As my wife and 'tween-ager are virtual Bermuda Triangles for ear buds, they eventually lose/break all theirs and subsequently borrow mine with the same outcome. Thus I recently found I needed to buy three new sets of ear buds at once. I bought three different sets off Amazon, all having decent reviews: JVC HAFX67R, JVC Xtreme Xplosives, and JLab Audio JBuds J2. Today I sat down to compare them all side-by-side. In the interim, a fairly new set of Apple buds resurfaced, so I had four sets for the bake-off. Caveats: First I am 40-something, with a few too many years of loud music, so I decidedly do NOT have audiophile ears. Second, I tested these right out of the package. Many reviews discuss the need to break in a set of drivers, so this could skew the results. Third, all of them sounded pretty good. I would have been satisfied with any of the new ones, so any negative remarks are for comparison's sake. Note, I tested the buds with an Apple Nano gen4, with music I favor, specifically acoustic/folk and hard rock, in both cases somewhat "busy", having a wide range of frequencies going in the mix. I have a strong preference for drivers that provide good presence and clarity in mid-range, and producing clear overtones without being too bright or tinny.
Results: Fourth place, Apple buds. These sounded somewhat muffled vs. the clarity of the others, and they are really uncomfortable and fall out easily when positioned for best sound. Third place, JLab Audio JBuds J2. Very comfortable fit, with good sound isolation and solid bass, but still sounded somewhat muffled vs. the other two new sets. Close second place, JVC Xtreme Xplosives. Again great fit with good sound isolation. As advertised, these offer very pronounced bass, exaggerated even. Surprisingly, this is accomplished without any sense of booming/crashing, and they still provide very good presence and clarity. Also, to my surprise, the Xtreme Xplosives seemed substantially more sensitive (i.e. louder) than all the others for the same volume setting. In the end, I thought these sounded slightly muffled compared to the winner. However this subtle difference is likely an artifact of the specifics of my own ear and taste, and could change after the drivers are broken in. I originally picked the Xtreme Xplosives out for my wife, who favors urban and R&B music having heavier bass than my stuff, and I think these will be absolutely perfect. First place (for me): JVC HAFX67R. Bottom line, these just sounded significantly better than all the others to me, based on my preferences. Good bass, and very rich presence and clarity. They do a great job with intimate acoustic music and busy hard rock, and I couldn't detect much if any distortion with them turned up quite loud. So, this is the set I'm keeping for myself -- at least until the girls come along and swipe them again.
Final thought: So JVC wins on sound quality. However, I've owned several pair of the (cheaper) JVC Micro HD buds, and really enjoyed them right up to the moment when a channel stopped working -- far sooner than I expected. So I will be watching closely to see how long these JVC buds last, a possible Achilles heel for the JVC products...