking them up for the scuzzy sounds of garage rockers The Von Bondies’ Pawn Shoppe Heart album, the earphones proved just as well balanced, with the wiry guitars blending well with the bass tracks and slap of the drums. Heading over to the 8-bit electro beats of the second Crystal Castles album and again the clear detailed tones shined through, handling the sharp, sparse production with distortion-free high frequencies, sounding just as great as the blues-y rock that proceeded it. The dual magnet driver design is certainly put to good use here, once given the chance to settle in a little.

Verdict:

A stellar first effort from the Klipsch subsidiary, the Jamo In40i earphones are very nearly a match for the superb Image X10i set from Klipsch themselves, despite costing less than half the price. Comfortable and light, with a warm, balanced sound if you’re patient enough to wait out an initially rough couple of hours, they’ll please all but the most anal of audiophiles.