jstagystdinfrntofagrlaskn
Rough_Rock
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Honest feedback on JannPaul
- Thread starter jstagystdinfrntofagrlaskn
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musicloveranthony
Brilliant_Rock
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If I was jstagrlstdin getting asked -
I hope you’d really really be sure I wanted a JP (when I hear that I think of decagon, I know they have more types ) and a complex custom setting for an ER.
hiratop
Rough_Rock
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2012
- Messages
- 48
Full disclosure that I'm a longtime lurker of this forum. I've been reading here for three years, but I don't actually own any diamonds. After all, I initially found this forum when I was learning about diamonds to educate myself since my longtime boyfriend and I agreed that we wanted to be engaged in a few years. I also want to disclose that I recognize that I am biased in favor of JannPaul, but I do have my reasons why, so I nevertheless wanted to weigh in.
It is my opinion that the diamond industry in general has a vested interest in the ignorance of the customer because the vast majority of their inventory, while claimed to be the most sparkly, most brilliant, most blah blah blah, the reality is that what they are selling you is objectively inferior, light performance wise, to a true 57 faceted modern round brilliant super ideal cut. I think a lot of people would agree with this, but why is it relevant to JannPaul?
I think it is relevant because JannPaul has gone to great lengths to educate the average consumer, not only their own customer, about common marketing tactics in the industry (e.g. GIA triple excellent diamonds can be demonstrably inferior to a super ideal cut). Such effort in empowering the consumer to verify for themselves if what they are purchasing is worth it for them is invaluable. I never heard of an ASET scope until coming across their YouTube videos, and now I own one and know how to use it. I've gone ring shopping just to look at different shapes in person and you can imagine how store reps react if I ask if I can use my ASET scope to evaluate their stones.
I think any vendor who actively tries to teach the consumer is worth considering, because they naturally have to meet the standards that they are teaching the consumer to look for. This is not limited to JannPaul of course. Whiteflash, Victor Canera, Brian Gavin, and Crafted by Infinity (rest in peace) are some of the other well-regarded vendors here and deservedly widely praised.
But the question is whether JannPaul's patented cuts are worth it, right? That is up to the individual; beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. I disagree with V_sh that there has to be a "scientific or numerical comparison" that shows that a modified cut is better than 57-faceted MRB SIC. GIA isn't going to publish a research paper on that topic lol. And I've gone through their archive before, mostly looking at lab diamond progress over the years. As it is, JannPaul's diamonds are graded by GCAL which provides all sorts of data to cross-reference with SICs and for you to make your own decision on what you want to spend your money on.
And here, I'll link you all the JannPaul GCAL certificates I've saved for you to easily look for yourself. I'm only missing the Shield 2.0 I believe at the time of this post.
57 Faceted Modern Round Brilliant
Decagon
Round
Octagon Nova
Oval
Emerald 2.0
Cushion
Heart 2.0
Pear 2.0
Radiant X
Also, the MRB I got from this thread where well known PS members had approved of it, just so I'm not setting up a straw man.
Before I get into how I use the GCAL comparisons, I wanted to address some other points by V_sh.
It is true that just because a diamond doesn't have light leakage doesn't mean that it's superior to other diamonds which might have some light leakage. After all, it's possible to have a diamond which doesn't leak light so it's certainly brilliant (returns white light) but lacks fire (return of colored flashes of light). And that's no fun in my opinion; don't we all love the flashes?
So that's where effective virtual facets come in. Effective virtual facets are a thing which in plain English, to my understanding, means that the size of the optical facet which reflects light must be large enough that our pupil doesn't see the entire flash of reflected light. That's why we see fire as colored light. If the virtual facet is too small, our pupil will see the entire flash of reflected light as white (because our eye captured the light's whole spectrum). More reading about effective virtual facets can be seen here.
Also, I agree hearts and arrows is a marketing gimmick. You only see hearts through the pavilion and who wants to see their diamond upside down? Lol. Especially after it's mounted in a setting. Arrows are relevant in that they turn into effective virtual facets which reflect fire, but just because a diamond has arrows, doesn't mean it's great. After all, every GIA triple excellent and hearts and arrows, but have you seen some of that light leakage? Oof.
Long story short, minimizing light leakage and maximizing effective virtual facets are both important. Capturing as much light as possible and reflecting it back to the viewer is the whole point and love of diamonds I'd think!
So what does all the GCAL imagery really show? Well, the fire video is under controlled conditions showing each stone rotated through the same angles, under the same lighting. So it's a fair show of how each cut disperses light and refracts it back to the viewer. The larger the flash in the video, the larger the effective virtual facet is.
