Jerry Harvey Audio Roxanne In-Ear Monitor Review

April 19, 2018 7:32 pm

Baby you can driver my headphones. There aren’t very many in ear monitors with 12 drivers out there. 64 Audio’s U12t comes to mind. Jerry Harvey’s Layla and Lola have 12 as well. Indeed, JH is a headphone genius, and this becomes clear as I drool over the Roxanne. Let’s see why I’m peeing my pants right now in this Jerry Harvey Audio Roxanne In Ear Monitor Review.

Jerry Harvey Audio Roxanne In-Ear Monitor Review

IN the BOX – Jerry Harvey Audio Roxanne In-Ear Monitor Review

Carrying Case

Wax Tool

Screw Driver, used to adjust the variable bass

Foam ear tip molds (S, M, L)

Silicone tips (S, M, L)

FIT – Jerry Harvey Audio Roxanne In-Ear Monitor Review

I found the Roxanne easy to fit into my ears. The housing looks bulky, but they’re very light, and the memory wire hooked over my ears without problems. I didn’t use the foam ear molds, just the silicone ones. Still, they had a great seal and definitely cut out a lot of outside noise.

DESIGN and FEATURES – Jerry Harvey Audio Roxanne In-Ear Monitor Review

12 friggin’ drivers – quad low, quad mid and quad high. The only other JH Audio IEM with this many drivers is the Layla, which sells for a whopping $2725.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got ringing in my ears from too much rocking out and accidentally blasting amps here and there. Eric Clapton is half deaf. Even ol’ Phil Collins had to give up his career partially because of hearing difficulties. It’s certainly an occupational hazard. JH has us covered by offering -26dB of isolation, thus, partially eliminating stage volume and ambient noise. We can now listen at lower levels, which I know isn’t that fun. But it’s more fun than being deaf.

These babies have an adjustable bass output located on the cable. Great for drummers and bass-heads. The cable has a 4 pin connection with a locking collar and a 3.5mm, gold-plated input connector.

The Roxanne has Triple Bore with Freqphase Stainless Steel Tube Waveguide. What the freq does that mean? Freqphase ensures precision of time and phase of multiple drivers. The Waveguide makes sure that each driver signal arrives within 0.01 milliseconds. The result is a phase coherent/synchronized IEM. Listen, I’m not a mathematics professor. Let’s move on.

SOUND – Jerry Harvey Audio Roxanne In-Ear Monitor Review

Fast, accurate and adaptable with absolutely no stridency. If you’re a musician using these for performing, it doesn’t matter what instrument you play, you can find the perfect fit in terms of sound. If you’re just a crazy audiophile, you’ll also find your sweet spot. That’s what she said.

Lows

If you listen to the headphones at the factory setting, the headphones feel bassy. Crank it up to full bass level and you almost drown out the rest of the mix. There’s a purpose to this. Attention drummers and bass players, these are made for you too. And if you listen to pop or hip-hop at the highest bass level, you’ve got huge subwoofers in your ears. When you turn the bass to the lowest level, these genres still sound fantastic. The warm, very full bass turns into an impressively clear and dry sound. So, the bass feels great at both extremes, just different. Wow.

Mids

Here, I stopped fiddling around with the bass and left the setting in middle. It’s rich and incredibly well balanced in this range, but no grating upper mid emphasis. I also love the dryness and grip of the Roxanne. There’s definitely a ton of accuracy, and it has a crazy transient response. Vocals have the perfect level of presence. That is there’s no artificial forwardness. And to be abundantly clear, it’s very, very snappy. Percussion sounds phenomenal. The sound signature is comparable to the Westone W40, but dryer and a lot faster with a much greater range, of course. The separation is solid, but at time became a little congested when listening to the fuller anthemic rock styles, like the Bleachers.

Highs

I decided to try out a little folk and classical music to get a sense of the highs. Again, this is a beautifully balanced headphone. There’s no annoying brightness, but there’s no glaring sense of roll-off. So, it’s perfect for stage use. Fatigue free. Listening to a little Simon & Garfunkel, the high vocals sounded silky smooth. The same was true when listening to soprano choirs. I tried out a live recording of Here Comes the Sun, and the acoustic guitar was super sweet. Again, very precise, but no abrasiveness at all. And the separation in this range was more impressive than it was in the mids.

Soundstage

I expected the soundstage on the Roxanne to be huge. It’s not infinite, but certainly wide and deep enough to be considered grand and brimming with gravitas. Imaging feels spot on as well.