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I am not sure exactly when I started finding low fidelity experiences unacceptable but it’s been creeping up on me. I had become frankly pretty lazy about audio experiences, which is strange because I love music. I suspect deepening my use of Spotify has been something to do with it. But over the last 12 months or so I have been investing in improving my audio experiences.<\/p>\n
For office use I bought some over the ear cans, the Phillips Fidelio X2s – which are great. So much clarity of sound, low and high end.<\/p>\n
I decided I also wanted something better than the fairly throwaway headphones I had been using with my phone. Investing in headphones always feels risky because I am someone that has an unfortunate tendency to lose things. But I was Heathrow Airport and I decided to try something new. Oh my goodness though there are so many different types of headphone and I was suffering from some real choice anxiety. Then I remembered a recent review of Jabra’s Elite65e headphones<\/a> by my business partner Stephen O’Grady and I jumped in.<\/p>\n The 65e headphones are excellent. For one thing, the wireless functionality is really game changing. I had previously been skeptical about bluetooth headphones, but they’re really excellent. The freedom of movement is really notable. It’s cool when you’re on a plane or something to leave your phone charging in your seat, and walk around listening to music. The bluetooth is a decent decent up to 10 meters or so in my experience.<\/p>\n The sound quality is on point. The bass in particular has good feel. The sound is crisp whether you’re listening to electronic music or the folk\/pop.\u00a0The sound is not as good as over the ear headphones obviously, but I find proper headphones uncomfortable if i am trying to to sleep or relax. In ear headphones suit me better for travel. Stephen is a big fan of active noise cancelling functionality for travel, but I find noise cancelling headphones actually increase the kind of treble noises, cups or cutlery clinking that stop me from sleeping. When I am on a bus or something, though, the noise cancelling functionality is notable and pleasing.<\/p>\n The telephone experience is also infinitely better with the 65es. Some other in-ear headphones had made my voice sound weird and stuff to myself when on calls – not so with the 65es. They also seem to integrate pretty well with the software on my Pixel 3. Before my experiences with the 65e I would have felt a little grumpy about the fact the Pixel 3 doesn’t have a headphone jack- yes, I was one of those people. But not any more.<\/p>\n A word of caution. I put the 65es down on a table at a bar, which had a little water on it, and after that the sound became intermittent. That is – they are not water resistant, or at least I wouldn’t trust them to be. Luckily I was able to exchange them for a new pair, and now I am more careful about that.<\/p>\n In sum, the 65es are reasonably priced, offer decent sound for the price, and they’ve immediately become an indispensable piece of kit when I am traveling long haul, or even just getting the bus to work.<\/p>\n