You Gotta Hear This. On These.

Just a few years back, wireless earbuds were few and far between, and buds that even resembled a “quality” pair were exorbitantly expensive. Fast-forward to 2021 and the Bluetooth earbud market is MASSIVE and growing by the day. Today you have myriad options to choose from at every conceivable price level. Look on Amazon and you’ll find a sea of affordable options (many of which are identical aside from branding).

Here in the duuude crew, we have a strong preference for products that are thoughtfully-designed and manufactured to last. Finding products that match that criteria is getting harder by the day, but we’re happy to report that these Jabra Elite 85t’s certainly made the cut.

To give these ‘buds the thorough review they deserved, we handed them off the duuude crew’s resident audiophile and tech-geek Miiike. So buckle up and read on for Miiike’s take on Jabra’s latest foray into the earbud market.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

I spent far too long contemplating how to sum up my initial impressions. The list of options was long, but I settled on a quote from Family Guy that I felt did these earbuds the most justice: “GIGGITY!”

In the era of Apple’s super premium product packaging where throwing a box away feels sacrilegious, Jabra’s sustainable, recyclable packaging was a welcome surprise. Rather than add to the growing collection of empty boxes in my closet, I was happy to throw this box into the recycling bin and forget about it. Simple pleasures I suppose.

Upon pulling the contents from the box, I was greeted by one of my favorite details in the package: “duuude.co” etched on the case. Jabra offers free laser engraving when you buy from Jabra.com so I decided to bite (because why not?). I’ll admit that during the order process, the laser engraving seemed like a gimmick and I might have been a bit cynical, but I have now seen the light.

Here’s what Jabra includes in the box:

2 earbuds
Charging Case (optional laser engraving)
3 sets of silicon Ear Gels
USB-C cable
2-year Warranty
Warning leaflet

Upon first inspection, the earbuds really exude an air of quality. With 3 separate microphones on each earbud (!!!), you can tell that some serious industrial engineering went into these buds. The quality of the design and finish of the Titanium Black earbuds I received was immediately reminiscent of my Audi Q5’s interior, and as an Audi fanboy, I don’t take that comparison lightly.

SETUP & CONFIGURATION

We all have our own flavor of character faults. Near the top of my list of faults is my insatiable urge to be an early adopter of technology. As someone that has spent many $1000’s on 50+ Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowdfunding projects, I’ve experienced countless configuration/setup procedures from a companies of varying size and maturity. Of the products I’ve owned, I would say that roughly 1 in 20 had a setup process that didn’t require some level of troubleshooting.

In the case of these 85t’s, I would reach into my bag of rarely used descriptors and call the setup process as exceptionally easy. Of nearly a dozen bluetooth earbuds I’ve owned, these Jabra’s were unquestionably, undeniably, absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the easiest earbuds to setup. And frankly, the incredible ease of setup spoke volumes to me [pun intended] about the overall quality of these buds.

As an app designer by trade, I am keenly aware of the effort involved in building a high quality app. Most proprietary apps are unnecessary and ultimately just more bloat for our devices. As such, I am also wildly averse to the new paradigm of needing an app for every store, restaurant, product and service we use. Despite my innate cynicism and much to my surprise, the Jabra Sound+ app (iOS, Android) managed to impress me on a number of levels.

By default, the main interface presents the most useful data and functionality settings in editable widgets, including: Battery levels for both earbuds, battery level for the charging case, Active Noise Cancellation & HearThrough adjustments, equalizer presents & settings, and a few others. While I appreciate the ability to edit and/or reorganize the widgets to my liking, I found the default layout to be sufficient.

Along with a few other of Jabra’s top-of-the-line earbud models, the Elite 85t’s enjoy both Siri & Google Assistant integrations. While I rarely voice assistants in my daily life, I was ever-so-slightly disappointed at the lack of support for Amazon’s Alexa, which is the assistant I used most often thanks to my handful of Amazon Echos. But then I remembered that, in all likelihood, I never would have used Alexa had it been included anyway.

