JBuds J2 Premium Hi-FI Noise Isolating Earbuds (Boqari Blue)

These were my fourth pair of earbuds and the most impressive I've owned. The wiring and connections are solid and reinforced. I've replaced earbuds when the wiring breaks or the sound volume becomes unequal.

I'm hard on earbuds. My workday starts late in the morning and lasts until late in the evening. I need to still be asleep when the gardeners come with their leaf blowers and weed whackers. Earbuds serve a dual purpose: they keep sound out and give me pleasant sounds to sleep by. Being a bit of an insomniac, my MP3 player helps me to fall asleep each night as well. This is tough on earphones.

I'm impressed with the construction of these buds. Stress points are well reinforced and unlikely to fail. But ruggedness isn't the primary reason for buying phones ... sound quality is.

These are second to none when it comes to sound quality. Bass is solid with no distortion. The midrange and highs are crisp and clear. I've listened to everything from hip-hop to classical and they have provided a superior listening experience.

The worst feature of these phones is that they have a straight plug into the media player instead of an angled plug. This makes it easier to accidently unplug the phones. At worst, a minor drawback. Also, the barrel of the buds is a bid longer than others. At first I thought this would be a problem with lying on a pillow, but it hasn't disturbed me at all.

These utterly dominate all the other earbuds I've owned, both in terms of construction quality and in terms of sound. Buy a pair with confidence - you can't go wrong.

I bought some earphones not too long ago from Radio Shack. They were the kind you press into the ear. They were awful. The sound was bad and they wouldn't stay in the ear at all.

The jbud j2 are also a kind that you press into the ear (stay in pretty well you you give them a small twist when inserting instead of just pushing them in.) It made me a little nervous, but the price wasn't bad and the reviews were all good, so, I decided to go ahead with the purchase. Amazon got them to me in less than a week and packaged them well.

The sound quality is very good. Some of my classic piano concertos just come to life with these.

The dynamic range may be a little too good. I like to listen to music before I go to bed and I would use the Samsung earphones that came with my player, and by the way they are very good for being the included earphones. Since it's right before bedtime, I'll turn my player's volume down to 2 or 3 (out of 30). The J2s when turned down that low on volume, the higher frequencies I can't hear like I could with the "cheap" earphones. Perhaps it's my hearing. This really isn't a complaint because when I turn the volume up to say 10, It (J2s) sounds fantastic.

The construction seems pretty good, but only time will tell for sure.

The noise canceling part of the earphones also works very well, if that's what you like. The Samsung earphones you could hear other people talking just fine and still listen to the music. J2's you cannot. That can be good or bad depending on the situation.

Pros:
+ Three sets of in-ear rubber cushions (small, medium, large) allow for good seal and comfortable fit.
+ Noise isolation good enough for plane travel.
+ It's not like having a set of Bose because it blocks ALL sound equally, which means you need to take them off if you need to hear the flight attendant, etc.
+ Clear sound in midrange and highs - great for vocals.
+ The plug is narrow near the business end so that it fits past the too-small hole in my iPod case.
+ I haven't checked, but it seems likely it would fit an iPod touch, too.
+ Cord and fittings seem sturdier than others (e.g. Apple).

Cons:
- Weak bass until break in period of 24 hours use - I messed with my EQ controls a lot to correct the weak low range and couldn't get sufficient bass for my taste until after the break in period. Even then it's
- NOT a great rocker or hip-hop set.
- About the same bass output as the original Apple.
- Much weaker than a comparison "in-ear" phone like the Koss.

Conclusion:
If you primarily listen to acoustic, folk, vocals, or audio books, these could be great for you. If you listen to bass heavy rock or hip-hop, you need to continue to search.

The good. These headphones are comfortable to wear. The ear bud material is soft and fits mosts ears well (there's three different sizes, typical of all in ear headphones). They stay in your ear well. Not recommended for the active person, but they won't fall out while you walk. The headphones are low profile, so if you are laying on a pillow they don't fall out or poke harder into your ear. The construction looks decent, they have a nice solid feel to them. The wires are fairly thin, but they look like they will survive. The jack is a straight one. It appears to be a little extra long, so it might fit an original iPhone.

Isolation - it works well. Anyone moving up from Apple earbuds will be stunned at how quiet these phones isolate the world. You'll be a bit surprised at hearing yourself swallow and breathe. It's the same for all passive isolating in ear headphones. These are no exception, and are not really any better than others at isolation.

The bad. Audio quality. Highs are muted pretty badly. Bass is decent, you should never expect an in ear headphone to rattle or vibrate. These headphones dig fairly deep into the bass. Midrange is decent, voices sound fairly good. Where these really fall flat, the high range. They have virtually no treble to speak of.

My testing. I tried these headphones connected to a Nokia N95-3 cell phone, an iPod (5th gen), a portable DVD player, and Logitech Z-10 computer speakers. I listened to a variety of programs, video games, comedy video, movies, and music. In all cases the highs were definately missing. My reference headphones are Shure E3c's, yes they cost 4 times the price of these (list price), but they are a reference point. I also compared to Apple's earbuds.

Movie viewing: Hancock - John Lee Hooker's opening song and the solo cello music later in the movie all were muted, but had good low tones. Dialog was clear. The explosions were clear. Imaging (the sense of where a sound is coming from) is really poor, most of the sound appered to be coming from the middle of my head. Not a bad headphone for movies.

Music: Garbage - Shirley Manson's voice was not clear and crisp. The band actually sounded separated from her singing (something not heard with the Shures). High guitar notes were muddled. Beth Orton, Central Reservation, I heard similar problems.

Cell Phone: my Nokia has a bit of a hiss whenever music or videos play. It's almost annoying with my Shure headphones. The JBuds did a good job masking that hiss. So as a cell phone headphone for listening only, these aren't bad.

I like the look, feel, and construction of the JBuds. Wish I could say that the sound quality was equally great. I won't retire my Shure headphones.

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