These particular earbuds have the added feature of an over the ear secure design allowing for comfort with their soft flexibility all while giving you the confidence that they will remain secure through your routine! Additionally the over the ear loops are the antenna which allows for the wireless lossless signal pairing that can be experienced with the Epic Air Sport True Wireless earbuds utilizing a class 1 Bluetooth 5.0 connection. We will be comparing the Epic Air Sports to their predecessors the Epic Air Elites of 2018, which were the first wireless headphones/earbuds that we experienced where there wasn't a signal drop between the left and right earpieces that were truly wireless simply because they are on opposite sides of your body. Previous types of headphones that were wireless like this would always drop the signal from one to the other, and if you had the source on one side of your body with only one earphone in on the other side of your body, you weren't getting a clear signal.

We are happy to report that all those signal anxiety fears were erased with the Epic Air Elites in 2018 and that continues to ring true with the Epic Air Sports in 2019. Audio plays clearly with no audio issue drops while playing music or talking using the headphones. The right ear phone is supposed to be the connecting earphone that connects to the source and then feeds the opposite headphone. In our testing we found that even if we just had the right earphone sitting on say the desk and left the audio source across the room (within 30 feet), and then walked around the room with the left earphone in our ear (again within 30 feet), there was still zero signal drop. Despite their small size and lightweight, the 2019 Epic Air Sports have a 10 hour battery life. This is indeed, epic! The previous 2018 Epic Air Elites had a 6 hour battery life, which was insane for the time but we still felt range anxiety, if we wanted to go for an entire workday listening to whatever before storing the earbuds away to get charged up.

That range anxiety is completely covered with the 10 hour battery life that the Epic Air Sports provide. On top of the upgrade in battery life of the earbuds themselves the 2019 Epic Air Sports receive an upgraded storage case charging capacity of an additional 60 hours for 70 hours of total play time before needing to recharge using an external source. This is another big upgrade over the 2018 Epic Air Elites which had a 40 hour charging case. Even though we are currently using the earbuds everyday, we don't feel like we are going to run out of battery anytime soon. So this is extremely good for the traveler/adventurer. We love the magnetic lock in feature where you just place the earbuds within the earpiece mold within the case, and it snaps into place magnetically and lets you know it's charging up with the blue LED. For us, the 2018 Epic Air Elite charging case had a critical flaw to it where the lid was utilizing a catch to hold onto the lower half of the case. The catch was just a plastic extrusion that held onto the lip of the lower half of the case.

This lip ended up breaking making the charging case useless because it wasn't holding the earbuds in place securely anymore, so they weren't charging due to the case not having the new magnetic feature of pulling the earbuds into place that the 2019 version has. With the 2019 Epic Air Sports that issue has been fully addressed and now it is a magnetic enclosure, so the lid just snaps into place with no wear issues. Yet despite these improvements, the charging case is also the biggest blunder that has been made between the 2018 Epic Air Elites and the 2019 Epic Air Sports. The blunder firstly involves the charging and connectivity of the case. The 2018 Epic Air Sports had a flexible cable that wrapped around the case and after removal from its storage location there was a USB end and a micro USB end. There were two ports on the case; a micro USB for power in, and a USB for power out. This allowed you to charge the case up with the attached cable as well as use it to charge up an external device such as a phone.

Due to the fact that the cable wrapped around the case, this provided length to the cable that the new 2019 release doesn't have. While the case was a little wider and longer in the 2018 version, in the 2019 version it is thicker due to the difference in battery capacity combined with the fact that the cable is now a fixed cable that tucks underneath the case. While the 2018 version could easily fit into a pocket, due to the bulk of the 2019 version, you want to carry the case in a bag because it's simply too thick to fit into a pocket. The fixed cable is a huge blunder because it's only three and a half inches long at most and doesn't allow the case to rest flat. Because it is a fixed cable, it also means you can't use whatever cable you want to plug it in too to charge the case up. So the micro USB port was removed from the 2019 case but there remains a USB port which you need to provide your own cable to use at all for charging up whatever device you would like, such as a phone.

Another downgrade in our opinion is the material the case is made of, at least to the touch. The 2019 case is more of a hard plastic, while the 2018 case was a more luxurious feeling soft touch, rubbery plastic that felt good to interact with and wouldn't scratch our glass tabletops. Now let's get into more features of the earbuds themselves. The controls for the 2019 Epic Air Sports are a huge upgrade over the 2018 Epic Air Elites due to the touch capacitive button improvement. The previous 2018 buttons were overly responsive. The slightest touch just handling the earbuds would result in it performing an action. The new 2019 version is so much better! We don't experience it randomly taking touches as an input. We now have zero issue carrying one earbud in a pouch as we use the other in ear so that we can still hear what is going on around us. The touch capacitive buttons take a while to figure out because each earbud does something different and it depends on the number of presses but your standard controls of volume, next track, previous track and answer/hangup phone are present.

Also there is an equalizer with 3 presets to choose from that actually does affect how audio is played. We found that the JLab signature sound equalizer is the best selection to bring the earbuds to life. JLab also produces what they call beware audio on these Epic Air Sports which is supposed to allow for external sounds to pass through the earbuds into the ear. In our experience for both the 2018 Epic Air Elites and 2019 Epic Air Sports this feature is absolutely useless. Instead of getting clear audio of what is happening around you, you get the static volume noise filling your eardrums. This feature is only activated by triple tapping on the right ear capacitive button so it is not easily activated in the 2019 Epic Air Sports by accident, which is great! The final thing to address is the earbud tips that come with the earbuds. The 2018 Epic Air Elites had various tips of various sizes but for the most comfortable and best audio experience we found that it was best to go to Comply Foam and purchase a set of cloud foam tips and cut them to fit. 

While the cloud foam tips provide the best audio experience, they tend to wear out quickly and replacements have to be ordered to continue the audio fidelity extravaganza. With the 2019 release of the Epic Air Sports, JLab has upped their game and is now including cloud foam tips that are actually made to fit the 2019 Epic Air Elites. Not only that, but you can purchase stand alone replacements that come as a set of different sizes. This though begs the question, why not make it available to purchase a specific size set instead of a set of the various sizes? If a certain size is what fits your ears, then the others are just waste that you are going to throw away! Overall the 2019 Epic Air Sports are a solid upgrade to your audio listening enjoyment with the ridiculous amount of battery life that won't leave you hanging when you need them the most, especially with flagship phones making the move to Bluetooth only connections. If you're in the market for a new set of earbuds, do yourself a favor and pick up the 2019 Epic Air Sports from JLab Audio.