Astell&Kern Billie Jean

In memory of Michael Jackson

The guys from the Korean company iRiver approach both the development of players and the creation of headphones with the same meticulousness. For example, the Billie Jean model was developed together with the famous sound engineer Jerry Harvey, and its feature was a development called Freqphase. It ensures perfect phase coherence of the emitters. This is achieved through the use of waveguides of different lengths, that is, their lengths are calculated in a ratio that virtually eliminates the phase mismatch.

Strongest Kevlar Cable

In addition to phase correction, Astell&Kern engineers have been busy searching for the perfect headphone chamber for a long time, having studied the anatomical shape of the auricles of several hundred men and women of different ages. The capsules turned out to be really comfortable and miniature, they sit perfectly in the ear without causing any discomfort. The headphone cable is a work of art in some ways: its conductors are made of pure silver-plated copper and wound in a spiral around the simplest Kevlar threads. The detachable cord is connected to the cups using two-pin connectors, and a regular 3.5 mm audio cable is used to connect to the source. We don’t know if it will be possible to call Billie Jean “eternal”, but they are unlikely to break quickly. But there is no microphone on the cable, it seems that iRiver decided to distance themselves as much as possible from analogies with a headset.

Monitor sound without reservations

Now about the sound. The headphones are equipped with two balanced armature drivers, one of which sounds the high frequencies, and the second transmits the mid-frequency and bass ranges. And let's say right away that this is the rare case when headphones are suitable not only for listening to music, but also for monitoring. Although nothing surprising, they are almost at the level of the studio classic Sennheiser HD 600. In terms of their sound, they are somewhat similar: Billie Jean also plays very clean and “airy”, with an emphasis on working out the middle and upper frequency spectrum. Well, their detailing is very top-notch, again, this is the level of good overhead headphones for monitoring, and not ordinary Hi-Fi plugs. The only thing they don't do very well is loaded rock songs or orchestral compositions, the armature drivers don't pull out the abundance of instruments and the sound becomes a little washed out.