Headphones R Us

Headphone enthusiasts will surely act like little boys in Toys R Us when they step into Jaben Audio in Subang Jaya, Selangor.


There are so many models, so many gadgets, so many headphones, so many headphone amps...so many 'toys' to play with, so little time.


Jaben's Ma Lik Heng had to e-mail me the list of stuff in his shop because there were just too many of them.

Ma Lik Heng @ Yuheng doing what he does best.

Jaben is the distributor for: Alessandro, Centrance, Lavry, Graham Slee, Futuresonics, Govibe, Ordnance, Hippo earphones, Hippocase, Crossroads, Rudistor, Yamamoto, Maverick, Final Audio, Travagans, Sherwood, Fiio, Head-Direct, Crystal Cables, Whiplash Audio, JH Audio, Livewires, ESI, Corda, Sieveking Headphone Stand, TianYun Zero DAC, Yuin, Firestone, Ortofon, BigonNoise, ALO, TTVJ, RSA, HeadAmp and SPL.


They are the dealer for: Sennheiser, Audio Technica, Denon, Beyerdynamic, Grado, Koss, Westone, Ultimate Ears, Shure, AKG, Grace Design, Zumreed, Jays, Klipsch, JVC, Etymotics, Sony, CEC and Ibasso Audio.


Frankly I have heard and heard of only some of the brands like Sennheiser, AKG, Audio Technica, Beyerdynamic, Grado, Koss, Etymotics and Graham Slee.


And I never knew that the Chinese and South Koreans made pretty good headphones and the Japanese made the best in-ear headphones.


At Jaben, the young staff are enthusiastic and ever willing to give you a complete headphone experience by taking out an assortment of headphones for you to audition with a wide selection of headphone amps.


Ma, who uses Yuheng as his online monicker, said his customers are divided into three categories - college students who want something better than the earphones that came with their iPods and MP3 players, young grads who are starting out in hi-fi and the serious audiophiles who are willing to pay for quality.


Yuheng said Jaben is a Singapore-based company and they actually started selling headphones in Malaysia on the Internet for three to four years before opening a brick-and-mortar store in April.


After testing a few headphones, I left Jaben with a pair of HiFiMan HE5 headphones and its matching EF5 headphone amp and power supply for review.

The nice headphone store is
above the' Nice' shop.

Jaben is at Jalan SS15/8A of Subang Jaya, directly opposite Asia Cafe. It is on the first floor above a shop selling all sorts of stuff called 'Nice'.