5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
phones are good, but not worth over 30 bucks
Date of Review: Jun 5, 2008
The Bottom Line: If you find them under 20 bucks, pick them up. They can't compete with high class headphone quality though.
I bought the JBL Reference phones after my perfectly good ipod headphones were stolen (!!!). I own a Harmon/Kardon amplifier for my home theater and have been thoroughly pleased with it. I was planning on purchasing these earbuds off buy.com for about $30, but found them for $15 on ebay instead. For what I paid for them, I am more than happy. The sound cleaner and sharper than most earbud type headphones supplied with portable music devices. However, these are not nearly good enough to pay even half of the $80 msrp. The quality is decent, the bass is overly heavy (although very clear), and the worst part is the incredibly dry and tinny highs. Songs with a lot of drum hat noise will annoy you... the sound is absolutely unacceptable for "reference" earbuds. Also, the fit is more like earplugs than earbuds, which isolates noise well but a millisecond of movement can change the tonal response. As a result, music is often bass heavy in only one ear or something along those lines. If the headphones are not pushed into your ear completely, the bass response is leaked out and the music will sound awful.
Also, I should note anyone planning to wear these phones "on-the-go" will be very disappointed; ear-plug type earbuds have a tendency to exaggerate the sounds of the cord rubbing against clothing and the pressure from taking a step (running with these would be dreadful). Even the sound of your own nasal cavity will be exaggerated.
For $15, I am very happy with the headphones- but that is only compared to other 15 dollar headphones. P
