Editor’s Notes
To truly understand a product I feel it’s important to know the context in which the product was built and what the creators were aiming for, or intended. This is my attempt to learn more about the creator’s perspective and also share it with a wider audience. Hope you like it.
Please bear in mind that the text below is translated by a translator and some nuances might be lost in the translation. If you have any followup questions please feel free to comment on this post and I’ll try to get them answered.
The Interview
Hi, what is your name and what do you do at ddHiFi?
My name is Demond, I am the CEO of ddHiFi, and also the Product Manager.
ddHiFi seems to be a company that creates solutions to problems with great design. What problems were you trying to solve with the Janus?
In our opinion, some HiFi products have gradually deviated from life. They are very bulky and expensive because of unnecessary gimmicks and functions. For the design of Janus, we mainly focused on solving two problems: one is to make it possible to allow two styles of wearing: to hang down naturally or hook it over-the-ear; the other one is to achieve the aesthetics of the overall collection design.
Janus is endowed with ddHiFi’s original design language, which is very important for a brand. Through the overall collection of materials, colors, accessories and packaging, we want to convey a sense of fashion and classic in the color of Morandi. In addition, Janus’s tuning is mainly developed for mobile phones, since we have developed a variety of audio adapters for mobile phones, and we hope Janus and our audio adapters would be an added bonus for mobile phone users.
What design and technical challenges did you face while developing Janus?
During the design process, it’s quite critical to control the overall weight. In order to ensure the stability of the front cavity sound quality, metal materials are indispensable. So the weight of the shell and the speaker need to be controlled reasonably, since light weight can improve the wearing comfort.
The technical challenge is of course the speaker tuning. We first confirmed the design or appearance, so the key element to tuning is the design of the speaker itself with no change to the cavity. During this period, we’ve done a lot of trials and selections.
What design and technical innovations have you done in Janus?
Janus’s dual-socket design is an innovation. It has obtained a utility model invention patent (ZL 2020203726919) in China. In addition to function, we also made technological innovations in the design of the speaker, using a flexible PCB directly connected to the speaker coil, which reduced transmission distortion and also reduced volume and weight.
Were you aiming for a specific sound and target with Janus?
When developing Janus, there are many retro elements, including the transparent shell. I also hope to find the sound in the memory. It is very pleasant to hear and suitable to convey music, but without an absolute style label.
What sort of users did you have in mind while developing Janus?
When Janus was developed, just like other ddHiFi products, we hope that our products will be used by users who enjoy life. If you already have a lot of headphones or earphones, Janus can still be a present that you can share with your family or friends, so that HiFi music can be integrated into your family life, rather than a toy for yourself.
Is there something about Janus I didn’t ask that you want to talk about?
The development of Janus started one month before Christmas in 2019. At the beginning, we made some metal earphones that looked like Christmas bells and gave them to some friends as Christmas gifts. It’s only around 1 year until its official release by the middle of November 2020. This is a carefully prepared and highly integrated product. We are very confident in Janus. Thank you.
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