I would like to thank Andrew and Leo from Musicteck for arranging a sample Jet Black for this review. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.
My history with Unique Melody is fairly limited, especially for a company that’s been trailblazing IEM innovations for many years now. So much so, that the initial fanfare of the first UM MEST IEM, some years back now, completely passed me by, and likewise the second and third iterations of this highly popular IEM that essentially put bone conduction technology on the map.
So, when UM announced a brand-new take on the MEST lineage, with not one but two different types of bone conduction drivers, and a slew of other changes and refinements to its predecessors, I just had to grab the chance to finally experience it for myself.
The UM MEST Jet Black ($1,999) breaks with the numerical naming convention, but it also represents quite a leap forward for the brand. Not only does it debut the aforementioned dual bone conduction drivers (there are actually three BC drivers in Jet Black, if you count the dual Sonions) – the first time it’s been done in an IEM to my knowledge – it also debuts a fully-ceramic shell and design tweaks that I’ll cover in more detail in this review.
While I did hear (and review) the company’s ‘higher end’ Multiverse Mentor IEM, my first proper UM encounter was the recently-released Maven II (reviewed here). Coming in at a very similar price point, Maven II uses a more ‘conventional’ driver configuration without bone conductors, and so I expected quite a contrast in presentation between Maven and MEST.
I wasn’t disappointed in that regard, but I was also a little surprised by my perception of their differences. We’ll get to that later too. For now, let’s take a closer look at what MEST Jet Black is all about.
Packaging and accessories
MEST Jet Black is packaged in an appropriately-themed matte black box with glossy silkscreened lettering in blue and gold.
Lifting the lid reveals a simple interior layout with a single cardboard shelf holding the distinctive blue leather high-quality Dignis-made zipper case (featuring Indian suede goatskin on the lid, no less). The earpieces and cable are stored neatly inside this case, which has its own cutouts for the two mesh pocket earpiece protectors and a hollow channel for the cable.
My sample came with one of the two specially-made stock cables available at launch: the UM ‘Dreamy’ cable, made by PW Audio, with customised matte-gold PW Audio hardware and PVC sleeving, containing 4 cores of 24awg copper arranged in PW Audio’s patented seven-fold pipe array.
There’s also an Effect Audio-made Jet Link cable with 4 cores of 26awg copper, wrapped in glossy PVC with glossy black and gold ‘ceramic-look’ hardware that matches the ceramic earpieces. The Jet Link cable is meant to be tuned more neutral and revealing, hence my opting for the slightly warmer, more natural-sounding Dreamy cable for this review.
Interestingly, MEST Jet Black is also available for purchase without a cable for $1,699, for those who already have third-party cables they’d prefer to roll themselves.
Last but not least, UM include three different types of tips in a small box underneath the case, along with a cable clip and soft cleaning cloth (but no cleaning brush or wax pick).
Overall, this is a solid set of accessories, especially the premium case, and the option to leave out the stock cable altogether is a good idea in my opinion (even though the relatively small overall saving is neither here nor there).
Continue to design and fit…
