Stick It in Your Ear

1. Stable fit in my ear.

2. Good audio quality. I am a composer and audio engineer, I usually manage my expectations of earbuds because they are consumer products, not professional gear. These aren’t headphones that I’m using for input monitoring in the studio; they are earbuds that I wear while talking on the phone or listening to music while running.

3. A reliable microphone for lengthy phone conversations with my family and friends. Same managed expectations as my previous point; this isn’t for a professional quality recording, this is so people can hear me clearly.

4. Since we’re dealing with Bluetooth here, expenditure of energy of both my phone and the wireless earbuds is something to consider. Also, a reliable connection to whatever device it is interacting with.

5. Bonus points for a streamlined, modest looking design.

Enter the Jabra Pulse.

It came in the mail this weekend. I was so excited! I was watching for the mailman from my apartment window. It finally arrived in some beautiful, well-designed packaging. A box with a smooth texture, and a panel that folds out and is held in its place by a well-concealed magnet. I get the box opened up and lay all of the gear out on my coffee table. In addition to the earbuds themselves, there’s a short micro-USB cable for charging, a brief instruction manual, a couple pairs of soft rubber “wings,” which come in different sizes and interesting shapes, for fitting into the ridges of your ear and small soft rubber cups (I believe the call them ‘EarGels’) of varying sizes to ensure a secure fit in your ear. Getting the right fit was a little confusing at first, but once I wrapped my head around how they worked, I had no problems.They all come in a nifty little carrying case, it’s obvious that a lot of thought and care went into customer experience and product design.

For a $199 pair of earbuds, my expectations have been met – definitely worth the price.

Not wanting to wait even a second more to bother with charging them, I immediately fired  up the Bluetooth on my iPhone and paired the devices. I skimmed the Jabra instruction manual. Hold down the center button on the control piece on the earbuds with your phone’s Bluetooth turned on, you’re greeted by a pleasant, modern sound to confirm the ‘buds are awake, and then a nice, female voice confirms your connectivity. It feels like something out of the future, something like Cortana from Microsoft’s Halo video game series.

First things first, let’s play some tunes. I start Spotify, and my expectations of audio quality are exceeded. I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I’m smiling ear to ear with how great this sounds. I start with playing some Daft Punk, a favorite, and something that I expect to sound good on a product like this. These earbuds seem to be marketed towards people with an active lifestyle, so I expect music that falls into genres like EDM, Rock, R&B etc. to sound great on these. Something to run to, something to lift to, etc.

But what about something quiet and orchestral?

I pop on Nuages from Claude Debussy’s Nocturnes. The beginning of this piece is quiet, very quiet. Granted, I’m in my room in my apartment, a very quiet space. My first observation is that I do not have to crank the volume to hear the soft beginning. The quality is impressive, I can hear the instruments and subtle orchestration clearly. Expectations are exceeded here. For a small set of in-ear speakers, I’m hearing a lot more detail than I expected. I’ve studied this work thoroughly, so I have a pretty clear idea of how it’s supposed to sound. There weren’t a lot of missing frequencies here, and that impressed me. While I’m happy to know that the quality is high here, orchestral music is still better on a big pair of loudspeakers, or better, in a live venue.

The range of connectivity isn’t half bad, either. I left my phone in my bedroom and walked to the other side of my two bedroom apartment to the kitchen. The signal didn’t start to break up until I got to my front door, the furthest point from my room.

Phone call test was next, I called my brother. He’s at noisy restaurant waiting in line to order a bagel. He picks up, I can hear him clearly, he can hear me clearly. Very different from my past experiences. I’ve had long conversations using these little ‘buds already, and I’ve had little to no issue with them.

This morning, I took them out for a run. This time, I used Jabra’s complimentary fitness tracking app. It has some pre-loaded workouts, you can make your own workout routine within their app, or you can have it just track your speed, heart rate and distance. I’ve only used this app once so far, but the whole experience is pretty seamless.

I’m very happy with my Jabra Pulse, my expectations were exceeded. Definitely worth the investment.