A pair of wireless headphones will liberate you from trailing headphones and getting yanked back when they catch a door handle or any other protruding object. If you’ve ever pulled the cables too hard and broken your precious headphones you’ll appreciate the freedom of Bluetooth audio. See our Best Headphones round-up for more great cans. There are compromises on sound quality, so it’s important to select the right headphones if you value your audio. Often price is an indicator, and at less than £40 the Sound Blaster JAMs suggest that sound quality won’t be great. Even the rather 80s name suggests nothing special, but our initial concerns were unfounded because audio quality was impressive. In fact, let’s get straight to this most important factor in choosing a apir of headphones.
Sound Blaster JAM Bluetooth Headphones review: sound quality
For a set of headphones at this price and including Bluetooth we were very impressed. It wasn’t a million miles from our favourite Bluetooth headphones, the £125 Sennheiser MM 400-X. As always we defer audio judgement to our resident music buff and Tech Advisor Technical Editor Andrew Harrison, who has the best and most critical ears in the business. He found the headset has good overall tonal balance, with enough weight in the bass to give a comfortable full sound. There is a slight roughness in the treble but without overly exaggerated treble that would otherwise make them too wearing. We hardly expected these headphones to be the last word in detail but at this price it’s excellent. Its neodymium drivers can handle frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz. The level midrange means vocals are neither recessed nor pushed up too loud, and these fast and dynamic headphones have an excellent wide stereo with natural spread between the ears. Overall these are very impressive as budget headphones, let alone as wireless models using the most basic lossy audio codec.
Sound Blaster JAM Bluetooth Headphones review: comfort
We are fans of the ergonomics too. The Creative Sound Blaster JAMs are super lightweight, and don’t clamp too tightly yet feel secure in place – sitting well on the ears. We prefer headphones that will fold up to as small a size as possible, and these don’t do that – although they’re certainly small enough to fit in a coat pocket or take up little space in a bag.
Sound Blaster JAM Bluetooth Headphones review: controls
Built into the right earcup are the main controls for the headset power, volume, Bluetooth connection, audio play/pause and calls. You can also boost the bass by tapping the BASS button on the earcup. You can also attach the headphones to a PC/Mac via USB for enhanced sound quality – handy when watching a movie or TV show on your laptop. When paired to a phone via Bluetooth, the built-in microphone blocks out some of the ambient noise and echo. The Sound Blaster JAM features Near Field Communication (NFC) wireless connectivity for easy one-touch pairing – although this isn’t yet supported on Apple iPods or iPhones. Battery life is another factor to consider when buying Bluetooth headphones, and the Sound Blasters lasted a decent length of time before requiring recharging, which is done using the included MicroUSB cable. Simon was Editor of Macworld from the dark days of 1995 to the triumphant return of Steve Jobs and the launch of the iPhone. His desk is a test bench for tech accessories, from USB-C and Thunderbolt docks to chargers, batteries, Powerline adaptors and Fitbits.
