Gadgetory

JBL's reflect aware being marketed as noise-canceling sports earphones which makes them fairly unique but on top of that they are one of the first lightening headphones that means they have a lightning connector on the bottom instead of a headphone plug and they go right into the Lightning port of iOS devices no headphone adapter required they cost $200 which is pretty pricey but they do seem well-built with a sturdy reflective cord a nicely designed inline remote and their sweat resistant they fit me really well too and have silicone tips and wings that lock the buds securely in place they reminded me a little of boses ear tips which are really comfortable on the remote there's a button for turning the noise canceling on and off the noise canceling isn't all that strong and it certainly isn't as good as the noise canceling on boses QuietComfort 20 headphones the headphone is called the aware because it has a feature where you can choose to let more sound in which is good if you're a runner or biker and want to be able to hear the world around you and traffic in particular you control the ambient noise setting in the JBL headphone a p-- that app also allows you to customize the EQ setting which is important because the default setting on the headphone is considerably bassy and sounds a little muddy i was able to improve the sound by adjusting the eq to a more balanced setting in fact I turn the EQ off and felt better about the headphone after I did that it lacks a little clarity and sounds a little processed but compared to other sports headphones it sounds good ultimately the biggest drawback may be that the headphone does draw some power from your phone and reduce your battery life I also didn't think the noise cancelling was quite strong enough so while there's a lot to like about this headphone there are some drawbacks which hurt its value a bit I'm David Carnot for cnet.com thanks for watching