Review For The Best Sound Sports Headphones

Bose SoundSport Pulse Wireless

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Bose SoundSport Wireless Headphones, Black

Zip back a few years: Bose used to be a company that marketed its stuff at old people in the back of broadsheets. Now it makes some of the most desirable tech around. It’s more a thinking person’s Beats than grandad fodder these days.

The Bose SoundSport Pulses are tech-packed sport earphones with a heart rate sensor built into one earpiece. It’s much better than the sensors you find on most smartwatches, still getting a good reading even if you’re haphazardly pounding down the pavement to sweat out a hangover.

There’s a Bose app you can use to see your pulse, but just about any fitness app worth its salt will recognise the headphones as an HR accessory for proper tracking. Don’t care about bpm? There’s a version without the heart rate monitor that can be had for about £30 less than these.

The other hit feature of the Bose SoundSport Pulse is comfort. They look dead bulky, but these are among the most comfy wireless sport earphones in the world, using in-ear hooks that are stable and ultra-flexible at the same time. While they’re in you forget there’s a great big bit of plastic poking out of your ear, mostly because the housing is actually very light.

The Bose SoundSport Pulse’s sound quality is very good, with enough bass to satisfy during a workout, but also a generally smooth and rich tone. They’re sport earphones that want to be your only earphones, even if they don’t quite have the micro-detail of a great pair of non-sporty earphones.

Stuff says ✭✭✭✭✭

Pricey, but really good sound and built-in heart-tracking make the Bose pair the ones to get if you can make the stretch

Bose SoundSport Pulse Wireless tech specs

• Bluetooth: yes 
• Battery life: 5 hours  
• Mic: yes  
• Remote: yes  
• Sweat/water-resistant: sweat  
• Weight: 23g

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Review For Jaybird Tarah Pro

Runners will love these versatile wireless headphones 

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Jaybird Tarah Bluetooth Wireless Sport Headphones for Gym Training, Workouts, Fitness and Running Performance: Sweatproof and Waterproof – Black Metallic/Flash

These are Jaybird’s first higher-end pair of Bluetooth headphones. Priced under the Sennheiser Momentum Free and Bose Soundsport Wireless, but above the firm’s own Tarahs, the Tarah Pros are a mid-range offering that combine better sound quality with a premium, hardwearing design in the hope of appealing to those who get their exercise kicks in the great outdoors.

But when it comes to wireless in-ear headphones, do they come top of the podium? To find out, we strapped on our trainers and fired up our best running playlist.

Design: Built to survive the elements

The Tarah Pros are one of that strange breed of Bluetooth ‘phones: they’re wireless headphones, but they’re joined by a wire. This keeps the two earpieces together, like a the sleeve string in a pair of mittens. It also means the controls have somewhere to live, instead of relying on a touch panel on the earbud which we always find a little hit and miss.

The earpieces also stick together thanks to their magnetic backs so you can wear them around your neck like a necklace. Man, Jaybird really doesn’t want you to lose these things.

Outdoor activity is very much the order of the day, hence that cable is made from a woven material that feels like a very strong shoelace. It’s reflective, so should help you be seen if you’re out running at night, and has a hydrophobic coating which will help it repel moisture (handy for dealing with sweat and rain).

Speaking of which, the Tarah Pros are waterproof in up to 1m of water for 30 minutes, but they’re not recommended for swimming. Only a twazzock would try – the cable would create drag in the pool, and there’s no onboard storage, so you’d have to keep your phone close by in order to try and stream tunes. Good luck with that.

Three sizes of rubber ear tips come bundled, and they’re easy to pull off and on. Once we’d found the size for us, they stayed put for the duration of our testing. So no complaints there.

You can also twist them into an over-ear position if you prefer, and tighten or loosen the cable to fit using the bundled ‘speed cinch’. Plus there’s a shirt clip to for attaching it to the back of your collar to keep the cable in place while running.

The small three-point charging cradle connects to USB and is simple to use. But it’s proprietary, and hence would be a pain to replace if you lost it.

Everything fits in the neat little carry pouch, and even that feels weatherproof. Make no mistake, these headphones are very much aimed at outdoors adventurers.