SOUND QUALITY

Generally speaking, the sound quality offered by the Jabra Elite 85t’s is easily on par with the best Bluetooth headphones on the market today. Card-carrying audiophiles will likely find fault with these and any Bluetooth headphones for the lack of extreme audio nuance, but those same audiophiles will gladly give up the convenience of wirelessness for the superior sound quality offered by the best wired headphones.

Jabra clearly made the Elite 85t’s for the “almost audiophiles” like me that do greatly value sound quality, but also value comfort, utility, durability and overall benefit to our everyday lives. For my money, these earbuds offer the best sound quality, clarity & immersion of any Bluetooth earbuds I have ever tested.

I’ve found myself using these earbuds far more often than I ever planned or anticipated. I am fickle when it comes to electronics, yet these buds have completely won me over in a couple weeks of use. These Jabra’s have stolen the crown as my go-to headphones, dethroning even my lovely $350 Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones. Yep, it feels icky to say that, but the overall usefulness of these Jabra earbuds is hard to compete with.

ACTIVE NOISE CANCELLATION (ANC)

Jabra’s Elite 85t’s are essentially identical to the sibling Elite 75t’s, with the exception of how far they reach into your ear canal. The 75t’s dive deeper into your ear canal for improved seal while the 85t’s have shorter ear stems and allow for reduced pressure on your eardrums. Based on what I’ve learned recently about hearing damage caused by prolonged use of earbuds and closed-back headphones, the reduced ear stress is a greatly appreciated feature.

The Elite 85t’s allow you to choose from 3 different ANC modes (ANC on, ANC off, HearThrough) by simply pushing the button on the left earbud. Let’s go over each mode in detail:

Active Noise Cancellation ON

Because of the reduced protrusion into your ear canal as discussed above, these 85t’s don’t create a complete hermetic seal with your ear. As such, they aren’t able to provide the all-encompassing noise reduction offered by some competitors that makes you feel like you’re floating in the vacuum of space. With a proper fit (using the tips appropriate for your ear size) it seems reasonable that you could experience around 85% reduction in ambient sound. As someone that has worked from home for almost 15 years, this mode is perfect for when I need to drown out the screams, screeches and laughter my kids produce that reverberate around my house.

For my purposes, that 85% is perfectly sufficient. What I appreciate most about these earbuds with ANC on is the lack of perceived pressure on my ears that I get from other noise cancelling headphones. While my Sony WH1000XM4’s seem to provide nearly 100% reduction of ambient noise, that insane level of ANC comes with notable pressure that feels like someone gently squeezing your head from both sides.

**Active Noise Cancellation OFF**

With ANC off, these earbuds allow a reasonable amount of ambient noise to enter your ear (as expected). If I had to quantify it, I would estimate *around a 50% reduction in ambient noise* in this mode when properly fitted to your ear.
I’ve found ANC off mode is good for those times when I don’t have the luxury of completely ignoring my surroundings, such as when I’m doing yard work or simply around the house listening to an audiobook.
If you think you might use these earbuds in ANC off mode most of time, I would likely direct you to lower cost alternatives like the Anker Soundcore Life P2 or Samsung Galaxy Buds+, both of which are highly capable earbuds without the premium paid for noise cancellation.

HearThrough Mode

Both ANC on & off modes delivered results on par with my expectations. HearThrough mode, however, surprised me. With HearThrough levels maxed out in the Sound+ app, I found that many environmental sounds were actually amplified when compared to what your naked ear hears. The squawks of a birds across the street, someone closing a gate, and even a dog’s collar seemed to stick out amongst the drone of ambient sounds.

The distinct benefit of this mode is personal safety in public situations. HearThrough mode excels when I go on walks through my neighborhood where I have to be cognizant of speeding cars, passing bikes, barking dogs and any number of other obstacles. With that said, I found that reducing the HearThrough level in the Sound+ app just slightly provided the perfect balance of safety and sound quality.

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