The brilliance image shows light leakage, or the lack thereof. Light leakage is shown in dark blue.
As far as I understand, the scintillation video shows how light reflects in the diamond, but doesn't necessarily translate to the light refraction being returned to the viewer.
The symmetry image is basically an ASET image, but doesn't use ASET colors due to copyright issues.
GCAL to ASET conversions are basically:
Contrast: Black - Blue
Higher Light Return: Red, Green, Black - Red
Less Light Return: Blue - Green
You can see their side-by-side comparisons here: GCAL | ASET
So this is all to say make your own decision on what diamond is worth your money.
As far as honesty, integrity, and company values, many vendors are worthwhile, including JannPaul. As far as responsiveness, JannPaul is not great but I can understand they're inundated with customers. I sent in two inquiries and haven't heard back, but for me, I'm happy to wait; I'm not going anywhere. As far as what inventory they have to offer, I think JannPaul is the best out there. They have SICs if you want, and a lot more.
It is my opinion that the diamond industry in general has a vested interest in the ignorance of the customer because the vast majority of their inventory, while claimed to be the most sparkly, most brilliant, most blah blah blah, the reality is that what they are selling you is objectively inferior, light performance wise, to a true 57 faceted modern round brilliant super ideal cut. I think a lot of people would agree with this, but why is it relevant to JannPaul?
I think it is relevant because JannPaul has gone to great lengths to educate the average consumer, not only their own customer, about common marketing tactics in the industry (e.g. GIA triple excellent diamonds can be demonstrably inferior to a super ideal cut). Such effort in empowering the consumer to verify for themselves if what they are purchasing is worth it for them is invaluable. I never heard of an ASET scope until coming across their YouTube videos, and now I own one and know how to use it. I've gone ring shopping just to look at different shapes in person and you can imagine how store reps react if I ask if I can use my ASET scope to evaluate their stones.
I think any vendor who actively tries to teach the consumer is worth considering, because they naturally have to meet the standards that they are teaching the consumer to look for. This is not limited to JannPaul of course. Whiteflash, Victor Canera, Brian Gavin, and Crafted by Infinity (rest in peace) are some of the other well-regarded vendors here and deservedly widely praised.
But the question is whether JannPaul's patented cuts are worth it, right? That is up to the individual; beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. I disagree with V_sh that there has to be a "scientific or numerical comparison" that shows that a modified cut is better than 57-faceted MRB SIC. GIA isn't going to publish a research paper on that topic lol. And I've gone through their archive before, mostly looking at lab diamond progress over the years. As it is, JannPaul's diamonds are graded by GCAL which provides all sorts of data to cross-reference with SICs and for you to make your own decision on what you want to spend your money on.
And here, I'll link you all the JannPaul GCAL certificates I've saved for you to easily look for yourself. I'm only missing the Shield 2.0 I believe at the time of this post.
57 Faceted Modern Round Brilliant
Decagon
Round
Octagon Nova
Oval
Emerald 2.0
Cushion
Heart 2.0
Pear 2.0
Radiant X
Also, the MRB I got from this thread where well known PS members had approved of it, just so I'm not setting up a straw man.
Before I get into how I use the GCAL comparisons, I wanted to address some other points by V_sh.
It is true that just because a diamond doesn't have light leakage doesn't mean that it's superior to other diamonds which might have some light leakage. After all, it's possible to have a diamond which doesn't leak light so it's certainly brilliant (returns white light) but lacks fire (return of colored flashes of light). And that's no fun in my opinion; don't we all love the flashes?
So that's where effective virtual facets come in. Effective virtual facets are a thing which in plain English, to my understanding, means that the size of the optical facet which reflects light must be large enough that our pupil doesn't see the entire flash of reflected light. That's why we see fire as colored light. If the virtual facet is too small, our pupil will see the entire flash of reflected light as white (because our eye captured the light's whole spectrum). More reading about effective virtual facets can be seen here.
Also, I agree hearts and arrows is a marketing gimmick. You only see hearts through the pavilion and who wants to see their diamond upside down? Lol. Especially after it's mounted in a setting. Arrows are relevant in that they turn into effective virtual facets which reflect fire, but just because a diamond has arrows, doesn't mean it's great. After all, every GIA triple excellent and hearts and arrows, but have you seen some of that light leakage? Oof.
Long story short, minimizing light leakage and maximizing effective virtual facets are both important. Capturing as much light as possible and reflecting it back to the viewer is the whole point and love of diamonds I'd think!
So what does all the GCAL imagery really show? Well, the fire video is under controlled conditions showing each stone rotated through the same angles, under the same lighting. So it's a fair show of how each cut disperses light and refracts it back to the viewer. The larger the flash in the video, the larger the effective virtual facet is.
