Jlab’s Epic Open Sportare a premium pair of air-conduction earbuds made to be worn while running, working out, or training. Yet their comfort and sound quality make them a good option for anyone who needs to be able to hear their surroundings or who finds in-ear earbuds to be uncomfortable, regardless of their lifestyle.
JLab Epic Open Sport
The JLab Epic Open Sport air conduction open-ear earbuds are a comfortable and secure way to listen to audio without plugging your ears. With hi-res audio and multipoint Bluetooth, these premium buds offer a superb listening experience while undercutting competitors on price.
Price and Availability
The JLab Epic Open Sport earbuds retail for $115. You can currently find them on Amazon, where they come in one color: black.
A Snug and Comfortable Fit
JLab Epic Open Sport are earbuds that don’t go inside your ear. Instead, the buds hover just outside your ear and funnel sound inside. This is known as air conduction.
They’re held in place by arms that hook behind each ear, familiar to anyone who ever wore the once-ubiquitous Bluetooth headsets on one ear to place calls.
I find the Epic Open Sport to be both more comfortable and snug than those headsets ever were. That’s a good thing, since these headsets target athletes. You’re meant to wear these while jogging or riding a bike, since they don’t block out the world around you.
They’re also an option for people working in settings where they want to listen to music, but it would be a workplace hazard to hinder their hearing.
Initially, I found these buds uncomfortable to wear for extended periods of time, but like with many things, the comfort improved after a few days of using them and my ears acclimated.
I’ve started to reach for these instead of on in-ear buds. To not have to deal with something shoved into my ears, a little pressure behind each ear is an acceptable tradeoff. Yet they’re not in the same league as my previousShokz OpenRun Proheadphones that I could wear for hours after listening to a podcast because I forgot they were still on.
I had negative experiences with old-school Bluetooth headsets, since the arms generally didn’t like my ears and wouldn’t stay on. That isn’t the case here. Immediately after putting them on for the first time, I tilted my head this way and that to attempt to shake them loose. No issues.
Regular earbuds slip out of my ears often. These continue to hold firm. I trust running around and being active in these.
Larger Than Your Average Case
The Epic Open Sport dock inside a carry case that doubles as a charger, just like any modern wireless buds. Yet given how much larger the Epic Open Sport is than earbuds, the case is larger to match. You’re more likely to notice its presence in your pocket.
Still, the case is substantially smaller than that of bone conduction headphones, so you may find them a more portable option than your current setup.
This case has a USB-C port for wired charging, and a braided USB-C to USB-C cable comes included for the task. You can plug these into a computer to charge, or you can add your own charging block to charge from a wall.
The case also supports wireless charging, so you may drop them on a wireless charging pad or the back of your phone.
Battery life isn’t a strong point of these buds. With seven hours of advertised battery life, these aren’t designed to get you through an entire work shift without spending some time in their case to top them up.
Said case can provide an additional 19 hours, which is enough to make it through even the most demanding of days but still far short of what earbuds can deliver these days. JLab’sJBuds Pods ANCoffer over 56 hours of battery, for comparison.
For that reason, you may need to pay more attention to the single light at the bottom of the case. It goes blue when charged and flashes red when the battery drops below 25%.
Loud Sound but Quiet Mics
From the moment I put them on, I have been consistently surprised by the sound quality the Epic Open Sport earbuds provide. In a quiet setting, I can’t tell I’m not listening to regular buds. And unlike bone conduction, there’s no vibration against the side of my head as the music gets loud.
These have become my preferred buds to wear when I’m doing tasks around the house, but I need to be able to hear if someone calls my name. They are loud enough to drown out most idle background sounds but, since my ears remain open, the important sounds still pierce through.
These buds also come with hi-res audio, meaning you can make use of the LDAC audio codec if you have a compatible phone. You also get multipoint audio, enabling you to connect these buds to multiple devices and have your connection automatically switch to the one actively playing sound.
Sadly, I experienced a significantly slower connection time while testing this out with my Frame TV, with several seconds of audio going by before the sound would kick in. Hopefully this is something a firmware update addresses.
Unfortunately, the microphones leave a bit to be desired. While I didn’t have people asking me to repeat myself on voice calls, the difference in quality between my voice recordings with these buds compared to cheaper in-ear alternatives like theCMF Buds 2is pretty stark.
A Mix of Touch Controls and Physical Buttons
When it comes to earbuds, I’m not too concerned about sound quality. It’s obvious when buds sound awful, and those usually have a bargain bin price and cheap plastic build quality to match. Everything else sounds fine.
Controls are another matter. There are buds that look and sound great but are borderline unusable because of their overly sensitive touch controls. If buds are constantly slipping out of my ear and I can’t touch them to put them back in without changing a track, I’m done.
I say this just to empathize just now much I appreciate the combination of physical and touch controls that JLab has settled on. The physical button is used to pause and resume playback or to answer and hangup calls.
All of these require a single press, and it’s bad to imagine triggering it by accident. This is the same button you use to power on and off the buds by holding them down for over five seconds.
Touch controls adjust the volume. A single tap on the right raises the volume and the left side lowers. This is appreciatively low stakes compared to skipping a track or hanging up a call, yet due to the design of these buds, you’re unlikely to trigger these touches by accident anyway.
You have to tap on the back of the buds just outside your ear canal, which is far enough from the arms you grab when you need to adjust position. To skip tasks, you have to hold down for a few seconds instead of a tap. The right side skips forward and the left side goes back.
One of the Better Earbud Apps
You can change any of the controls using JLab’s mobile app. I downloaded the Android version from the Play Store, and of the various apps I’ve used for managing buds, this is among the most feature-rich and well-done I’ve seen yet.
The presentation is clean, and the app did a remarkably fast job of detecting which buds I have paired, which it added automatically. It then applied a firmware update, pausing my music and then reconnecting when done.
In addition to customizing EQ and the controls, there are a few added features here that are outside the norm.
I’m surprised to say that I appreciate the ambient sound feature that can overlay the sound of rain, birds, insects, and more on top of each other. There’s also a burn-in tool to help optimize the sound of the buds.
Should You Buy The JLab Epic Open Sport?
At over $100, these are not cheap buds, but they’re less expensive than competitors like the Shokz OpenFit 2 priced at $180. For 30% less, theEpic Open Sportoffers premium features and does a good job of what they set out to do.
They sound great, they don’t fall off, they’re comfortable, and they last long enough. Their mics aren’t the best, and multipoint audio can feel sluggish, but overall, JLab has produced a good option here for anyone looking for a pair of understated open-ear buds.
