Headphones

A hybrid design using balanced armatures with 8mm dynamic driver configuration, the Rock Jaw Resonate comes with three tuning filters and MMCX detachable cables. A good selection of ear tips is also provided to ensure a good fit. Build quality is solid and the slightly larger than usual design can also be flipped 180° and the cable wrapped over and around the back of the ears. It’s compatible with iOS and Android devices and has an inline universal remote plus a built-in microphone. 

Find the right fit
It takes some time to select my preferred tuning filter, but I settle on the one coloured green called Energy for its overall frequency balance after finding Fusion (yellow) and Emotion (blue) too unbalanced in frequency and soundstage presentation. Though this is the better-balanced tuning filter, it’s still not the most neutral. Bass is nicely taught with good energy and David Guetta’s One Love (feat. Estelle) is fun, but the vocal sounds shut in and lacks midband presence. It’s a similar story with a Tidal Masters stream of Hold Up by Beyoncé. Bass depth is pretty seismic, but it sacrifices vocal clarity and the performance doesn’t have the hemisphere of sound in front of my head that this track is capable of. 

The Resonate shows off recordings with higher bit-rates extremely well, but it won’t mask low bit-rate files or mediocre playback sources. Partnered with a quality music player and lossless or hi-res material, the Rock Jaw rewards
at the price. LD 
 

DETAILS
Price: £125  
Telephone: 01530 830426
Website: rockjawaudio.com  

Read the full reveiw in issue 423