Jaded. As someone owning ~€10K headphones, it's inevitable to look down not up. Looking way down at today's contenders, I was at a loss about realistic expectations. What's the ±€100 competition at the big chain stores up to these days? Not having shopped them in ages, I had no inkling. I'd take the JT twins at face value, confessing honest shock that today's coin nabs a fully functioning easy-drive planar. That JT7 splits it branding to FiiO above the right ear cup, Jadeaudio on the left. The dynamic JT3 runs tiny FiiO engravings in the centre of each grill, the big Jadeaudio name across the headband. Unlike FiiO's, I thought that J logo unattractive. I was confused too about the parallel branding. Denafrips spawned Musician Audio and Garlubidor as separate entities whose joint roots aren't advertised. When Jadeaudio so obviously are FiiO, what's the purpose or need for a second brand? On mechanics, the planar has monstrous fore/aft swivel, the dynamic none. On up-down swivel the latter does a full 180°, the planar far less though it retaliates with that folding hinge. It parks its channel identifiers on the inner fork attachments and prints them on the inner dust covers whilst the dynamic does them in blue and red on the yoke then repeats the colour scheme on the cable entries. The mix of metal and hard plastic is quite even and the ear pads with oval openings are super soft.

I thought that in the hands the JT3 felt a bit costlier so the extra expense of the JT7 goes to its mostly invisible driver. The JT3 drivers angle but not its pads. With the JT7 it's the opposite. The headband adjustments for both click into place with fine increments and relative to my tall noggin left plenty of up/down margin. Because it folds as shown in the opening collage, the JT7 stows away tidier in a travel bag. Compared to FiiO's new €330 FT13 with its high-gloss Purple Heart cups, the JT siblings feel and look cheaper as the colossal price gap justifies but still solidly made so decidedly not flimsy. Given their price position, I first drove both JT off my Shanling M3 Ultra standing in for equivalent entry-level DAP and dumbphones dangling dongle DACs. I expect that reflected the majority of today's punters. In low gain 4.4mm, the Shanling pushed 50/100 into the JT3 on recordings with proper dynamic range—median levels at least 15dB down—whilst the JT7 sat 20 clicks higher.

To compare the JT models to something other than each other whilst keeping it in the family, enter FiiO's €299 32Ω FT3. Whilst thrice the price, it was as close as my inventory got. The FT3 is physically smaller, its pads have circular not oval openings to more likely touch our ears. The material build is nobler as the higher price demands. That's boilerplate. Here we're just about sonics. First dynamic vs dynamic. Off this DAP, the slightly less efficient JT3 was demonstrably softer so more laid back. Its sounds seemed to emanate from father away. The FT3 was more direct, lit up, forward and resolved, the JT3 more distanced and by contrast subtly opaque or misty. That's my terms for what I believe a speaker designer recently meant when he described certain boutique filter caps as sounding smoky. The JT3's gentler more demure less sparkly mien also meant that it staged a bit smaller. FT3 x JT7 so dynamic vs. planar set up vaguely in the middle though closer to the FiiO. Whilst still being softer, the JT7's presence felt rather less distanced though it was least efficient to notch up the Shanling player's attenuator for higher source voltage. Versus the JT3, the planar outlier of my trio struck me as having higher definition from keener transients, making the $79 dynamic the softie of the bunch. Whilst my subjective sonic hierarchy mirrored the price steps, the small cost increase of the JT7 over the JT3 actually netted bigger audible returns as though it really cost $200 to the FiiO's €299, not its actual $129. This flew in the face of my expectation that in these ±$100 games, the dynamic Jade would have the advantage over what for a planar seems a basement-bargain budget.

I had clearly underestimated FiiO's engineering chops; and perhaps even their scale of AliExpress/Amazon infrastructure where sheer volume can offset lower margins. With egg on my face, it was time to learn what FiiO's very posh FT7 planar buys you aside from an obviously more upscale material mix and far more premium feel: noticeably grander scale; far higher resolution; clearly stronger presence; and more top-down energy and micro detail. The thing is, the fullness of those advantages awaits owners of more bespoke ancillaries than a modest portable player with opamp outputs. Whilst the JT7 won't scale up the same, it's still true that my discrete COS/Kinki DAC-pre/amp separates got rather more from it than the Shanling. What discrete amp did I have which a JT7 shopper just might consider to describe what happens then? Enter aune's €399 N7, a 6.5wpc/32Ω discrete class A champ with laptop-style SMPS brick.