House of Marley Smile Jamaica – Review

House of Marley Smile Jamaica

House of Marley Smile Jamaica

| 9 mm Driver |



? The House of Marley Smile Jamaica are some nicely designed wooden earphones with aluminum details and woven cables. You might or might not have heard of House of Marley but it is a company that mostly develops earphones and speakers with an often wood centered design. When you hear/read the brand name probably you associated it with Bob Marley and that isn’t far from being accurate as it is an audio company of Bob Marley’s son that intends to compete with other big commercial brands such as Beats, JBL, SOUL, Skullcandy, etc.

The House of Marley Smile Jamaica are combined with recyclable aluminum details, a woven cable and a FSC certified wood. The result is a very small sized earphone with solid construction and top quality materials. The wooden housings have a very smooth finish and an overall premium look, inside they hold a fairly sized 9 mm dynamic driver.

We have reviewed other wooden earphones in the past and in general wood showed to be an optimum construction material for sound quality, for example see the GeekRover iEPW020/021 which is made of Cherrywood (an exception would be the Kubite T-003M that showed a pretty poor performance during our tests). T

he woven cables offer good tangle resistant capabilities while remaining pleasing to the touch. Moreover the cable has a 1 button inline control and microphone.

You can buy the House of Marley Smile Jamaica in: “Copper” (the cable is white and the aluminum details are copper colored), “Rasta” (redish aluminum, blueish eartips and combined black, green, yellow, red cable), “Fire” (same cable as “Rasta” but with red eartips and intense red aluminum), “Midnight” (the color option we are reviewing), “Mint” (cable as “Copper” but minty colored aluminum details), “Purple” (cable as “Mint”, purple eartips and aluminum)

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House of Marley Smile Jamaica - Review

Tests & Scores

W

Weight

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A

Accessories & Packaging

Out of the box you get 1 extra pair of eartips. Everything is packed in a small packaging themed similar to the “rasta” wood style.

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The House of Marley Smile Jamaica - Accessories
The House of Marley Smile Jamaica – Accessories

B

Bass & Sub Bass

The House of Marley Smile Jamaica has a nicely energetic mid bass and deep sub bass that provides fun and punch without sounding boomy. The bass and sub-bass that you get from the 9 mm dynamic driver is well achieved and will cover any bass necessity.

An EQ makes the Smile Jamaica much punchier and deeper but start to become boomy.

During our extreme bass test the House of Marley Smile Jamaica, while being equalized with a custom basshead eq and amplified with a Fiio E12 (high gain, bass boost on), were able to handle up to 51% of the Fiio’s maximum power resulting in an exponential increase of punch and depth with a mild impact and rumble but will not reach a basshead impact level not even near the baseline KZ ATE.





gramophone-256607.5/10

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M

Mids & Vocals

Mids of the House of Marley Smile Jamaica are smooth, somewhat distant on the lower vocals section but not too bad. Anyway the laid back profile of lower mids will make them lack a bit more of extra energy; higher mids are not harsh. With an EQ lower mids get much cleaner and energetic but higher mids fall into harshness.

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H

Highs & Treble

The highs of the House of Marley are not highly bright but neither too dark and they are able to provide a small amount of detail. Regarding sibilance and piercing highs, they are not piercing but do have a mild sibilance presence at certain times. An EQ makes them much better in brightness and a lot more of detail is gained, piercing highs do not get too enhanced but sibilance becomes more frequent.

gramophone-256607.25/10

House of Marley Smile Jamaica
House of Marley Smile Jamaica

SL

Sound Leak

The sound that leaks out of the House of Marley Smile Jamaica is noticeably reduced and well adapted for normally noisy situations, on less crowded places or at times where silence is important they might leak noise levels above acceptance.

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SI

Sound Isolation

Sound isolation of the Smile Jamaica is excellent, even at low or moderate audio volume they are able to provide a high level of isolation from surrounding noises.

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C

Comfort

The solid construction and quality materials plus the very small housings and pleasing woven cables make the House of Marley Smile Jamaica an outstandingly comfortable earphone that can be used for as long as desired without having to worry about pain or discomfort.

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EQ

Response to Equalization

This House of Marley earphone showed noticeable improvement when utilizing custom equalization but also enhanced some of the already present audio issues. Bass gained a vast quantity of punch and depth but boomy bass became noticeable; highs where able to improve their brightness and detail in a significant degree but sibilance started to appear more frequently; mids removed a great quantity of their lower mids recession but higher mids became harshy.

gramophone-256607.75/10

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Scores Scores

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Frequency Response (raw)

House of Marley Smile Jamaica Frequency Response

The House of Marley Smile Jamaica - Frequency Response
The House of Marley Smile Jamaica – Frequency Response

House of Marley Smile Jamaica

Specifications

TypeDynamic
Driver Unit9mm
SensitivityUnknown
Power CapacityUnknown
ImpedanceUnknown
Frequency ResponseUnknown
DiaphragmUnknown
MagnetUnknown
Cordround cord
Cord Length1.2m
PlugL-shaped stereo mini plug
WeightUnknown
Supplied Accessories2x Earphone tips

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Photos
DISCLAIMER
We highly discourage anyone from trying to apply our testings to your own earphones, the risk of damaging or permanently breaking your iems is absolutely probable to happen. With our standardized equalization and amplification tests we push the limits of the earphones to the extreme. If anyway you decide to do so, we cannot be held responsible of the damage done to your equipment. Do it at your own risk.

House of Marley Smile Jamaica

7.7

SCORE

7.7/10