AKA What Are $129 Earbuds And Why Would I Buy A Pair?

Last August I began taking fitness a bit more seriously than I had in quite a few years. I’m not sure if it was the result of my becoming a father and wanting to live long enough to see grandchildren, or maybe it was just the guilt of having eaten some 650 pizzas since the last time I’d gone to the gym – whatever the case, I decided I needed to start working out. Right. Now.

Like anyone else, I can’t just go running without some sort of accompaniment filling my earholes. Music, podcasts, and audiobooks are all things that I have consumed regularly over the years, and thanks to exercise I’d have an excuse to listen to them now more than ever.

And then I met my workout nemesis: ear sweat.

Worse than the visual is that ear sweat and those cheesy earbuds that come with your iPhone 5 don’t mix at all – Apple might have figured out how to fit an earbud in everyone’s ear, sure, but what they didn’t engineer was a way of keeping it in there once you’re 5 minutes into your workout.

So another solution became necessary.

I scoured the Internet looking for something; anything that I thought would foot the bill. Just about every headphone manufacturer out there has a “sport” line – very few of them are Bluetooth capable and don’t sound like shit.

In the end, I bought myself a $129 pair of Jaybird Freedom JF4 earbuds.

Yes I know, $129 seems like an insane amount of money to spend on a commodity item like earbuds – especially earbuds that you intend to use while doing rigorous exercise, when all manner of awful things can happen to them. Still, while I’m not much of an audiophile, I wanted a product that guaranteed I wouldn’t destroy it within a few uses because…

Well, what if (god forbid) I have unusual, excess, toxic ear sweat?

Anything is possible – anything that is except, it seems, destroying my Jaybird earbuds.

I’ve thrown everything at them: I’ve dropped them while running and trampled over them. I’ve mercilessly crushed them in my backpack with heavy objects. And yes, I’ve also managed to sweat profusely all over them.

And the damn things continue to work perfectly and sound great.

I’m 100% satisfied with my $129 purchase and I still find that rather unusual because, like I said, I’m not an audiophile and I’m used to spending 1/10^th that much money on earbuds.

If I have one complaint it’s that the Jaybird Freedom JF4’s persist in being cliché Bluetooth peripherals and require holding a button down for several seconds to turn them on and off rather than simply using a switch – I guess I’ll never understand the logic there.

Otherwise, they’re the best earbuds I’ve ever owned. They’re comfortable, they sound decent, they recharge quickly, they’re toxic ear sweat-proof, and they live up to the claims of their manufacturer.

When was the last time that happened?

Robert Wagner / Review, Technology / bluetooth, earbuds, iPhone, ipod, jaybird freedom jf4, review / 2