The brilliance image shows light leakage, or the lack thereof. Light leakage is shown in dark blue.
As far as I understand, the scintillation video shows how light reflects in the diamond, but doesn't necessarily translate to the light refraction being returned to the viewer.
The symmetry image is basically an ASET image, but doesn't use ASET colors due to copyright issues.
GCAL to ASET conversions are basically:
Contrast: Black - Blue
Higher Light Return: Red, Green, Black - Red
Less Light Return: Blue - Green
You can see their side-by-side comparisons here: GCAL | ASET
So this is all to say make your own decision on what diamond is worth your money.
As far as honesty, integrity, and company values, many vendors are worthwhile, including JannPaul. As far as responsiveness, JannPaul is not great but I can understand they're inundated with customers. I sent in two inquiries and haven't heard back, but for me, I'm happy to wait; I'm not going anywhere. As far as what inventory they have to offer, I think JannPaul is the best out there. They have SICs if you want, and a lot more.
I also wanted to link Casey Lee's interview of Paul Hung about developing the decagon. They're both owners of the company, so it's an intra-company interview, but it's still fascinating to see the decagon R&D process. There's some mentions about how Paul was trying to maximize effective virtual facets and how they tested the decagon on viewers of different ages since older people have more dilated pupils. I believe them too, sounds totally in line with their company values.
They also have rotating traditional ASET scope images of the decagon, SIC, and a GIA triple excellent here.
I also saved a blue decagon GCAL certificate here. Don't think I came across pink decagon certificates, but I know they are out there.
Also, side note that I've been following them since 2020, and every time I thought I'd have to compromise (ring probably cast and not hand forged, diamonds only available in natural and not lab), they proved me wrong and checked off those boxes too. Now if only the boyfriend would pop the question so we can officially place an order haha. My personal opinion? Decagon all the way, can you tell?
They also have rotating traditional ASET scope images of the decagon, SIC, and a GIA triple excellent here.
I also saved a blue decagon GCAL certificate here. Don't think I came across pink decagon certificates, but I know they are out there.
Also, side note that I've been following them since 2020, and every time I thought I'd have to compromise (ring probably cast and not hand forged, diamonds only available in natural and not lab), they proved me wrong and checked off those boxes too. Now if only the boyfriend would pop the question so we can officially place an order haha. My personal opinion? Decagon all the way, can you tell?
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0515vision
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2023
- Messages
- 1,246
@Shiyui I really appreciate your detailed post!
As a happy customer, I'm surprised they haven't responded to you. I know sometimes the awkward approx 12hr time difference causes delays in communication. There are also Singapore holidays which can sometimes cause an unpredictable delay in my American mind. Did you use [email protected]? Chloe and Avery are two of the known SRs, and I worked with Chloe. Good luck!
As a happy customer, I'm surprised they haven't responded to you. I know sometimes the awkward approx 12hr time difference causes delays in communication. There are also Singapore holidays which can sometimes cause an unpredictable delay in my American mind. Did you use [email protected]? Chloe and Avery are two of the known SRs, and I worked with Chloe. Good luck!
@0515vision I did email that email, but I totally understand why they haven't replied to me, since I was being honest that we wouldn't be placing an order until likely autumn next year. I was only seeking information on policies about their lab grown diamonds and if a new deposit would be needed to place a new order if the original stone wasn't graded to what I hoped for. I know myself and I'm unreasonably set on a D colored stone, so I wanted to know what I'd be in for if I needed to roll the dice a few times to get there haha. To be clear, my opinion of JannPaul isn't marred by their lack of a response to me; I wanted to be upfront so they can allocate their limited resources to their customers. Also, I heard wonderful things about Chloe, Avery, and Eugene! Excited to work with them when the future husband makes it official.
0515vision
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2023
- Messages
- 1,246
Hi friend thanks for your amazing reply and opinion.
by scientific or numeric comparison I mean something like this:
You can upload diamonds and compare them by numbers. Sarine has some more accurate ones too
there are companies like Sarine and others that provide some devices and software and AI tools to evaluate the amount of all the light performance aspects and to compare it with other diamonds, this evaluation is done by technology and computers with scientific backgrounds
If they say it's better and charge much more, should I see it as small evidence??
yeah for sure GIA won't publish such a thing on Gems and Gemmology journal as it's not a fully scientific journal
If you want to see a real Diamond performance article take a look at this one
They can scientifically assess and compare their cut to any other diamond; but I have seen no evidence they like to do so
what's the reason in your mind??
If our eyes are enough for the evaluation of diamonds, what are these scientists saying? Are they wasting their time?
