JBL Everest 300

£110

Here at What Hi-fi? we appreciate good sound quality and understand that the best way to get it on a restricted budget is to keep the tech simple. Wireless can sometimes be the enemy of good sound, but the need to cut the ties is getting only more important, and the JBL Everest 300s, which have a battery life of 20 hours, are among the cheaper wireless headphone options.

Street-wise design

We’re roughly in the Beats mould here, with chunky lines and a youth/street inflection. The cups sit on swivelling bases, making each earpiece an inch or two deeper than those of the Beats Solo 3 Wireless. The cups rotate a few degrees in every direction, so should fit any head with ease. Deep fake-leathertopped padding makes attaining a good seal easy, and isolation is among the best we’ve seen in a pair of on-ears. They fold up too, and have all the controls you need on the earcups. The right cup has a share button: press this and you can connect another Bluetooth headphone, to share music with a friend.

There’s an unusually expansive soundfield here, closer to that of a full-size headphone than an on-ear one. There’s a real sense of vertical space as well as width, meaning the 300s create immersive soundscapes that would be impressive on wired cans. Bass is solid too. It’s fairly deep and has real punch, yet is less intrusive than on the Beats Solo 3 Wireless.

These ’phones aren’t perfect though. The mids are soft and lack definition, and the treble is tame. There just isn’t that zing you might be looking for, and dynamics aren’t that expressive.

We have our reservations, but these are decent performers considering the price. Bluetooth is reliable, if laggy, and while the sound lacks some midrange and treble definition, its large presentation and energetic bass ensures some appeal.