Standing up strong against more expensive earphones on the market, the T5 Ultra Connect are a solid offering by Rock Jaw, delivering high sound quality and IPX5 sweatproofing needed for the gym.
The Rock Jaw T5 Ultra Connect come with interchangeable tuning filters designed to tweak the frequency response higher or lower, depending on the filter that is being used.
The T5 Ultra Connect interchangeable filters are color coded, making it more convenient to identify which one is which. The silver-color tuning filter is designed to increase the bass, while the black tuning filter is designed to increase the treble frequency response.
The gold-color tuning filter comes pre-installed from factory and makes the sound neutral, balancing the bass and treble. At first glance, the tuning filters look the same, integrating a nozzle mesh and rubber ring gasket.
On close inspection though, one can see how the black (bass) tuning filter has a noticeable coarser mesh, while the silver (treble) tuning filter has a finer nozzle mesh that retains the frequencies, allowing deep bass frequencies to form.
The tuning filters are somewhat hardware equalizer filters that deliver subtle but noticeable improvements similar to electronic equalizer filters, which do the tweaking via software.
An electronic equalizer is more convenient from a user's perspective since all you have to do is push a button, which is quicker and easier than changing filters manually.
The tuning filters can also potentially get lost or misplaced due to their tiny size; making changing the tuning filters on the go a bit trickier.
That said, there is really no need to change the tuning filters when out and about because the gold (neutral) tuning filter does a good job as it is for most music types.
In a headphone market dominated mostly by plastic and generic designs, the quality craftsmanship of the T5 Ultra Connect earphones really stands out.
From the internal titanium-coated diaphragm and CCAW voice coil drivers, to the driver housing, which is made of smoothed out machined aluminium shells in the shape of quirky keg barrels. The back panels are magnetized.
The Rock Jaw T5 Ultra Connect ship out with both silicone and comply foam ear tips of various sizes. The foam ear tips increase exponentially the bass response while softening the treble, which will satisfy bass heavy users. The volume output is superb too, thanks to very sensitivity drivers that can manage to output 102dB of sound, clear and free of distortions at maximum level.
The T5 Ultra Connect earphones are, strictly, worn straight down and, this is because you cannot loop the cable around the top of the ear like you can with some earphones. The main reason for this is the cable design, which integrates three separate components inline, including a microphone capsule enclosed inside a small aluminum shell.
The T5 Ultra Connect cable also integrates inline two rectangular rubberized boxes, one of which is a 3-button remote control with a micro USB charging port on the side.
The 3-button remote is located 14cm down the cable. The battery box has the same length of the inline remote and it's located on the opposite side (left earphone), providing counter balance and approximately 11 hours of playtime on 55% volume.
Most wireless earphones typically integrate the microphone on the back of the remote. The T5 Ultra Connect has the microphone built-in separately 5cm up the cable, which brings the microphone much closer to the mouth than most remote/microphone designs. The T5 Ultra Connect uses a MEMS microphone so, it cancels a decent amount of background noise, while delivering adequate call quality.
The cable length (from earphone to earphone) is thick and substantially long (66cm). While there is a cinch to manage the excess cable, the extra cable slack can bounce slightly on the back of a neck when running. T5 Ultra Connect are also weightier, weighing 20 grams, which is almost twice as much as the Alfa Genus V2.
The Rock Jaw T5 Ultra Connect integrate a Bluetooth 5.0 chip that supports aptX and AAC codecs, which minimize video/audio lag when watching video apps. The Bluetooth signal is stable without any cutouts within 10 meters.