Tolkowsky wasted his time publishing a book just to show us how he calculated two angles?
or there is some propaganda going on in the market? for sure JannPaul is the smallest one who patented a cut and say such things about it without a single scientific word
search for the patented diamond list and check their website, looks like every company has a cut that is the best in the world
Thanks for your time , any time I can provide you by scientific articles about cut evaluations
Thank you for sharing OctoNus GemAdviser, never came across it before so I learned something! I looked into it and I understand that it uses DiamCalc data. The problem is that the parameters you screenshotted (e.g. "Light Return mono") are measured in comparison to MRB Tolkowsky proportions: Also, source.
So even if a patented diamond cut, JannPaul or otherwise, was put in a Sarin machine, the file was converted to a .gem format, and then viewed in your software, the data is being compared to, at best, a SIC MRB. Which a patented diamond cut is not. It's like having a grading rubric for an essay about apples, but the essay being evaluated is about oranges. Similar, but not the same and the grading standard is about something different than what's evaluated.
Also, thank you for the article! I really do enjoy technical studies on diamonds, so I'll definitely give it a read. I skimmed through it and excited to see all about how they used ASET.
I'm well aware of the proliferation of patented diamond cuts, such as the Solasfera, Leo, etc. But there are some which are visually superior to their nearest traditional counterpart, such as the Octavia designed by a very respected member here, Karl_K. I don't think scientists are wasting their time doing whatever research they do; they contribute to the sum of human knowledge. Scientists who study nutrition always say to eat your veggies, but we all know that. Are they wasting their time by concluding on something which we think is self-evident? Maybe in some people's opinions, but not mine. Same with diamonds. Scientific research to prove what diamonds have the best optics can still be self-evident to the consumer. Scientific conclusions aren't required to one to come to their own personal conclusions.
Also, I don't know where you're getting that JannPaul "charges much more." That's simply not true. Here is their price guide. All their patented lab grown diamonds are at $2,000 USD for 1.0 carats. You and I both know that's certainly not exorbitant to lab grown MRBs. Natural diamonds are on an individual quote basis, but with Rapaport guide fluctuations and Russia craziness, I can't say that's in bad faith with the volatile market. Regardless, in JannPaul's decagon R&D video I linked earlier, they're on record on how they DID NOT want to charge enormous prices for their patented cuts and charge about 10% more than their SIC MRBs due to loss of the rough in the cutting process. They're very transparent, which I can't say is true for almost any other company.
Side-by-side comparisons of JannPaul's patented diamonds (specifically the decagon for me) with a SIC MRB make me conclude that JannPaul's decagon is obviously, to my own eyes, superior to Tolkowsky's ideal. There is no light leakage at the 90 degree angle, there are more, and larger, flashes to fire under the same lighting conditions and angles, and the shape is just more aesthetically pleasing. I think we both would agree that a princess cut is never going to have better light return than a round diamond, patented or not, but there are plenty of people who think a princess cut is better than a round because of its shape and, of course, because the beauty of diamonds are a matter of opinion, whether Tolkowsky's or anyone's.
SparkleMax
Rough_Rock
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2023
- Messages
- 55
Hahaha true!!! I love those about the decagon. Fun fact that they're called table reflections and John Pollard did a very in-depth post about it here for the curious.
Couldn't edit my old post and didn't want to spam this thread, but I found a fancy intense pink Octagon Nova on GCAL and figured anyone who was interested in JannPaul in the future might come across this thread and like to see. Link!
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- Joined
- Jul 31, 2014
- Messages
- 19,451
This. V_sh has gone into multiple threads and written criticisms of JP. As trade, I don't think that's allowed
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2010
- Messages
- 1,696
Folks, I do not reply to tags, there are too many to sort through as each day I get THOUSANDS of notifications. Thanks to the poster who used "report concern" which is the best way to flag something important for us.
Trade members may discuss cutting techniques, etc. in general, but may not comment on or criticize the wares of competitors directly.
Thus far the posts that have been reported seem to be the former, but please feel free to report posts where trade members are praising or criticizing their competition or stones directly. I have gone through this thread for posts that were not reported and removed many that violated our terms. I will do so in other threads, but if you see any please report them as well.
@V_sh you have been notified of many posts that were removed, please do not repeat those actions.
Trade members may discuss cutting techniques, etc. in general, but may not comment on or criticize the wares of competitors directly.
Thus far the posts that have been reported seem to be the former, but please feel free to report posts where trade members are praising or criticizing their competition or stones directly. I have gone through this thread for posts that were not reported and removed many that violated our terms. I will do so in other threads, but if you see any please report them as well.
@V_sh you have been notified of many posts that were removed, please do not repeat those actions.
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