Hello, everyone. Hope all of you are well!

I wanted to talk about the JBL Endurance Run today. These in-ears have surprised me so much that I had to write a review. Let's get the obvious out of the way, the build quality is nothing to write home about. The fit is quite snug and secure. Their best aspect is what we all care about - the sound.

I started out by playing a few test tracks - Bleak by Opeth, Surface's Echoes by Beyond Creation, and Synaptic Plasticity by Blotted Science.

The first and third songs aren't mixed well, and on bad headphones the flaws are just very obvious. But the JBLs rendered the sound well - bass guitar was clearly audible without excessively accentuating the fundamental tones (i.e., not too much mid-bass bloat), electric guitars were clear and yet not shouty (a well-controlled midrange), and cymbals were just a little too loud (slightly elevated mid-treble). I was genuinely impressed by the sound, and decided to see if there are measurements of this thing.

Rtings has measurements for the wireless version of the same, and one can see that these roughly follow the Harman curve albeit with some tasteful changes. The most notable deviation is in the lower frequencies (more bass), but this is not offensive at all. I listen at low volumes and find myself needing more bass than the stock Harman response. I turned down the treble glare by around 2 dB at 9 kHz, and they sound sublime. These honestly have no right to be so enjoyable, and especially considering that they cost a mere $30. I see a lot of people here asking for budget IEMs that do metal well. I cannot recommend these enough! I own the Etymotic ER4SR, Porta Pros, and other open back headphones. I honestly cannot say with conviction that all of these things are markedly better than these JBLs in terms of sound quality.

I bought these earphones shortly after they came out last spring I believe. I wanted something I could workout with, and keep on if I wanted to shower (not wash my hair ofc). I wanted good bass, good noise canceling, and something with a long battery life that won’t fall out.

PROS: -VERY long battery life. I’d wear them for hours and hours and hours and they wouldn’t die. I’d only charge the case one every couple weeks, and it was a quick charge. -they are water resistant- I’ve taken many showers with them (but carefully, not trying to get them wet). -somewhat durable/durable case.

CONS: -so fucking uncomfortable. They would make my ears sore. No real way to change the size of them like in others where you can switch out the rubber tips- bc of how big they are. -horrible volume- even at its most loud, wasn’t loud at all imo. Not noise canceling at all. It always sounded far away… they just didn’t fit right in my ears and were not soft or forgiving. -one of them randomly one day just lost 75% of its audio ability. Literally operating max 25% volume (which already was low) at FULL volume. Most of the time just couldn’t hear anything at all. -tap to control volume/play pause ect was annoying real fast. It was so sensitive even the slightest accidental brush would pause it.

I lost the left one a week ago and finally had an excuse to buy new ones. Bought the nothing ear (a) and already SO in love with them-will report back as time goes on!! Not to expensive either.

TLDR; fuck JBL endurance peak 3 don’t wast ur money or time. Your ears will thank you.

Need a nice pair of headphones for when I work out because my AirPods are 5 years old lol lmk which ones are your personal favorites