True wireless earphones tend to cost more than standard wireless earphones, similar to the way noise-cancelling models are typically pricier than their non-noise-cancelling counterparts. Thus, $99 is an impressively low price for a pair of noise-cancelling true wireless earphones like the JLab Epic Air ANC. The good news is that they offer quality audio performance for the price, with full-sounding bass and crisp, clear highs, and they even have three EQ modes (and adjustable EQ in the app, as well). The bad news is that the noise cancellation is pretty mediocre, and often flat-out bad. You can spend less and get similar audio quality, but you have to spend a lot more to get it paired with good active noise cancellation (ANC).
Epic Air ANC Design, Controls, App, and Battery
The Epic Air ANC earpieces are black, with stems that reach downward and a metallic JLab logo emblazoned on the outer panels. They ship with five pairs of black silicone eartips in various sizes, and one pair of blue foam eartips that have a more earplug-like consistency. The in-ear fit is secure and comfortable, and combined with a respectable IP55 rating for water and dust resistance, the earphones appropriate for exercise.
The earpieces have touch-sensitive control panels, with the controls divided between the two. The left panel controls ANC On/Off/Aware modes with a press and hold, while a double tap summons your device’s voice assistant, and a triple tap changes EQ modes (Balanced, Bass Boost, Signature). Volume is controlled by a single tap on the left ear to lower levels or on the right ear to raise it, while a double tap on the right controls playback, and a press and hold on the right skips forward a track. A triple tap on the right ear also controls switching between EQ modes, oddly. Incoming calls can be answered and ended with a single tap on either earpiece. There’s no track backward, and the layout of the controls feels unnecessarily complex and not really intuitive. Why not have the left earpiece navigate backward a track since the right ear skips forward? The good news is, in the companion app for Android and iOS devices, you can adjust which controls respond to various taps, so there’s some customization available. We found it easy to misfire with the controls, however, with triple taps often registered as double taps.
Speaking of the app, it comes with ANC and Be Aware (transparency mode) slider controls, as well as graphics that tell you each earpiece’s remaining battery life. Beyond this, you get user-adjustable 10-band graphic EQ—it has four presets that can be adjusted somewhat easily and then saved. You can also customize controls and update firmware, making the app quite useful.
The included charging case is a black, strangely shaped box with a large, faux-leather-lined flip-open lid and an annoyingly short, hardwired USB charging cable. On the plus side, the case holds an additional 36 hours of charge, and JLab estimates battery life for the earpieces to be roughly 12 hours, which are excellent numbers for these categories.
Noise Cancellation and Audio Performance
At maximum ANC levels, the earphones only cut out a small amount of ambient noise. If you have a powerful fan whirring in the room, the mids will drop out somewhat, but you’ll still hear the highs. Deep bass rumble like you hear on planes or trains is only nominally dialed back. But the most noticeable shortcoming here is hiss—sure, high-frequency, white-noise-like hiss is a common side effect of much ANC, especially on the affordable end of the spectrum. But this hiss is quite audible, and it seems to attempt to mask the highs the circuitry cannot eliminate.
In a quiet room, the hiss ends up making things louder. In a room with music playing or office-like chatter, the hiss is still audible, and the ANC only dials back the distractions slightly. For $100, we don’t expect much, but the ANC performance here is subtle enough that it almost feels like a gimmick rather than a feature. If ANC is your top priority, you’ll need to spend significantly more, like $250 on the Apple AirPods Pro.
Be Aware mode—a transparent listening mode that allows you to hear your surroundings—is also a little unreliable. The effect and the app’s slider have notable delay between them, and often, the slider would only activate one earpiece in testing. This was sometimes true of the ANC slider, as well, but when all is working as it should, Be Aware mode is a pretty useful feature.
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There are multiple EQ modes. Bass Boost is pure bass overload, while Balanced sounds better than either Bass Boost or Signature to us, but the sound signature here depends greatly on a secure in-ear seal. Moving the earpieces around even slightly can drastically alter the audio. There’s also a separate Music/Movie mode option. We tested primarily in Music mode, and in Balanced EQ mode; Movie mode seems to accentuate dialogue and subwoofer rumble a bit more.
Internally, each earpiece houses an 8mm dynamic driver delivering a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz. On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the earphones deliver powerful low-frequency response. At top, unwise listening levels, the bass doesn’t distort, and at more moderate volume levels, the bass depth still sounds strong, and relatively balanced with the highs.
Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Epic Air ANC’s general sound signature. The drums on this track sound full and natural in Balanced mode, and positively unnatural and over the top in Bass Boost mode, which also lacquers Callahan’s baritone vocals in far too much low-mid richness. Balanced mode provides the crispest, clearest listening experience, and still has plenty of low-frequency anchoring.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives an ideal high-mid presence, allowing its kick to retain its punchiness in the mix, while the vinyl crackle and hiss take a slight step forward in the mix. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with gusto, even in Balanced mode. The drum loop also receives some added bass thump, while the vocals sound crisp and clear without ever sounding overly sibilant. There’s plenty of boosting and sculpting in all three listening modes, but in Balanced mode, the earphones sound quite good, with rich lows and ideal high-frequency clarity.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, receive just a smidge of added low-frequency depth, pushing the lower-register instrumentation forward in the mix slightly. The spotlight belongs to the higher-register brass, strings, and vocals, and again, in Balanced mode, the sound signature provides a boosted-but-natural sound.
The mic offers decent intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every word we recorded, but there was some typical Bluetooth distortion fuzzing up the words slightly. That said, the mic signal was strong, and on a clear cellular signal, callers should have no issue understanding you.
Forget the ANC
For $100, JLab’s Epic Air ANC earphones deliver some excellent audio performance. It’s a shame, then, that there’s noise cancellation in the mix here at all. The ANC is mediocre at best and lousy at worst, depending on what type of noise you’re trying to block out. If ANC is a priority, you’ll need to spend more money on the aforementioned $250 Apple AirPods Pro, the $280 Bose QuietComfort Earbuds, or the $230 Jabra Elite 85t. If you don’t need the ANC and just want affordable wire-free earphones with good sound quality, meanwhile, we’re fans of the $80 Anker Soundcore Liberty Air.
