I had a pair of ear buds once that I actually liked. I don’t recall exactly what they came with, possibly with the PSP. I used them for quite some time and were the first ear buds I ever used more than once. I always have had trouble finding ear buds that actually stayed inside my ear. Most just fall right out. It seems that the ones that come with the iPods are the worst. Sadly, I lost those ear buds that actually fit. Since then, I’ve just been stuck with using headphones. This last week however, I’ve been using the Tiger Eye’s from JayBird and my opinion has been changed. The first impression of these were great. The ear buds have soft flexible rubber tips. They fit perfect in my ear right when I put them in. Not only did they fit, they were real snug and stayed in. For someone who has only used stock ear buds up to this point, I was also surprised by how many different tips were provided. You have five different tips to choose from so it should be easy to find one to fit any ear.
The sound coming out of these ear buds is really great. The volume can go up very loud as well and not have any type of distortion. I’ve listened to a lot of loud music in my past, so I generally have to turn my music up pretty loud so that I can actually enjoy it. I had the music up as high as I could comfortably listen to it and it could still go higher. Not only that, on the loudest I had it, the bass was still as clear and thumping. A lot of headphones seem to muddy the bass at really loud volumes. Jaybird advertises they use titanium coated diaphragms for the speakers. I’m guessing this might have something to do with it, but all I know is they sound really great. The rubber tips create a seal inside the ear and help block out unwanted sound. Since I work inside a datacenter, there is a lot of background noise from server fans and huge air conditioning systems. With the Tiger Eyes, I didn’t notice any background noise. All I could hear was the music I was listening too.
In addition to being ear buds, these also have a mic built into them. These should work with any device that supports mic input through a 3.5mm jack. They are advertised as working with the iPhone, but I tested these using a Palm Pre. They work perfect on that phone as well. There is a button on it to answer and end calls. During calls, the mic sounds good. When testing, people on the other end of the call didn’t know that I was using a headset as opposed to just using the built-in mic. The answer button is also used as a remote during music playback. I have to imagine this works with the iPod as well. On the Palm Pre, they seemed to have built the support for remotes into the OS as I was using the Pandora application and was able to pause and change tracks right from the remote.
These ear buds are easily the best I’ve ever used. The most important thing with any ear buds is that they sound great, and these achieve that. Not only, they look really great and at the same time are really lightweight, so you almost don’t even know they are there. On top of all that Jaybird gives you a handy carrying case to put them in, and there is even a lifetime warranty that seems to even protect against sweat damage. So, have no fears about using these during your workout.
Written by Cameron