Functionality: Versatility up the wazoo

 

They’re certainly a versatile pair. As well as the ability to wear them normally or over-ear, you can also fine-tune the sound using the Jaybird app. In fact, the app walks you through the whole set-up, from what’s in the box and what the controls do to how to get the best fit for you.

But it’s the EQ customisation that will have audiophiles excited. Pick from one of the many presets and you can tweak it to your heart’s content, then save it as a new preset complete with a new name. There are all kinds of presets, from Extended Listening to Warmth to Bring the Bass and Flat.

You can also create a whole new sound profile based on your hearing. Just take a quick hearing test – it involves you sliding a bar until you can hear a tone for a range of sound types including mid range, bass and high range – and it’ll make a preset just for you.

The buttons are pretty intuitive, and you get an impressive number of controls from just three buttons. The middle one is used to play and pause, and a longer press powers the headphones up or down. The Volume up button also skips to the next song, while the volume down one can take you back to the previous track. These also take on more uses for handsfree calls – muting and unmuting, accepting and declining etc.

Double-press the centre button and you’ll summon your phone’s personal assistant. It’s handy if you’re out on a run and want to know whether the weather will turn.

Performance: A true endurance pair

You could spend hours tinkering with your sound profile until you get it just right, but our own personalised profile suited us down to the ground – the warm bass was a natural fit for our seemingly high-range-lacking hearing. Admittedly the sound isn’t quite as good as the Bose SoundSport Wireless, but then these are a little cheaper.

The headphones are light enough to barely notice when out on a run, and the extras like the speed cinch and shirt clip pretty much guarantee a comfortable wear. In fact, we happily wore them all day (at our desk, we didn’t go on a day-long run).

But you could if you wanted. A full charge gives you 14 hours of use, but perhaps more usefully, they charge up in double quick time – just a five-minute charge will give you almost two hours of use, which is way longer than we want to exercise for.

So far so good, but there are some omissions. There’s no built-in heart rate monitor, which would’ve been quite fitting for a pair aimed at sporty types. There’s also no noise-cancelling, and no pass-through mode that lets you hear your surroundings – a great addition when you’re running near busy roads. And would a charging case have been too much to ask at this price? Probably. Call us fussy.

But these are still a quality pair. Join the headphones together with their magnetic backs, for example, and they’ll mute the music and disconnect from your device. Leave them disconnected for 15 minutes and they power down. It means when you arrive somewhere you don’t have to faff around switching them off, just click them together instead.

It’s the little touches like that that make these buds so fun to use.

Jaybird Tarah Pro verdict

 

The Tarah Pros are a great pair of headphones, and it’s clear a lot of thought has gone into them. If you absolutely have to have a pair of ‘true’ wireless headphones, we would suggest thinking twice and giving the Tarah Pros a whirl. They’re light enough to be almost unnoticeable, and between the shirt clip and speed cinch you’re sure to find a fit that suits.

Sound quality is very good, and even if you’re missing your Bose, you can tinker with the EQ settings until you find a sound profile you like.

Bit pricey for you? You can always take the step down to the standard Tarahs, the main difference being a shorter battery life (six hours to the Pros’ 14).

If you’re serious about running and want a decent pair of headphones to keep you going through the tough times, the Tarah Pros are a fantastic option.

Professional says... 

Jaybird Tarah Pro review

Even those not of a sporty bent will find a lot to enjoy from these wireless headphones  

 

 

 

Good Stuff 

Marathon battery life

Personalised sound

Versatile fit

 

Bad Stuff 

Proprietary charger

No heart rate monitor

No charging case

Review For Sound Magic E11C

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SoundMAGIC E11C Sound Isolating in-Ear Headphones Earphones with Microphone and Remote (Black) + Extra 10 Pieces Quality Eartips

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by  Tom Wiggins

Headphone sockets might be a lesser-spotted sight on mobile phones in 2018. 

But if yours has one (or you’ve managed not to lose that infernal Lightning adaptor), there’s one very simple change you can make to improve how it sounds: buy some new headphones.

When an unknown brand called SoundMagic appeared on the scene in 2011, nobody expected much from its entry level offering, but the E10, E10C and wireless E10BT in-ears have been right at the top of our list of cheap headphones to recommend ever since. And for less than £50, there’s really no excuse for using the ones that came with your phone anymore.

