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Whether you’re a Bob Marley fan or not, it’s hard not to like a company that makes affordable earphones with eco-friendly products, and donates a portion of all proceeds to the charity 1Love(Opens in a new window). The $19.99 House of Marley Smile Jamaica earphones can therefore be described as a feel-good purchase that offer a unique look—a rare thing in the world of budget buds. As far sound quality goes, lovers of booming, deep bass will be thrilled, but purists can stop reading now. This is a pair that can cleanly deliver powerful lows, which is impressive at this affordable price, but it comes at the expense of the high-mids and highs. The Editors’ Choice Skullcandy Method ($29.61 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) also emphasizes the low-end, but it’s a bit more balanced than the Smile Jamaica, and offers a gym-friendly design.
Design
Many of the House of Marley products have a Jamaica-themed design, incorporating the red, yellow, and green color combination often associated with rasta culture, reggae, and Marley. The Smile Jamaica ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) is offered in a version with a red, yellow, green, and black pattern adorning its cloth-covered cable, matched with red eartips. There are three other versions as well, with black, gray, or aqua blue eartips, accompanied by different cable colors and patterns.
All models have Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood earpieces. Typically they are darker wood, but the gray eartips/white cable option has a lighter tone. The aluminum cable tip is also recyclable aluminum. It’s hard to make an argument that any electronics gear is really environmentally friendly, but it’s refreshing to see a company actually attempt to use green materials.
An inline, single-button remote control and mic allows for Play/Pause and Call Answer/End—and if you tap it multiple times, you can navigate tracks. However, there’s no volume control. 
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The Smile Jamaica is quite short on accessories—which is to be expected in this low price range. Only two pairs of eartips ship with the earphones instead of the standard three, but at least they’re different sizes.
Performance and Conclusions
On tracks with heavy levels of sub-bass, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the Smile Jamaica delivers some serious thunder. The lows are definitely exaggerated, but they also don’t distort, even at top, very unsafe listening levels. For a $20 earphone pair, that’s impressive. The bass, however, is boosted to a point that purists and even those seeking a nominal sense of balance might not enjoy.
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Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with very little in the way of deep bass, for instance, sounds quite bass-heavy through the Smile Jamaica. The drums have some serious low-end throttle to them, rather than the persistent, mid-range tapping they often sound like through other earphones. Callahan’s baritone vocals get an extra, unneeded dollop of low-mid and low frequency presence, making them far bass-heavier than they already naturally are. There’s enough high-mid presence in the mix to give the vocals contour and keep things from sounding truly muddy, but this is a sound signature heavily weighted toward the lows.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop’s usually very edgy attack in the high-mids is overshadowed by the loop’s boosted presence in the low-mids and lows. The sub-bass synth hits on this track sound like they’re playing through a club PA, but the vocals and higher register elements of the mix could use a bit more brightness and contour.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene in John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, still sound fairly crisp and bright through the Smile Jamaica—mainly because they were recorded in a transparent manner that naturally allows for these frequencies to grab the spotlight. Beneath the commanding presence of the higher register strings, brass, and vocals, however, we get a truly unnatural, massive bass sound that makes the lower register instrumentation sound much more prominent in the mix than it typically is. Purists will not enjoy this, but it certainly adds an element of excitement to the proceedings.
If you’re looking for a bit less bass and a bit more balance for under $50, good luck; intense, boosted bass seems to be the name of the game. However, you can find pairs with more gym-friendly designs, like the Skullcandy Method, the Scosche SportClip 3 ($24.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , and the JVC HA-ETR40 ($46.58 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . If you love the idea of booming bass and crisp highs, and have a little more room in your budget, consider the Audio-Technica ATH-CKX7iS ($83.56 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . For $20, though, it’s hard to complain about the House of Marley Smile Jamaica—the company has made an extremely affordable, eco-friendly earphone option for serious bass lovers. It could use a bit more balance to bring out the highs more, but the clean delivery of deep lows is still impressive for this very low price.
3.5
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The House of Marley Smile Jamaica earphones is an affordable, eco-friendly earphone option for serious bass lovers, but they aren’t for those seeking a balanced mix.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/house-of-marley-smile-jamaica