Jaybird Freedom 2

PROVIDING FREEDOM FROM ALL THE WIRELESS IN-EAR ANNOYANCES?

WITH THE FREEDOM 2s, headphone-maker Jaybird’s gone back to the drawing board in an attempt to solve pretty much all of their main shortcomings. And the designer’s haven’t neglected sound quality either, despite the buds themselves being quite tiny. Yet they still sound great, delivering an exceptionally clean and crisp sound that’s wellbalanced and warm. There’s enough bass that you can feel it without it being overwhelming — the only considerable acoustic shortcoming is that busy music can often lose some of its definition, with midrange frequencies getting a bit overloaded with lots of instruments.

It’s really usability that sets the Freedom 2’s apart, though, with a lot of small tweaks and improvements ultimately adding up to a great overall experience. A super-chirpy female voice announces what battery percentage you have left as soon as you turn the headphones on, and charging these in-ears is done by snapping a small adapter (which also serves as a backup-battery) onto the in-line controls. Although the buds only-last 3–4 hours at a charge, the pen-cap-sized adapter holds one full recharge. Resizing the cable that connects the buds is also simple. The rubber cable is woven between two small black tabs, and all that’s required to adjust cable length is to pull these tabs apart to shorten it, or pull the cable ends to make them longer. It’s as pain-free as we’ve experienced with wireless in-ears (well, barring completely cable-free models). They’re exercise ready too, with water- and sweat-resistance, can be comfortably worn over- or under-ear, and are very secure and quick to insert. Really, there’s nothing serious we can complain about here — this is a great set of in-ears, and our new all-round favourite.