Truly wireless Bluetooth headphones are a category that has recently become “a thing” since Apple came out with their $160 EarPods.
The JBL Free is one of the latest True Wireless headphones to appear on the market. But as is typical with JBL products, it will set the bar for the rest of the industry in performance to price ratios.
We’ve had a pair for over a year now. Let’s look at our JBL Free review.
At $150 a pair, the JBL Free comes in toward the middle in terms of pricing for a pair of true wireless headphones. What sets them apart however are the features they are offering at that price point.
The Sound
First and foremost is the JBL sound. If you are familiar at all with JBL products then you more than likely realize that they are typically sonically vastly superior to their competition in a category. If you’ve ever had a chance to do an A vs. B demo (we have) it really stands out.
The JBL Free are no different in that respect, they sound better than the other true wireless headphones we’ve tested. We should qualify that by saying that these are in-ear buds, they sound as good as they could given this type of platform. That is to say, nowhere near as good as an over-ear headphone.
Bass response will depend almost entirely on how snugly you seat the driver nozzle into your ear. The good news on that front is that JBL supplies each pair of Free with 3 sets of silicone ear cups of differing sizes, one set should hopefully fit you fairly decently.
Mids and highs are bright and well defined with acceptable tonality and separation. Volume is decent enough to drown out most of the garbage music they play at my gym, which for me is good enough. Those who’ve been to one too many Metallica concerts may want for a little more.
The Feel
That leads me to the fact that the JBL Free are also IPX5 certified, so they can handle the sweat of the gym or a light rain shower without breaking.
JBL throws a pair of different sized gel sleeves in the box for this purpose as well as to help lock them into your ears when running etc. You don’t need to use them if you don’t like them. See what works for you.
The Phone
One neat feature with the Free (or is it Frees?) is the way they work when taking calls. They automagically switch to mono mode for calls ala the old school Bluetooth headsets. When the call is done or you stick the second Free in your ear they go back to stereo mode for music/podcasting/etc.
Only the right earbud has the microphone. In our extremely scientific and rigorous testing we’ve found that calls with my 92 year old Grandpa sounded great on his end. He didn’t miss a word of our conversation. I’ve found this to be the case with the other dozen calls we’ve made so far with them. [Updated phone usage below.]
The Buttons
Both earbuds have buttons with cool tron-like lighting around recessed buttons. Each button has multiple functionality. You really only need to remember 2 for each side: answer calls and play pause on the right, skip forward or back on the left.
The Battery
Similar to the other true wireless headphones out there, the JBL Free comes with a charging case. This takes the 4 hour stand alone playback up to 24 hours with charges in between. This works out fine when you consider that most of the time these would get used would be commutes and gym visits.
The battery case charges via a micro usb cable. The earbuds charge through the small metallic connector on the inside of each ear piece.
The Pricing
Amazon has about 4000 different resellers offering True Wireless products in the $20 – 40 range. JBL considered this when they were making the Free and decided that going premium with this product but staying at the low-end of the pricing in that range was going to be the right strategy.
Well see, it’s already a crowded space so only time will tell if any particular product defines the market.
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Where to get them
$149.95 from BestBuy.com: Free X available, get this model.
$149.95 on Amazon.com: Free X available, get this model.
$149.95 Direct from JBL.com: Only offering original model (Why JBL, why??)
Conclusion
There are a lot of options out there for true wireless headphones right now, but if you are looking for performance and features then the JBL Free will be hard to beat at $150.
These will be our new gym headphones for the next few months for sure, we’ll post an update once we see how they hold up after 6 months of Orange Theory.
Update: 10/23/2017
Now that we’ve been able to rock these around the office and out in the world for a few days now we have some more impressions on the JBL Free.
The Sound
I really like the sound on these. Using the small ear pads and the latex skin on the units themselves creates a nice fit that helps keep them in my ears and outside sound, well, outside.
The detail on these is much better than I initially realized. Listening to Roots, Rock, Reggae by Bob Marley I can hear all little percussion details I didn’t realize were there. It really sounds like you are in the room with the band.
Overall I’m quite impressed with the sound quality. Again the volume isn’t mind-melting but it’s plenty loud for me. Definitely better than other brands I’ve used before, who shall remain nameless…for now.
The Fit
Back to the ear pads. I did a couple of days worth of yard work with these and they didn’t fall out. They fit pretty well in my ears but don’t get in the way of my hat or sunglasses.
A dozen miles jogging gave me the same results. Nice and snug. No issues.
Update: 11/22/2017
The Phone
If find myself using the Free now mainly for making and taking telephone calls while at work. It’s a throwback to the old-school Bluetooth ear piece everyone had in the early 00’s.
I’ve probably made close to 100 calls on them already and I’m impressed. I’ve asked people specifically if I’m coming in loud and clear and I’ve gotten good signal reports from everyone. Nice!
Update: 8/29/2018
Product Refresh
The JBL Free will be updated with new internal antennas and some tweaking to the transmit frequencies in order to increase the paring performance between the two ear buds.
They have also bumped the volume in both earbuds, which was a needed upgrade.
This won’t be a complete product update so the product and packaging (more or less) stays the same.
The new models are called the Free X.
Any feedback on delay (or not) when using these to watch video?
I’ll test it and post an update but likely “yes, laggy” with a caveat: some TV’s I’ve come across have a menu option to adjust the timing of the speech, so I’ve been able to get the audio to line up with Bluetooth headphones. Not sure if my TV at home has that or not, I’ll have to look.
JBL makes the Soundgear BTA which is designed to work with televisions, and has a low latency Bluetooth protocol (AptX) via the dongle connected to the TV. They aren’t headphones but it’s an option.
http://www.electromodo.com/bose-soundwear-companion-vs-jbl-soundgear/
Thank you Sir, I look forward to hearing your feedback.
That’s a tough question to answer without specific details, but they do come with small ear buds (as well as medium and large.) If you can, head over to Best Buy and see if they have a sample you can look at. Or go for the JBL Reflect Contour 2 instead, they have a hook that will go around the ear. They arent true wireless but close enough.