JBL REFLECT FLOW
The JBL Reflect Flow are sporty looking earbuds from Harman with replaceable ear tips and two sets of ear fins that cover the entire driver, maintaining sweat and water resistance. While the earbuds are somewhat small and minimalistic, the rectangular carrying case seems rather chunky. It's not something you will be able to easily fit in your pocket, but it does offer another 20 hours of charge for 30 hours of audio playback in total. It has a quick charge feature so you get back an hour of listening from a short 10-minute charge.
Like the AirPods Pro, the Reflect Flow offers ways to stay tuned to your environment. Ambient Aware does what the name implies, and feeds in sound from your surroundings without stopping your music. TalkThru however, turns down the volume greatly while increasing the ambient levels so you can have a conversation without removing the earbuds.
The Reflect Flow is one of the few earbuds that doesn't come with a supporting app, so there are no options to adjust equalization or orientation of control sets. Playback controls are fixed on the right bud, while the button to toggle between Ambient Aware and TalkThru is set on the left bud. Unfortunately the Reflect Flow's earbuds are almost too small, so every button press feels like we're jamming them deeper into our ear.
The Reflect Flow performed best in mids to low highs. For example, The Killers’ Mr Brightside rings out nicely here, likely because most of the action happens in this sweet spot. In Diana Krall’s Temptation, we found the bass slightly lacking. There's a cello that features prominently in this piece, but with the Reflect Flow you didn't hear any sort of resonance or reverberation. Conversely, the vocals and cymbal work took on a more significant role, giving us a brighter rendition of the track then what we're used to.
Guns N Roses’ Knocking on Heaven’s Door gave us a pretty good demonstration of imaging capabilities, the Reflect Flow does a good job of setting the stage here, with enough clarity delivered that you can make out where each of the instruments in the piece is.