JAYS a-Jays Four Earphones Review

We review a lot of earphones and headphones, but we wanted to take a little time and talk about the JAYS a-Jays Four. These are earphones that feature a unique flat rubberized cable that renders them almost tangle-free - and aside from good sound, that's about the #1 feature I want in my headphones. You can stuff them in your pocket, and actually pull them out and use them without having to untie a huge knot. But more than that, they fit. They actually fit into the constrained hole on my industrial Ballistic iPhone 4 case. Very few earphones can make that claim and it's worth noting. 

The a-Jays Four offer an integrated remote control that sits about 6-inches down on the right earphone. The in-line remote has three buttons that are used for a number of functions. The top and bottom buttons are dedicated to raising and lowering the volume. The center button, however, has multiple uses. Press it once to Pause or Play the current track. Press it twice to skip forward, and three times skips back. If you hold it down for 2 seconds, the phone will go into voice recognition mode, allowing you to make a call. It's very intuitive and takes just moments to get used to.

OK, what else... Well, the a-Jays Four come with five pairs of silicon ear inserts which are stored in the rather impressive case, enough to fit just about anyone. But really, the size that was on by default fit us just fine. In fact,we wore them for several hours while setting up and reviewing some video products and never felt ear fatigue - either from the sound, or from walking around with them in our ears. What we did find was that the rubberized coating on the flat cords tended to weigh down the cable, making it drag on the ears somewhat. If the a-Jays Four aren't inserted far enough, they could potentially fall out from the pull.

Sound was excellent. These are a far cry from Apple's white standard earphones - which honestly aren't all that bad for a reference generic. The a-Jays, though add a nice, uncompressed top end that was missing with the Apple earphones. We also liked the bass, which was realistic and had a nice sound that wasn't the least bit overbearing or boomy. It was authentic and we didn't find ourselves encountering that "fake" wall of boom so common in lesser earphones and headphones. The highs were clear, and not shrill - overall they just sound right. For $69 the JAYS a-Jays Four are actually some of the best phone-ready earphones we've heard.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.