(NEW) JBL Tune 225TWS True Wireless Earbuds

After some due diligence, I selected these earbuds over several other candidates with otherwise comparable features primarily because of the JBL name, which has carried some weight with me in the audio realm for many years. The others were from manufacturers I'd never heard of. Of course (and isn't this always the case these days), it turns out that its apparently not your father's JBL anymore (or even mine). I had no trouble pairing them with my device, and it is here where my positive comments in this review are concluded. I liked the idea that bass was stressed in the description when I purchased it, but I found the bass to be too heavy-handed, almost to the point of distortion. The controls on the buds aren't exactly intuitive either, and the accompanying "quick start guide" consisted of drawings only to explain their usage. But the biggest problem is that the buds themselves don't properly fit into my ears, and, unlike my cheapo-cheapo set of earbuds, these fairly expensive JBL ones don't offer a set of alternative buds, indicating that apparently JBL has concluded that all humans have identical ear canals. Of course, a set of alternate buds would be impossible considering the design of the unit itself. I can see what they were going for here, but it doesn't do much good if the thing doesn't fit (or stay in) your ears. I noticed that in one of the previous reviews, JBL Customer Service responded, "Unfortunately, we don't have ear tips available for our JBL Tune 225TWS. Please make sure to twist the earbuds away from the earlobes for a better fit." Well, certainly that IS unfortunate, and in my experience "twist[ing] the earbuds away from the earlobes" does NOT result in a "better fit." And, of course, when twisting and adjusting the earbuds in your ears, you inevitably hit the control buttons, and start jumping to the next track, or powering off, or whatever. It's a complete nightmare. Either your ears will accept them or they will not, so if you're considering buying these, caveat emptor, folks. Unlike when buying a sweatshirt, there is no size guide to help the consumer get a good fit on what they're about to buy, so you're on your own. And good luck with that. Oh, and the included USB cable is a whole 9 inches long (I thought it might be a foot, but a ruler doesn't lie). An impossibly short cable is just another inconvenience that makes it difficult to locate the charger without having it dangle when plugged in. Who's making these decisions? I have a final complaint which has nothing to do with the performance of the product, but it put me in a bad frame of mind right at the outset. There is no visible means of opening the box that these things come in, and so you have to tear the box apart into shreds to get inside. And the glue that they use to seal the box up has an adhesive quality so strong that if NASA had used it, they wouldn't have had problems with tiles falling off the space shuttle. This was most frustrating, and as I said, it aggravated me even before I had a chance to try out the earbuds. I just don't understand why companies put a great deal of effort and expense in developing perfectly fine products, and then apparently turn the whole thing over to morons for packaging. My final verdict? After having a high regard for JBL products for over 50 years now, it looks like that once proud company has gone the way of Revere Ware. I'll be returning these. The search continues.