The E11Cs don’t replace the E10Cs and they cost a few quid more, so what do you get for your money? And is it worth shelling out the extra? We (eventually) found something with a headphone socket and plugged in to find out.

Design and build: Cable management

 

The E11Cs have a slightly more premium look than their predecessors, opting for a single silvery grey finish rather than the choice of red, blue, gold or silver that the E10 range offered. The aluminium buds look and feel better made as well. The ones on the E10s could look a little cheap up close.

Stick them in your ears and you’ll barely notice them - in a good way. They’re super-light and incredibly comfortable, forming a nice tight seal to ensure your tunes sound exactly as they should and not too much exterior racket can creep in, all without feeling too intrusive. Even on the London Underground, which can be overwhelmingly noisy, they held their own against the clanging and screeching of the Northern line. 

The 1.2-metre cable is clearly built to be functional, not feel luxurious. It’s plenty long enough to thread up inside your t-shirt, but not so long that you end up with spools of spare wire crammed into your pocket. It feels pretty durable too, and largely manages to avoid that slightly sticky feeling you can get with some wire coatings, but can be a real pain to untangle if you’ve had them stuffed away for a while.

The wire feeds into the jack itself at an angle, plus it’s slimmed down a lot from some previous SoundMagic designs, which used to pop out of the socket far too easily. Once this one’s in, it’s in.

Features: Remote possibilities

 

You don’t get many features on a £50 pair of in-ear headphones - but that’s kind of the point.
Just down the cable from the left earbud is a three-button remote and microphone. This is the only difference between these and the standard E11s. Press once in the middle to start and stop whatever’s playing, double-tap to skip, and hold it down to activate your phone’s voice assistant, while the buttons either side of it increase and decrease the volume. Call quality is good and voices seemed to come over loud and clear on the other end, too.

The remote housing itself is metal but all three buttons sit underneath a single piece of rubber, with a tiny raised bump to indicate where the middle is. They’re squeezed pretty close together, though, so it can be a little fiddly to change tracks, particularly if it’s cold out. Most importantly, however, the remote is very lightweight, so it doesn’t gradually ease the bud out of your ear hole over time.
Apart from a carry case, which contains the two other sizes of silicone tips for finding the best fit for your ears, there’s nothing else in the box. But what else could you need?

Performance: Sound’s magic

 

There’s a temptation to give budget headphones an easy ride but with the E11Cs there’s absolutely no need to. Pretty much everything you chuck at them sounds great - and not just ‘for the price’. Most people should have absolutely no problem with using these as their daily drivers.

Play a few of the usual headphone testers and they pass with flying colours: Steely Dan’s Aja, House of Cards by Radiohead and pretty much anything by Explosions in the Sky. Bass is hefty, authoritative and well handled, while instruments sound authentic and pretty spacious considering the size of the drivers inside the buds.

Slayer’s frantic Reign In Blood, which can sound fairly cacophonous in the wrong ears, is as aggressive and adrenaline-pumping as Satan intended, while maintaining that raw energy that defines the band’s sound. Tone things down a bit and there’s real verve to the guitar solo in Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain, while that iconic bassline also has a nice meaty tone to it.

If you’re looking for criticisms, vocals can occasionally lack a little life, but it’s not a dealbreaker and you just have to remember how much they cost. The E11Cs absolutely don’t need to use their price tag as an excuse, but it’s something they’ll always have on their side.

Verdict

 

There’s a sweet spot when it comes to in-ear headphones where price and sound quality meet. Most people are only willing to spend enough to get something that they’ll be happy listening to every day, but not so much that they’ll constantly be worried about leaving them on the train.

The E11Cs absolutely nail that, so if you pay £50 for a pair of these, it’s hard to see what you could possibly find to be unhappy with. Well, unless you lose them, of course.

Professional Says :

SoundMagic E11C review

Capable, durable and affordable - SoundMagic does it again

Good Stuff 

Affordable price tag

Good sound quality

Comfortable to wear

Durable design

Bad Stuff 

Remote is fiddly to use when changing tracks