REVIEW: Jaybird Bluebuds X Bluetooth Wireless Earphones

    Again, this will be a quick tech-related review of awesome stuff. So I was on a mission, early last weekend. That mission was to find a decent wireless speaker set for my Bluetooth/AirPlay-related devices. The ultimate reason was to have a pair of speakers and not rely on things such as my computer or TV for my sounds, as well as something small to have while working out. My earphones (a pair of Apple EarPods and Beats earphones) are all that I have, short of blasting my tunes directly from devices, which are either not loud, or very taxing on the battery life. I ain't got no time for that! I then remembered the last time my dad was on-island and he picked up a pair of Jaybird Bluebuds X since the audio jack for his Moto Razr Maxx broke. He had no other means to listen to music while working out than using a wireless set. I can see why he chose this. In a nutshell, these are an excellent set of earphones. They're not exactly perfect, but the Bluebuds X definitely exceeds expectations in what you would find in a Bluetooth headset.

DESIGN

     As you can see, the best description I can give is "minimum." That's what these earphones are. It's a simple ear-set that is designed to wrap around your head for minimum travel while being active. The particular beauty of the Bluebuds X is wearability. You can either wear them in a more traditional under ear style, with the cord in front or back of you, or if you're like me, you can wear this over-the-ear and snug the cord (with two provided clips) to wrap around the back of your head.

     The styles of wear is all possible with the provided ear pieces as pictured above. The starters guide specifically instructs users to use the under-ear method first since it would be easier to figure out the right combo and how your pieces conform to the shape of your ears. The ear canal pieces fit the earphones in a very snug fashion. As long as you don't keep swapping ear pieces, they should hold fine. Not that there was a universal head for those ear pieces, but try not to lose them. You're not going to able to substitute Beats ear pieces with these (or any non-Jaybird ear pieces), as well. Luckily, these earphones come with a snazzy case, so leaving these in said case is a good idea... just sayin'. Overall, the design is pretty nice, at best. There can be comfort issues, but you will get used to it.. meaning you'll overcome the issues as you figure out the position of your outer-ear pieces.

Other notes: Apparently, the Bluebuds are pre-treated with liquid repellent. While that's great, results may vary, depending on how much activity you undertake. Make sure you either apply your own treatment or face your mic/button set away from you, so your sweaty head won't leak sweat into the mic piece. This is a known issue, and that has happened to my dad. Luckily, Jaybirds have an excellent warranty and design-to-supply system. They are sending my dad another pair and there have been updates to the design to further resist the earphones from water intrusion.

PERFORMANCE
     
     Performance may be another "results may vary" situation. The bad news is that the devices suffers from Bluetooth sound commpression... on ANDROID devices. Yep.. So naturally, I would try it on my HTC One, having the fancy Beats hardware onboard. After pairing the devices, I run up Rhapsody and play Lose Yourself to Dance by Daft Punk. The first thing I noticed was that there was a lot of treble, and you can hear the compression. This confused me since the HTC One is carrying the most recent Bluetooth standard (4) that you would find in iDevices, and other Android devices such as the Galaxy S4. I go ahead and run up the vanilla music player and try another song... still had compression and high treble.  I then ran Winamp Pro and started messing with the EQ (10 band EQ, mind you) to see if I can reduce (or eliminate) the infidelities I was experiencing and that didn't turn out well. I then paired the earphones to the Nexus 7 (2013 model... review coming soon), ran up Rhapsody and played the same exact song. Now, the Nexus 7 has a Bluetooth standard version that is absolutely brand new. Knowing this, I thought that the infidelities I was hearing on my HTC was just coming from that phone. Well, the compression wasn't as bad as the One, but it was still noticeable.

     Thinking that these earphones were shit, sound-wise, I paired them with my 5th gen iPod Touch to see how it sounded with an iOS device... It. Was. Perfect. The earphones sounded excellent. I was mad confused, yet super excited that these earphones were not shit. I then tested them on my Macbook Pro Retina and it sounded fine on that, as well! I would like to try it on another platform, but until that happens, I'm gonna have to conclude that while the earphones are still tolerable (with a little tweaking on the EQ bands), they only sound good on an iOS device. There's really no other way to explain this. It's unfortunate because my daily driver is the HTC One and Nexus 7. At least I found a use for the iPod, again. It's one thing to run with in-ear earphones with a long wire and having them fall out whenever your ear canal gets sweaty (or if you're nasty like that, earwax seeping), but I think I would be more annoyed by the compression and high amounts of treble blasting in my ears. I already have Tinnitus.. I don't need another high-tone pitch going through my head.

And before you Android-only folks get all butthurt over it, Yes, I have disabled the Phone band and strictly selected the media band when I paired the earphones. I got nearly the same results on one high-end Android phone and one of Google's flagship tablets. There is something wrong with Android and these earphones. Hopefully Jaybird or Google can fix this issue.

     So again, I think Jaybird designed these earphones predominately for iOS devices. Aside from the high-fidelity output you receive with these when paired with an iOS device, it also brings up a separate battery bar next to the Bluetooth symbol. These earphones are said to have a battery life of 8 hours. That's pretty damn good for something with a tiny power source stuffed inside. I was heavily using these earphones on Sunday from about 9:45am to 6:30pm, that evening. The battery life only drop to half! Either I have a super secret battery inside, or the battery is just super efficient. Of course, I didn't have them on and blasting for that long, but the earphone use was way more than what I'm typically used to (which I can average about only 2 hours a day). The point being? 8 hours is more than enough. I was trying to kill the battery and I failed; battery life is good, so don't worry about it!

As soon as I turned the earphones on, it automatically paired with my iPod. Notice the little battery indicator next to the Bluetooth symbol.

Other notes: The wear performance is phenomenal! The other day, I ran about 2 miles in these and they never moved out of place... at all! I'm also in the middle of an ab/arm challenge. It never moved unless I accidentally hit it with my hand. The wire can be worn extremely close to your head, and I highly recommend that you do that, along with wearing it over-the-ear style to maximize comfort and function. 

CONCLUSION

The Bluebuds X is simply just an amazing set of earphones to have. Personally, it supplements my Beats because I still carry them around in my bag. You can never have enough earphones on you if you have the means to store them (I rather not have them in my pocket... but that's me). This is even more apparent  with my Android devices since the Bluebuds sound like shit on them, so having the Beats on me is a good idea. 

If you're active, I highly recommend these. This is a perfect blend of high-fidelity and compact, rolled into one. Get it, get it, GET IT!

Ready.... GO!