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Your smartphone came with a pair of earbuds, but are you happy with the sound and functionality? Probably not. Enter the surprising EPIC Executive Wireless ANC Earbuds from JLAB Audio, featuring a long battery life and some smart engineering that lets you use them wired if they run out of juice too. More importantly, active noise cancelling ANC means you can get rid of a lot of the annoying buzz and hum of the background environment too.
Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ checked out the JLAB Audio EPIC earbuds and was surprised by just how well they worked - and sounded - for the price. There is, however, one design hiccup you should be aware of before you make a purchase decision, as explained...
Learn more at https://www.JLABAudio.com/
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0:00
Earbuds with active noise canceling. Let's give them a test
0:10
Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at more audio equipment. This time it's these. These are the J-Lab
0:17
Audio, Epic Executive Wireless Active Noise Cancelling ANC earbuds. And you know what? They are really
0:25
nice. So let's go through the specs real quick and then I'll tell you a bit about how they sound. So
0:30
Bluetooth 4.1 30 foot range and I will say a lot of range. I had my phone sitting in the kitchen
0:37
and I was walking all over my house, different floors, through walls and everything. Never had a break
0:42
on the Bluetooth audio, which was very nice. When you're running Bluetooth and active noise
0:47
cancelling, then you actually end up with seven hours of playtime, turn off the music and you have
0:53
50 hours just of ANC if you just want to get rid of that background noise. But if you want to have
0:59
just the music and you don't want to actually have active noise canceling, which some people do
1:04
I guess, that gives you 11 hours. So lots of different options for how many hours it's going to
1:09
last. With everything rocking and rolling, it gives you seven hours. Now, it is IP54 sweatproof
1:16
so I can't throw these into a bucket of water to show how they work. But if they get a little
1:21
sweaty while you're working out, shouldn't be a problem. And see. So it has a couple interesting features to it
1:28
One of which is the design. It's a little longer. You can see it's a little longer than most of these
1:33
sort of headphones. And the idea is that you sort of swing it behind your head. And then you have the
1:39
two earbuds that just go right in your ears, easy enough. You're ready to roll. And then you have on
1:46
one side, you have the controls, which is this side, which actually means I have it on backwards
1:51
Let's try that again. So do it this way. So on the right hand, you're going to have all your controls on a control stem here
1:59
And then the left side has this other thing, which I'm assuming is actually the battery
2:03
That's why you get so much battery life. So it's actually pretty cool. And like I said, it's very comfortable
2:09
You just put them in your ears and you're ready to go. And because of the way they work now with modern phones like the iPhone, you can do all sorts of stuff
2:18
So I was listening to music and I double tapped toNo. get to Siri and then I asked Siri to actually call someone and then I was on the phone
2:27
chatting with them and then I tapped once and I went back to my music. I did all of this
2:32
without interacting with my phone at all. That was really, really nice. Now, it comes with some
2:38
other interesting stuff too. So let me open up the box real quick. And one of the things it has
2:44
that I not seen before which I don know whether I would or what I would use this but in addition to having lots of ear tips and in addition to having the let see what do they call them the cush fins which are like little additional units that actually extend out to fit in your ear so that they a little more secure when you exercising
3:08
And in addition to having its little micro USB charging cord, which, of course, it has, it has this
3:14
and this is really interesting because this lets you actually use this as a wired device
3:22
So if you run out of battery, supposedly there's a way that you can actually plug all these things together
3:28
and I admit I didn't try this, but you can plug the things together, and then you can actually
3:34
so you plug the micro USB into the device, then you plug this into the adapter
3:40
and then you plug the adapter into an AUX, and you can use it as a USB
3:44
wired earbuds. So kind of a neat idea. But with this much battery life on the
3:50
Bluetooth and this much battery life wireless you don't really have to do that so
3:54
much. So comes with all sorts of different size ear tips, six different sizes of
3:59
ear tips, two different sizes of cush fins and here's what a cush fin looks like. So the
4:05
idea is that you can put it in addition to the ear tip on one of the units and then
4:11
you can adjust it so that it actually fits better on your ear or in your ear. I don't actually like those personally, so I like just having regular old
4:21
earbuds with eartips. And I will say, as with every other device that fits in your ear
4:27
try the different sizes to get the best size for your ears and how you like to have comfort versus
4:34
isolation. It makes a substantial difference. It really does to get the right size
4:40
Now, let's see. Let me just show you real quick on the control
4:44
unit, it's a tiny bit tricky to figure out. So it has a typical three button on the large size
4:51
which gives you volume up, volume down, next track and previous track if you hold those buttons down
4:57
pause, play, or double tap gets you to your voice system if you have, hey Google, or you have
5:03
Siri on your device. And then on the side as a completely autonomous control, and this is really
5:10
