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The Jive is a small metal in-ear headphone. It has a thin cable in a color that's a muted version of the headphone, in my case a bright red headphone with a dark red cable. The come in a small dark hard fabric pouch along with a range of tips, a clip to reduce the cord nose, and a strap that keeps the cable tied. The clip is quite effective to reduce the noise of the cord banging around while you move. This is a well presented bundle, up to Brainwavz usual standards.

The headphones went into my ears just fine and are comfortable with the tips that come by default, which is normal for me as I'm pretty used to in-ear headphones. I ran the headphones for a couple of hours before the review, in case they needed break-in time.

My first test track today was dance music, GT vs Project C, Voices of Trance volume 102. My first impression was "holy bass batman!", as they are particularly bassy for in-ear headphones. In my opinion they have too much bass, though I got used to it after I wore them for a while. I can hear the high frequencies, though they're a bit rolled off, as you'd expect for relatively cheap in-ear headphones. Other than the bass being a bit loud it all works ok together. Dance music isn't the place to judge vocals.

Next I moved on to Adele, Rolling in the Deep. Adele's voice comes through well, and I can hear the noise of fingers moving along the strings of the guitar, which shows detail is quite good. Again the strong bass overwhelms the music, taking over from the vocals. Highs again sound rolled off - you can hear the cymbals but they're not as crisp as with higher end headphones.

Eminem Cinderella Man is one of my standard test tracks, as it really tests the bass of the headphones. The bass is quite loud and quite low. The vocals come through well, though they're somewhat processed so you can't tell quality so well. The highs are again rolled off, but it's less important in this type of music.

Bon Jovi Living on a Prayer is up next. There's a lack of clarity that I can hear in the mids and highs on this track, and the bass isn't as prominent. While the clarity isn't perfect it still works fine.

Michael Buble's All I Do, live, was up next. Again we have a bit of boomy bass, with good (not great) vocal clarify. Cymbals are there but again slightly rolled off.

All in all I found the Jive to be quite good considering their price. Clearly their bass is very strong, their highs are rolled off from what a high end headphone would produce, and midrange clarity is only ok. They're comfortable, come with a nice case and good clip, and are probably one of the better buys around for this price.

Test setup: 256kbps mp3 files, played with a Huawei P9 smartphone using the Stellio music player.

Disclosure: free review samples were sent to HeadphoneReviews for review.