I’ve been all-in on Bluetooth headphones for a few years now. I love not being tethered by wires and having the ability to walk around without having to be inches from my iPhone or iPad. I prefer over-the-ear headphones and have a very high-end pair as my daily drivers. But when I travel or go for walks outdoors, it’s good to have a high quality pair of earbuds. I’ve owned multiple pairs of earbuds over the last few years, from no name brands from China, which for the most part haven’t been very satisfying to better quality names such as Jaybird which have been better. Full disclosure: I was supposed to be sent a pair of these for review purposes. That didn’t happen as Jabra can’t seem to keep them in stock, so I went out and bought them anyway. Now I know why they can’t keep them in stock.
A family member commandeered my Jaybirds, so I’ve spent the last several weeks researching the newest entries in totally wireless earbuds from the likes of B&O, Momentum, Apple, Beats and even Master and Dynamic. From my research including countless articles and YouTube videos, I decided the Jabra Elite 75t would be a great option for me.
So are they? Yes, yes they are. I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Some reviewers said they’re bass heavy. Some said mid-range and treble is lacking. Most said to get good sound, you needed to adjust EQ in the Jabra Sound+ App. To be honest, in my experience they sound much better than I expected (which were high to begin with) and they sound terrific without any adjustment in the app.
Jabra was founded in 1983 and they are global brand specializing in audio and video equipment. They are well known for making high quality earphones for communications. My office, for example uses Jabra monaural headsets for hands-free calling. I use a Jabra mono Bluetooth headphone for my Apple Watch. This is certainly one area these Bluetooth headphones excel in. They use 4 microphone noise reducing technology which I tried out in a noisy environment (Starbucks) and I could hear the caller well and they could hear me well too. You can hear your caller in both earbuds, which is nice. Most other earbuds only let the caller be heard in one earbud. And you can open the microphone so you can hear yourself on a call. This makes a huge difference so you don’t sound so loud when you’re talking to someone. People around you will surely appreciate this a lot!
These come extremely well packaged. I like a good presentation when I buy something of quality, and the packaging doesn't disappoint. When you slide out the inner box, the charging case is at the top, the earbuds in the middle and the accessories (USB C charging cable, small and large silicone ear gels – they come pre-installed with the medium ear gels and a warranty leaflet. Jabra recommends you download the Jabra Sound+ App, put the earbuds in the charging case and make sure they are updated. The first update takes about 15 minutes, but you surely want your earbuds to have the very latest firmware, right? I then let them charge up, which took mere minutes as the charging case and earbuds were just about fully charged out of the box.
Pairing them the first time is a breeze. Once you open the lid on the charging case, the app walks you through pairing them, choosing which voice assistant you want, from Siri to Android to Google Assistant to Alexa and language. You also register them for warranty with Jabra, directly in the app. You can pair these up to 8 devices. Something Jabra offers which few others offer is the ability to have them paired to two devices at the same time. This means you can for example listen to music on your iPad, but immediately answer a call from your iPhone, without having to change from one device to the other. This is a great feature for sure.
The charging case is one of the stars of this show. It’s super small and will easily fit in your pocket without making you look goofy. Once fully charged, the Jabra’s offer up to 7,5 hours of play time. It wasn’t long ago, you’d be lucky to get 3 hours from wireless earbuds. Even Apple’s newest Airpod Pro’s only offer up to 4.5 of continuous play before needed to be recharged. The Jabra case also holds up to 28 hours of charge so you can recharge the earbuds multiple times before it needs to be recharged. The Jabra’s attach magnetically in the charging case as does the case lid. It’s clear Jabra put a lot of thought and engineering in the case. It’s smaller than the previous 65t case, charges via USB C, holds an amazing amount of battery power and just looks and feels super high quality.
The earbuds themselves are marvels of engineering. They’re much smaller than any earbuds I’ve seen or worn. It’s important to note that the ear gels are key to getting the best performance and comfort out of the Jabra’s. Jabra suggests you try all three pairs of ear gels in order to get the best fit. They come out of the box with the medium size attached. I started with them. The sound was disappointing. So it was time to try the other ear gels. If you choose the right size ear gel for your ear, not only will you hear how fantastic these can sound, but you simply WON’T hear anything around you. I should mention, these earbuds don’t have noise cancelling circuitry. I’m not disappointed by that as I’ve found that when noise cancelling circuits are engaged, the sound stage can be significantly altered. The Elite 75t use passive noise cancellation and it works beyond fantastically. It’s amazing how well this works. Someone was literally shouting at me trying to get my attention, and I could only see their mouth moving. And as mentioned, if you use the right ear gel for your inner ear, these puppies sound simply amazing. Bass is deep, vocals natural and highs just right without being shrill or harsh.
From a technology perspective, the Jabra’s are Bluetooth 5.0, which is very low energy and provides the ability to wander quite a distance from your mobile device, without any dropping whatsoever. They offer SBC (low-complexity subband codec) and AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), both of which have much higher quality and compression than the older MP3 format. There is no APT X, but then if you’re an iPhone user, Apple doesn’t use APT X anyway. I doubt you could hear the difference anyway. They come with an IPX 55 water resistance rating. While not completely waterproof, they can easily survive a grueling gym workout or a walk, in light rain. You can’t shower or swim with them, but would you even if you could? I certainly wouldn’t take a chance on ruining something I paid close to $200 for.
In terms of function, Jabra didn’t really leave anything out here. Many earbuds don’t offer volume control on the buds, but the Elite 75t does. Even Apple’s Airpod Pro doesn’t offer a way to adjust the volume on the buds themselves. Jabra doesn’t use touch sensitive controls, opting for physical buttons instead. YAY! They are very light touch, which is important as harder to push buttons means you end up pushing the earbuds deeper into your ear canal. There is quite a list of single, double and triple pushes on either earbud to get the functions you need from answering a call, putting a call on hold and answering another call, ending a call, changing music tracks, pausing music and more.
The Jabra Sound+ App is simple to use and offers a lot of functionally. Coming from a very high-end over-the-ear Bluetooth headphone, which also has an app, I think the Jabra offers a lot more in terms of adjustment to your exact listening preference. There are easy to select presets, such as Bass Boost, Treble Boost, Smooth etc. Or you can adjust Bass, Mid-Range and Treble individually to your specific listening tastes. There’s also Hear-Through control, which lets you listen to music, but bring in some of the outside world if you want and it’s adjustable to let in a little or a lot. Once adjusted in the Sound+ App, you can turn it on or off using the left earbud button. You also get some white noise options, such as sound waves. You can also read the full user guide in the app (which is not included in the box), but I downloaded it to my computer so I could read it on my laptop screen. Or you can simply remove one of the earbuds to pause the music. If left out of ear for more than 60 seconds you will need to push the right earbud button to resume play.
Well there you have it. Sorry for the length of this, but there are so many True Wireless Earbuds out there that my hope is you find this helpful if you’re considering the Elite 75t. They’re super small, super lightweight, super comfortable, sound simply amazing with music or phone calls, has a great charging case with amazing battery life and comes with a two-year warranty, which I doubt I’ll ever need to use anyway. All in all, these are the best Bluetooth Earbuds I've owned and I can see myself enjoying many pleasurable hours with the Jabra Elite 75t.