my biggest complaint with this unit. That's completely autonomous is a button that lets you turn on and off the active noise canceling
5:18
And then on the other side of it, you move some little piece of rubber out of the way, and that
5:22
gives you that micro USB, which is where you charge and or, I suppose, use it as wired
5:26
of headphones. The reason I don't like the way they do the A and C is because unless you remember to turn
5:34
it on and off you probably leave it on and drain your battery without ever thinking about it because when you have it in your ear you get a lot of nice voice feedback So if I turn it off it actually say goodbye And then I like cool hey I got my headphones turned off But they
5:50
not actually turned off because the ANC is completely independent and that doesn't automatically turn off
5:57
So it does have a little tiny green light to tell you that, yes, the ANC is running. You can see it in
6:04
this close up. But you really got to remember. This is going to be something you have to be something
6:08
you have to train yourself to either never use ANC or if you use ANC, remember, remember to actually
6:15
turn off the ANC separate from turning off the rest of the headphones
6:20
Now, I understand why they did that because that way you can run the ANC separately and
6:25
independently of the music. But honestly, I don't know what that use case is because the ANC is only about 90% noise
6:32
canceling, which sounds like a lot. But most of the really fancy units are much better than that
6:37
So what this does is this gets rid of some of the buzz and the hum around you
6:41
And you'd be surprised how often there are low level sounds around you
6:46
So it gets rid of that. These are not world class ANC
6:50
These are not like comparable to $400 Bose units or something like that
6:54
But they are better than not having the ANC on. So they're definitely doing something
6:59
But if the ANC is going to be eaten up your battery because you forget to turn it off, kind of a mixed blessing
7:04
Okay. So with all of that sense. said, let me tell you, they sound really, really good. I was very impressed when I put them on
7:14
and put on some music and I'm like, wow, these are really quite something. Given the price
7:19
point especially, these are really a nice choice for a lot of people. The music, it's rich, it's loud
7:26
it's maybe a tiny bit bass heavy, but gosh, a lot of people really like that. I was listening
7:31
to some 80s music like Howard Jones and all that kind of stuff and, man, it sounded great
7:37
It sounded really, really good, and this is comfortable for hours of listening
7:42
Really, really nice units. Now, when I made that phone call, remember I told you that I actually used these to make phone call
7:48
the person on the other end said that I sounded good, but it wasn't crisp
7:53
Now, I'm not sure what crisp means, but the fact that they were aware that I wasn't, you know
7:58
talking like this or something tells me that these might not be the world's greatest
8:03
But again, for the price and for all the features and capabilities, these obviously worked perfectly well
8:10
And it was very nice to be able to have a chat with my son, actually, while I was just walking around and doing other stuff
8:16
So that was really nice. Hands off. The phone was sitting in the other room
8:21
Everything was really nice. So there is really a lot I like about these
8:25
And, of course, I cannot forget to mention it comes with the sticker
8:30
And more importantly perhaps comes with the kids carrying case And the carrying case is nice And in the carrying case is something and again this is something I haven seen It this sort of rubbery device that you can put over the extension wire the thicker part
8:47
and then it becomes a little bit more of sort of one of those traditional neck headphones
8:51
with the little pieces coming up from it. So if you like that style, this can sort of emulate that too
8:57
it really is just an emulation. It is not exactly the same thing as a more rigid device
9:04
but it's actually an interesting option, as is the whole idea of having the sort of wired USB adapter
9:11
So, you know, when I looked online and looked at other people's reviews of this
9:16
people complain that it doesn't have any range, they complained that the calls drop out and stuff
9:21
I didn't have any experience with any of that. I really found that they have a tremendous range
9:27
They sounded really good. They have a nice long battery life. So there's a lot I personally found really worthwhile and really great about these JLab audio units
9:37
So, only thing we'll have to talk about is to actually talk about the price. But before we get to the price, do me a favor and click on subscribe
9:45
And if you listen to ANC, tell me, do you ever listen to your headphones with active noise canceling and no music
9:52
I'm really intrigued by this because I'm constantly listening to music. I'm probably Spotify's best customer ever
9:58
I listen to hours and hours and hours every single day. So do you ever just listen to ANC without music
10:06
Because I kind of feel like people don't do that, but maybe that's just my experience and maybe that's just my usage pattern
10:12
So let me know. Okay, now, with that said, these are the very nice and very impressive JLab Audio
10:22
Epic, Executive Wireless, ANC, EANC, earbuds. They are available in black and white and gray. These are obviously the black set in
10:31
case you weren't sure. And they are $99 at jlab.com. I say they're a really good deal and they
10:39
have terrific sound, lots of great capabilities, and they have good ANC. If you can just get over that
10:46
old thing of having the ANC autonomously and independently controlled from the rest of the system
10:52
you've got a winner here. So this is Dave Taylor. I think I'm might go back to my Howard Jones because things can only get better
11:01
See? And I will catch you in my next video
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