Gadgetory

jaybird makes some of the more popular sports oriented in your wireless bluetooth headphones and his blue buds x headphone which hit the market a few years ago has a loyal fan base would like to extol its secure fit and strong sound quality so what's j-bird do for a much-anticipated encore the jaybird x2 which comes in multiple color options for $180 and looks almost identical to its predecessor but offers some improvements including a new matte finish better sweat proofing a slightly more comfortable ear fin design a better carrying case and improved battery life to eight hours which is good for this type of headphone the x2 is actually one of the best sounding in-ear headphones out there and jaybird hasn't made any changes to the sound as far as I can tell it's a pretty well-balanced headphone with good clarity and decent bass that isn't over emphasized there's a slight bit of trouble push and bass lovers may be a little disappointed the bass doesn't have more oomph to it but I like the sound for me the best way to get a tight seal was to kind of screw the headphone in clockwise and have the headphone cord wrap around my ear I was able to get a tight seal and Jaber now includes some foam ear tips if you can't get a seal with the included silicone ear tips I did have a couple of small problems with the headphones first the earphone itself is kind of big and because of the shape of my ear the inner room just didn't feel super comfortable press up against the entrance to my ear canal secondly I don't like to have cords wrapped around the top of my ear you can wear the x2 with the cord hanging down under ear but I had trouble maintaining a tight seal in that position so I stuck with the over ear method the other thing I don't like is the cord shortener you get a little extra accessory to adjust the length of the cord which works fine but I think the designers need to figure out a way to create a more integrated elegant solution having the cord double up on itself with a removable clip is something that may be acceptable on a 50 or $75 product but this thing cost $180 don't get me wrong I like the j-bird x2 and think it's one of the better wireless sports headphones there but it's also one of those products that's going to work great for some people and not so great for others so despite the improvements I've got to hold back a little on my rating giving it 3.5 stars instead of four of course that may change if the price goes down but for now that's what I'm going with particularly with Plantronics backbeat fit sitting out there at less than $100 I'm David Carr know from cnet.com thanks for watching