Joyaudio Shine Review
Introduction
The Joyaudio Shine are an ‘Inspiration of Light & Shadow’ according to their listing on the Linsoul website and upon unboxing. This single dynamic driver and double balanced armature hybrid earphone is sold at a competitive RRP of $79.99 and comes into one of the most crowded segments of the IEM market sporting one of the most common driver setups in this ear as well. One standout feature is the ability to switch your preferences using 4 different physical tuning switches on the earphone itself. Will this earphone hold up in this market, or will it fall flat like many others before it?
Taken from listing on https://www.linsoul.com/products/joyodio-shine
Unboxing Experience
These earphones come with a really nice and solid box, holding more accessories than expected at this price point. You get a stock set of silicone tips on the earphone out of the box, along with 2 different sets of ear tips. The stock cable is decent, nothing special but not bad either. They also come with a really solid pleather carrying case and the tuning adjustment needle. There is a sort of cheat sheet supplied with the earphones to show what the different tuning settings are roughly meant to represent.
The earphones themselves are really well-built. They have a shiny face plate and feel solid in the hand. The tuning switches don’t feel flimsy or fragile and leave a satisfying click upon being engaged with the tuner. The shell is slightly opaque, giving a neat view of the large dynamic driver.
Listening Experience
The Shine present a really interesting option at this price point and the number 1 thing which strikes me about these earphones is the excellent treble and soundstage. I’ll mainly be reviewing this earphone with the stock tuning in mind and will leave a section below for the rest of the tuning settings. Overall I’d say they have a balanced presentation with a small highlight in the treble and upper midrange area.
Bass
Relatively quick and accurate. These will not blow your socks off with much energy but keep the presentation solid. The low end decays fast and on time. Each bass note hits with enough energy to satisfy a keen listener, but does not take centre stage in this earphone. I’d consider this a more mature presentation of bass, far and away from most consumer level earphones.
What’s a bit more impressive is the sub-bass layering within tracks. It’s elevated enough to round out rock tracks and bass guitars get a great showing on these earphones.
Mids
Midrange is handled generally well. String instruments shine in the mix and are presented cleanly. Since bass is not overtly present, the Shine allows most of the other instruments to take the stage and does a great job of displaying each note being played.
Perhaps a slight weakness of these earphones is that vocal presentation isn’t very forward. Instruments are leaned on slightly more here, so you don’t feel the same intimacy with vocalists as you might with some other earphones. That being said, vocals are still really smooth and enjoyable.
Treble
A strong performance in the treble department. Highs ring out pretty clearly in this earphone. The hybrid drivers are handled really well and the frequency crossover is a non-issue. Cymbals ring clearly without any sibilance and are really a joy to listen to.
Soundstage & Imaging
One of the highlights of this earphone is the spacious and airy presentation. It shows off some great technicalities which are usually found in higher priced earphones. Tracks which make use of
space stand out really well. You’ll feel the notes hit all the way to the back of the chamber and while not quite open-backed headphones, the Shine present soundstage in an impressive manner.
Tuning Switch Profiles
These earphones have 4 tuning switches which can individually be flipped to ‘On’. This technically creates an earphone with 16 different listening settings. Not all of these profiles are very enjoyable to use, however, and as for the difference in listening experience, I would not rank these very highly. I’ll highlight the profiles I felt most enjoyable or different enough from the stock setting:
- 1 On (Bass increase): Bass slightly elevated but doesn’t completely solve the slightly weaker bass of this earphone. Nice to change things up.
- 1 2 3 4 On (Pop setting): Really just makes everything slightly louder and a bit shouty in the treble region. If you can handle higher highs, this is not too big of an issue and relatively enjoyable for pop music
Conclusion
The Joyaudio Shine are an excellent option in this price category. They are a really solid balanced earphone which offers a more mature listening experience rarely found in the sub $100 department. I’d recommend these to anyone wanting something different from regular consumer IEMs which usually have elevated bass. They also have really good soundstage for IEMs which make the listening experience more interesting and enjoyable.
One caveat I have about these earphones is they are relatively difficult to drive. Compared to a lot of earphones at this price point, I noticed a significant improvement using a balanced output with more power when listening to these earphones. This presents a slight asterisk when recommending these earphones as not every entry-level consumer who would purchase earphones at this price point would have access to higher powered listening equipment.