As standalone Bluetooth earphones, the $99.99 JLab Epic Executive Wireless offer decent audio with sculpted highs and boosted bass in a simple, unassuming design. As noise-canceling earphones, however, they come up short—it's more of a white noise feature than noise cancellation. That's not surprising in this price range, but you almost wonder why it was included in the first place. So while the earphones don't sound bad, there are better options for the price, and if you want even decent noise cancellation, you need to spend more than $100.

Design

Available in black, the Epic Executive Wireless earphones feature a rubberized band that sits loosely around the lower neck and thin cables that connect to earpieces on either end of the band. The matte black design offers little to discuss—other than the JLab logo, emblazoned in silver on the outer panels of each ear price, this is a nondescript design with inexpensive-looking plastic compartments at either end of the collar band. An included snap-on neckband adds some rigidity and stability to the collar band wire—it's thicker and wider and shaped to fit most necks comfortably.

On the right side, the collar band houses inline remote control buttons and a microphone. The central multifunction button controls playback, call management, power/pairing, and call management, while the outer two buttons control volume (when tapped) and track navigation (when held). We're not fans of combining volume and track skipping on the same buttons—it often leads to accidentally skipping a track. A covered rubber section protects the micro USB charging port, and the other half of this section is a button, rather than a cover—it controls the active noise cancellation.

JLab includes a solid array of eartip accessories. There are five pairs of eartips in various sizes, including one foam pair, and there are two pairs of ear fins that wrap around each earpiece and help stabilize the fit. The result is an exceptionally secure in-ear fit that should work for just about anyone, and stay put during strenuous exercise. However, the collar band design will not appeal to all users, and can sometimes present challenges when worn with hoodies or certain types of shirts or coats.

The inline mic offers mediocre intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 6s, we could understand every word we recorded, but the recording was fuzzy, with plenty of audio artifacts and a distant sound. The signal was also lower than many Bluetooth mics we test.

The earphones also ship with a zip-up semi-hardshell protective pouch, and a USB-to-3.5mm adapter—snap the USB charging cable into it, then connect the micro USB end to the earphones and the 3.5mm to an audio jack and use the earphones as a wired pair when the battery is low or dead.

JLab estimates battery life to be roughly 11 hours, but your results will vary with your volume levels.

Performance

If you're looking for excellent noise cancellation, you're going to need to spend more than $100 on it. Sitting in my testing space, I can hear the sound of my split system heater eliminated when I press the NC button on the earphones. That's a good start, but unfortunately, it has little effect on most other sounds we tested—in-room chatter, keyboard typing, and low-frequency rumble all come through without much reduction. But the real issue is the high-frequency hiss the NC adds to the equation—a hiss, incidentally, that is louder than the sounds my heating unit makes. Several budget noise-canceling options introduce a hiss, and it's always a negative, but this is the most audible one we've heard.

The NC circuitry doesn't really have an impact on the audio performance, which is good. However, while it doesn't alter the audio, the hiss it creates is audible even when the audio is turned to high volume levels. This is the opposite of noise cancellation. It's noise creation. It makes for a solid white noise feature, but these earphones would be a far better product without it.

See How We Test Headphones

We tested audio with the noise cancellation off to eliminate the persistent hiss. On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the earphones deliver intense low frequency response and don't distort, even at high, unwise listening levels. At more moderate levels, the bass depth is still quite strong—the higher frequencies are still present, but this is a bass-leaning sound signature.

Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better example of the overall sound signature. The drums have a borderline thunderous sound to them, which means there's a lot of added sub-bass and lows. Callahan's baritone vocals get some added low-mid richness, and a notable added high-mid presence that includes some sibilance. The guitar strums and higher register percussive hits also pack some extra brightness, and what starts to emerge is a scooped-out sound signature with deep lows, bright highs, and less midrange presence.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the higher frequency boosting becomes more obvious. The vinyl crackle and hiss relegated to the background comes forward noticeably, and the kick drum loop receives some added high-mid presence, adding punch to its attack. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with solid depth. We've heard even more power in the sub-bass realm on other bass-boosted in-ears, but these rank fairly highly in that department.

For orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, the lower register instrumentation comes forward in the mix a bit, thanks to the low frequency boosting. The higher register instrumentation still owns the spotlight, however, because its already crisp presence is given even more high frequency brightness through JLab's drivers.

Conclusions

From a sonic standpoint, the JLab Epic Executive Wireless are solid bass-forward wireless earphones. There are better-sounding pairs for the price, however, and you absolutely shouldn't buy these for noise cancellation. For $100 or so, the Moshi Vortex Air and JBL Reflect Fit are solid Bluetooth options with some bass-boosted presence, while the RHA MA650 Wireless deliver rich bass without getting too intense in the lows. If you want in-ear noise cancellation, Libratone's Q Adapt Lightning earphones deliver the best performance for the price, though they cost a lot more than $100.

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