JLab JBuds Sport ANC 4 Review

Introduction

The JLab JBuds Sport ANC 4 are a set of affordable, fitness-focused earbuds that promise pretty big features along with a fit that should make them stay put for workouts.

Those big features include active noise cancellation, wireless charging, an app to customise sound, and battery life that can cover hours of exercise time.

Over the years, JLab has had some wins with its budget buds, so there’s reason to be optimistic that the JBuds Sport ANC 4 could be another hit to grab for the gym.

Price

The JLab JBuds Sport ANC 4 are widely available and can be picked up from retailers like Argos, Currys and Amazon as well through the JLab website.

At launch, they cost £69.99 / $99.99 and while they’ve stuck to that price in the US, in the UK they’re available for £49.99.

That puts them up in the same price bracket as sports earbuds like the 1More Fit Open Earbuds S50, Soundcore Sport X20 and the Huawei FreeArc.

Design

• Earhook design
• Additional ear tips included
• IP66 sweatproof design

The Sport ANC 4 are ear hook-style earbuds that offer a very similar look to both JLab’s cheaper Go Sport+ and pricier Epic Sport ANC 3. The hook dominates the design that’s mainly plastic, though certainly not as cheap feeling as some other JLab earbuds.

You can get them in several colours with your pick of pink, teal, cobalt blue and graphite black shades.

Each bud weighs just shy of 5g, with much of that weight clearly in the bud as opposed to the ear hooks. While the IP66 sweat-proof rating doesn’t give you the strongest level of protection available against moisture, it does at least offer defence for those tougher workouts.

I’ve found them comfortable to wear, even for hour-long workouts, and while the ear hooks provide a largely secure fit, I have found that when things get a bit sweatier in and around the ears they have a habit of sliding around, which can also affect getting a good deal to isolate sound.

Whether it’s the distribution of overall weight between hooks and buds or the choice of materials used, it doesn’t seem quite right and it was a persistent issue during most workouts.

On the outer of the buds lies touch sensitive controls that let you play and pause audio, skip tracks, adjust the sound mode, summon Google Assistant or Siri, start an interval timer and more usefully, switch between EQ modes. While these controls give a good degree of control, they are simply too sensitive and there were more than a few occasions where I’d accidentally set them off without meaning to.

The charging case you slip them into isn’t the smallest you’ll find with a set of earbuds, though it does build the USB-C charging cable into the back so you never have to go looking for one.

If it breaks, then it might be a trickier one to charge up and that might be why JLab also offers wireless charging. I had no problem dropping it onto a few different QI-certified wireless chargers.

Features

• Google Fast Pair
• 9 hours per charge

JLab does pack in a surprising amount of features mainly geared around sound performance as well as including some fitness and video-centric ones too.

At its performance core lie 10mm dynamic drivers and Bluetooth 5.2 to let you pair to your wireless devices. It supports Google’s Fast Pair mode, which worked as advertised on my Android phone. There’s also a multipoint mode to connect to multiple Bluetooth devices at the same time.

Download the free JLab smartphone app (Android or iOS) and you’ll find an equaliser with three presets and a custom EQ mode. You also have the choice of active noise cancelling, Be Aware or ANC disabled modes, which can be toggled between on the earbuds as well.

JLab additionally offers movie listening and spatial audio modes when you swap audio for video, an interval timer mode to use for interval-based workouts and a safe hearing mode to cap the maximum listening volume.

The spatial audio mode and movie modes in general actually worked well, while the interval workout mode and safe hearing mode are at least nice and easy to use if not essential features that got huge amounts of use.

The battery life you’ll enjoy here depends on the modes you use and the volume you listen at.

If you’re putting ANC in use, you can expect over 9 hours of a single charge. Turn it off and you get up to 14 hours. If you factor in a fully charged case that total ANC battery jumps to 40 hours and to 60 hours with ANC turned off.

When I used ANC for an hour of listening at pretty loud volume, the battery drop was 40%, and would suggest a much shorter battery performance than the touted 9 hours. When I ditched ANC for an hour listening section, battery drop was closer to 10%, suggesting a battery life performance of around 10 hours. Again, short of the promised figures.

When the earbuds get low they take over an hour and half to fully recharge with a quick charge mode giving you approximately an hour and 40 minutes of listening time. As shown though, what that listening time is in reality could end up being much less.

Noise Cancellation

• Noise cancelling for calls

Things don’t get much better when enabling the active noise cancellation mode. I used them outdoors and in a busy gym and the combination of the sliding fit and not so great seal with the eartips, made the noise cancelling pretty ineffective.

There are two sets of additional eartips provided to improve that seal and I tried that too, but ultimately the noise cancelling performance is a bit underwhelming.

You do have a set of noise-cancelling microphones to use for calls and they’ll handle doing that absolutely fine without giving you anything stellar in terms of volume and clarity.

Sound Quality

• EQ presets available in companion app
• Spatial audio mode included

Sonically, the JLab sound fine, just don’t expect them to punch above their weight in any sort of way. Switching between the EQ presets I’d say you get a bass performance that’s a bit muddy, mids are more recessed than detailed, and trebles are grainy but not necessarily in the good way.

On Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy, switching to the bass boost EQ preset, there is an upping of bass, but it comes at the expense of balance. Switching to the Balanced EQ mode doesn’t address things in a massively satisfying way.

On The Avalanches’ Since I Left You, there’s a sense that there’s a good sound profile that wants to get out, but struggled to get there. We do have to keep price in the equation here, but I think that you can find a more pleasing sound at this price elsewhere.

Should you buy it?

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