John
Debuting at the Fujiya Avic headphone festival in Tokyo this weekend is a new A&K-branded IEM from Jerry Harvey.
The Billie Jean continues the songs-about-women theme laid down by the Siren series – Rosie (reviewed here), Angie, Roxanne and Layla – to put a pair of balanced armature drivers inside an earpiece that’s reportedly 32% smaller than the 3-way Michelle Limited – see photos below.
Jerry Harvey explains more in this video:
From the press release: “The Dual BA drivers have been carefully tuned with the patented technologies of Jerry Harvey Audio including Freqphase™ and Time | Phase Waveguide. A new Acoustic Chamber Sound Bore opens up the higher notes and lets them shine even more by controlling the air movement volume in the ear-pieces. This also prevents any artefacts in the sound production.”
A&K/JH’s Billie Jean is manufactured by Astell&Kern in South Korea and will begin shipping in May with an RRP of US$349, continuing the trend of high-end IEM manufacturers now catering to those on more limited budgets.
The Fujiya Avic headphone festival runs twice annually at the Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo. Readers are invited to dive into our extensive video coverage from 2015 here and 2016 here and here.
Further information: Astell&Kern
[Photos: Alex An]
