Jabra Elite 85h
Jabra’s over-ear wireless noise-cancellers come loaded with tech and excel especially at call-making.
While ‘hi-fi’ headphone companies know how to deliver good sound but have spent a decade learning to handle Bluetooth, Jabra came from the other direction — it knew all about Bluetooth but had to learn how to tune a musical headphone. Having established that ability without doubt in the last few years, it now delivers both bud and over-ear wireless noise-cancellers that challenge the value of the most established brands. And its expertise in communication might even give it an edge. The 85h has no fewer than eight microphones in total — four used during noise-cancellation, six used when making calls, and are the only headphones of which we’re aware which provide EQ options not only for your music, but for the calls as well: you can nudge up the treble or bass for incoming calls, and adjust the ‘sidetone’, how much of your own voice you hear. So if call quality is crucial to your line of work, this might tip your choice towards Jabra when choosing among the market’s many wireless noise-cancellers.
The rest of the offering is of similarly high quality. The volume/track controls are exactly where they should be under the cloth of the right earshell, and the headphones come loaded with smarts. Drop them down to your neck and the music stops. To turn them off entirely you just put them down and flatten the headshells, though they’ll time out eventually even if you don’t — and you can set how quickly they turn off in Jabra’s app, Sound+.
This app also accentuates the smartness by having a neat choice of user-selectable modes, called ‘Moments’, for Commute, In Public, In Private, and ‘My Moment’, each of which you can customise using EQ and the choice of noise cancellation, ‘HearThrough’ and EQ.
On initial listening in wireless mode with noise cancellation activated and the ‘Commute’ scenario selected, we found them a tad lacking in the low stuff, and just a little fizzy on treble and sibilants. However, we used the EQ to tilt the frequencies and create a balance entirely to our taste. Thereafter we never wanted for pleasure in the musicality of the 85h.
We had been very surprised to find only the base-level SBC Bluetooth codec supported — no AAC for Apple users, nor aptX or LDAC for Android. But late in our reviewing a firmware app update added AAC. Hoorah. We like headphones which get genuinely better through updates.
More smarts: you can link them to your voice assistant of choice — Siri or Alexa for iOS phones, Google or Alexa for Android — and invoke the Assistant by pressing a button on the right headshell; there’s a slight delay then Alexa arrives with a ‘bing’. A final bonus for the forgetful: ‘Find your Jabra’ will lead you to wherever the 85h was when last you used the app, though this requires permanent access to Location Services.
Those wanting the reassurance of aptX transmission quality from an Android phone that supports it may be inclined to look elsewhere, yet the Jabra 85h is a musically enjoyable headphone even on the SBC codec, with rain resistance and solid build (hard case included), while the Sound+ app delivers excellent versatility and smart operation, including for call quality, which will delight those who rely on it. They’re well worth the asking price, especially given that they launched at $499 and now sell for $379.