What is the mystical “Hi-Res Audio” label anyway?
First of all: it is NOT HRA (High Resolution Audio), but the similarity was not chosen entirely unintentionally. The JAS (Japan Audio Society), as the leading organization behind the label first used by Sony on its own record player years ago, prescribes for analogue devices that headphones (which are the focus here) should achieve a “speaker and headphone performance of 40 kHz or above”. This label is not “awarded”, you simply have to pay for it.
How many people have been seduced by this seemingly shiny seal, believing they were receiving a superior product? Well, it’s time to debunk the myth. Firstly, what does “Hi-Res Audio” really mean in the context of the JAS? It’s a definition that requires the product to be capable of reproducing frequencies of 40 kHz or more. But I have to chime in: when was the last time a reader heard a frequency of 40 kHz? No one can, because the human ear can usually only perceive up to 20 kHz (often much less). So why a label that is based on a capability that we as humans can’t even use?
Because the JAS does not say anything about the actual playback quality and the required parameters, but simply raises the upper limit of the frequency range to double that of conventional transducers, without specifying any tolerance limits. What then really sounds good, each company can decide for itself: “Listening evaluation process is added and final decision as Hi-Res Audio product to be proved according to each company’s sound evaluation standard”. But as always, we will of course listen for ourselves, measure and judge objectively.
This leads to a lot of misunderstandings and misdirections. While the JAS Hi-Res Audio certificate suggests that the certified product delivers superior sound quality, this is not necessarily the case. A headphone or speaker can be as high-resolution at the frequencies as it likes, if it is poorly designed or tuned, it will still sound bad. Moreover, one should bear in mind that not all Hi-Res Audio certified products are the same. Some may indeed be able to reproduce 40 kHz or more, but the quality and type of reproduction varies greatly. Some may only be able to reproduce these frequencies with heavy noise or distortion. A certificate says nothing about the quality, it merely states that a certain technical specification was somehow achieved.
What frustrates me most is that many consumers believe that when they buy a Hi-Res Audio certified product, they automatically get a better audio experience. But this is simply not the case. There are so many other factors that influence sound quality, such as the quality of the recording, the mastering, the source of the audio material, and not least one’s own hearing. The JAS Hi-Res Audio certificate is essentially just a nasty marketing tool.
It says little to nothing about the actual quality of the product and it misleads consumers by pretending they are getting something they can’t actually get. It’s high time we clarify the truth behind these certificates and encourage consumers to base their purchasing decisions on facts and real quality, not on shiny labels. Because in the end, you even pay for them.
And as if all that wasn’t enough: without the USB sound solution or the SwitchMix, the headset does not meet these specs, because then even 20 kHz are miles away. Directly connected, there is nothing that could drive a bat to orgasms. But more on that later in the measurements. And no, my HiFiMAN EF400 doesn’t achieve that with the Relay either, neither on NOS (Non-Oversampling, where the signal is not upscaled for finer gradation of the individual sampling stages) nor the upscaled OS (Oversampling). There is simply nothing.
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