Headphones Should Also Perform
Like a Musical Instrument
We wanted to reproduce the beautiful natural sounds of a violin, guitar, and piano with headphones.
However, wood, an ideal material for use in musical instruments, wasn’t an easy material to use when making a headphone diaphragm. But the sound professionals at JVC used their experience designing and building wood cone speakers and met the challenge. Our philosophy of “In Quest for the Original Sound” and the unique properties of wood combined to open a new door to the expressive power of music.
The wood diaphragm that is compatible with Hi-res Audio sources draws its natural and delicate sound from WOOD to provide high-resolution sound full of realism.
Experience the variety of sounds played by full orchestra instruments and the astonishing presence as if as if you are in front of the performers.
Linearity of the headphone has been greatly enhanced thanks to new plate shape that improves the driving force received by the voice coil.
Newly developed plate shape has been adopted for the magnetic circuit. This makes it possible to effectively use the magnetic force of a powerful neodymium magnet and improves the driving force received by the voice coil.
By adopting a new plate shape, the fluctuation of the driving force when the voice coil moves back and forth has been suppressed, and distortion is reduced. Magnetic force has been improved in the ideal direction with a good balance between the front and rear.
Applying the technology of our original Spiral Dot Earpieces, we improved the resolution by effectively arranging the dot protrusions that diffuse unnecessary sound on the front of the unit. This diffuses the sound and achieves natural sound dispersion.
Vibration is suppressed by using wood parts on the back of the driver unit (the outermost part). This helps to optimally control the housing sound to achieve clear sound without muddying.
A combination of different materials such as stainless steel, brass, and aluminum helps to control unwanted vibrations and allows the purity of the sound to come through.
ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
First of all, let me talk about the characteristics of wood. The sound propagation speed of wood is a lot faster than you might think. Its speed is especially fast along the direction of the fiber grain, and not so fast against the grain.
Taking advantage of the characteristics of wood, that it doesn’t easily generate standing waves, we were able to achieve natural sound reproduction that is less likely to generate unnecessary resonance.
But, in order to boost expressiveness, there was a need to lighten the mass of the wooden diaphragm as much as possible.
With the HA-FW01, we developed an original slicing machine on our own, aiming to minimize weight, and succeeded in developing a wooden sheet that is a mere 50 microns in thickness.
As a result, we adopted a wood-dome diaphragm on the driver unit with an 11mm diameter.
Production and assembly of key parts were also done in Japan.
As for the circuit, we paid a lot of attention to and committed ourselves totally to its development, such as through adoption of a dynamic high-energy magnetic circuit to realize driving performance and reality.
The structure of the HA-FW01 that controls resonance by combining different materials is called “metal harmonizer”. Its body material is based on a brass inner housing, wooden housing, as well as wooden materials, which are used in combination.
For the housing and wood stabilizer, a laminated layer made of thin slices of wood, layered one after another at offset angles and compressed, is used. This laminated layer uses wood that has been precisely processed in Japan to achieve better sound quality.
This is a characteristic of WOOD that no other earphones feature.
IN PURSUIT OF SOUND QUALITY
There is a vital part called the unit folder, which collects sound emitted from the driver and sends it to the ear. For the HA-FW01, a structure called Acoustic Purifier was employed, which is made by adding small protrusions to the unit folder.
These small protrusions play an important role in changing the tone and dispersing sound, depending on the number and size of the protrusions and the positions they occupy. At the development stage, we created quite a few prototypes using a 3D printer. Cut and dry development resulted in optimally positioned protrusions with just the right size.
WEARABILITY AND USABILITY
We experimented a lot to find the right wearability. When you wear it you can immediately tell that the earphone is well balanced so that they won’t stick out obtrusively from the ear.
We listened to customer requests and worked them into the design. We studied the length, thickness, the angle of the earpiece and so on to achieve superb wearability that one can only get from high-end models.
The spiral dot earpiece of the HA-FW01 has a series of dimples on its inner wall to diffuse the reflected sound in the earpiece that can degrade sound quality. As a result, this structure helps to achieve high expressive power. Moreover, a natural fit that makes you forget the earpiece is even there has been achieved with the adoption of a material with mechanical properties similar to that of human skin.
We also spent time on the cable. The headphone features L/R-isolated grounding cable to achieve natural spatial expression with little crosstalk between left and right signals. Also, the adoption of cloth-covered cable helped to increase durability and reduce wire tangling.
LASTLY, A MESSAGE TO USERS
We had serious discussions among the team members on tone and expressiveness. Vibrant and easy-to-understand sounds are something customers always look for. However on top of that we wanted to convey our enthusiasm “in quest for the original sound” as well; this passion was put into this product.
The sound of the HA-FW01 has a thick tone in the mid-low range and a dynamic tone and scale over the entire range.
Also, the low-range power is also attractive because the audio deviation values, such as resolution, texture, and musical expression, are high.
Although it is a model that is highly compatible with various music genres, we want you to experience large ensembles such as an orchestra in order to feel the size of the soundstage and the three-dimensional sound field. I am confident that you will appreciate its superb sound quality.