Jabra Elite 85h Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones, Gold Beige – Over Ear Bluetooth Headphones Compatible with iPhone and Android - Built-in Microphone, Long Battery Life - Rain and Water Resistant

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Tom Steele - Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2019

BEAUTIFUL, JUST BEAUTIFUL

It is a DELIGHT to write this review of the Jabra Elite 85h Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones. First things first, who am I and what are my qualifications? Well thank you for asking... I have been in the broadcasting industry since 1986. I have used headphones on my job for roughly 5+ hours a day, 240+ days per year for over 30 years. I have used a variety of headphones, although I've tended to find something I liked and stuck with it so perhaps my list isn't as long as you might expect. I think it is safe to say that I have some experience with headphones. That doesn't necessarily make me an expert though, because there are lots of different kinds of headphones for different jobs. But I think that I'm - at the very least - a knowledgeable professional. TL;DR The short version: THE JABRA 85h HEADPHONES ARE WORTH EVERY PENNY OF THEIR PRICE AND SOUND AMAZING! So lets talk about the Jabra 85h headphones. Let's start with the price. These are not budget headphones and they don't pretend to be budget headphones. If you are looking to save money, you are in the wrong place. If you are looking for great sound quality, good solid build quality and a useful feature-set, you are in the RIGHT PLACE. The Jabra 85h headphones are very comfortable. Like most noise cancelling headphones, you can get a little hot and sweaty around the ears since it tends to create a sealed environment for your ears - but they are comfortable headphones. I didn't mess with blue-tooth or Alexa. You'll have to check some other reviews for that - I don't really need those things in my headphones. I tend to use them wired for best sound quality and I have a million-zillion Alexa devices that all answer me when I say anything remotely resembling her name. I don't need another. What I was concerned with was SOUND QUALITY and comfort. We already got comfort out of the way, so let's talk about sound quality. I put these on and tied into my Vault 2i network music player and tried out a mixture of music... Everything from The Cars, The Police, The Who, Toto, The Outfield, Billy Squier and more... With a little bit of EQ, I could make the muddiest old recordings sound crisp, punchy and bright. With newer songs, almost no EQ was even needed. The volume levels were very good, and I was able to reach near-painful levels without any hint of distortion. I never experienced classic distortion, although if I jacked up the EQ high enough on the bass, I could get some bottoming out or popping, but that could even have been the EQ software itself. The headphones sounded amazing. I realize that in most worlds, these are expensive headphones. They certainly are for me - but there are audiophiles who would scoff at these. People who pay far more for headphones than this, and then have to also buy amplifiers because the headphone have high resistance drivers that require more power to drive them. Those audiophile headphones sound amazing and I envy those who get to use them, but they introduce a whole 'nother level of complication and added devices and I could go on and on about why, for MOST PEOPLE, these are as good a headphone as you will ever need. I suspect that most of us couldn't hear the difference anyway, and I suspect that most of us are using pretty basic drivers (aka, your computer sound card or a mobile phone) to drive the headphones anyway and don't need that level of headphone because we would just be amplifying garbage anyway. One last comment - there are three modes for these headphones. OFF - they still play music, but it is not modified in any way - you just hear the music. HEAR-THRU - you hear the music, but you also hear when someone is talking to you. ANC - Automatic Noise Cancellation, you hear no outside noise, just music. OFF is the purist mode, and shouldn't require battery. HEAR THRU sounds great, and you can hear outside noises - a little bit. ANC make the outside world VERY QUIET and almost all you hear is the music. The Jabra 85h does this VERY WELL and DOES NOT HURT THE SOUND very much at all. Mostly a little bass seems to be lost in this setting, but it is surprisingly good. I was impressed with this, because a lot of cheap headphones try to do ANC and it doesn't sound good. Jabra does ANC very, very well! Ultimately, I would happily stand face to face with anyone considering these headphones and tell them that these are OUTSTANDING HEADPHONES and that you should absolutely buy them - THEY ARE AMAZING!!! I hope you find this review helpful. I feel like that reviews are super important on Amazon and they really help me determine if a product is worth buying or not - so I try to return the favor and leave a review that will honestly tell you whether a product is good or not. We all use products differently, so I also try to make it clear what was important to me, and hopefully that makes it easy for you to tell if you will like it too. I also think it is important for Amazon shoppers to stick together and let each other know if a product is garbage. I WILL let you know if a product isn't good, so you can avoid the hassles of returning a product or a product you lose money on. PLEASE go to my profile page and reach out to me if you have any questions. I enjoy writing reviews and try to respond to any questions about a product ASAP. Thank you for reading my review.

4.0 out of 5 stars

By mm - Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2019

Comparison of Jabra 85+ Elite, Bose 700, & Sony WH1000XM3 noise-cancelling headphones.

I purchased all three of these headphones because I couldn't decide which ones would be best for me. Bottom line is, if you are looking for multi-purpose, noise-canceling headphones for the office, the Jabra 85+ Elite or the Bose 700 are the way to go (I chose the Jabras over the Bose for reasons detailed below). But if you are are an audiophile who is mostly going to listen to music and just wants the convenience of being able to answer calls at the same time, then the Sony WH1000MX3 are the clear winners. I needed headphones to help me focus at my new employer, which is a large "open office" layout. Imagine 150 people in a huge room of long tables and you get the idea. None of the three headphones do a good job of blocking out higher-pitched sounds like human voices, which was a big disappointment for me as that was my most critical need. But the Jabras at least muffled voices somewhat, whereas the other two seemed to actual make nearby conversations stand out worse. All three did a great job of blocking out lower-pitched noise like fans, motors, etc., with the Bose being the best at this (So if my primary need had been to block out airplane or train noise, instead of human voices, I'd probably have chosen the Bose). Music on the Jabras is fine and is comparable to the Bose which surprised me. But neither wet a match for the Sonys in terms of music listening (using default settings for all). That said, the Sony Sound+ software (a free, optional download) allows you to select from common music presets (eg bass boost) as well as customizable equalizer settings. So, with reasons I chose the Jabras over the Bose came down to functionality and ease of use (the $100 lower price tag than the Bose wasn't really a factor). Here are some of the differences between the Jabras and the Bose that mattered to me: - the Jabra software was easier to use and less glitchy than Bose. (Don't let the terrible graphic on the first "page" of the software scare you off). - you can use them (both for listening and noise cancelling) with your phone without the software if you want to, just pair like normal. - it recognized that I use Siri and automatically connected, even though I don't think the optional software listed Siri as a voice assistant option (might have that confused w Bose, though). No complicated setup or programming of buttons. - pause music (or white noise if that's what you've selected) with a simple tap (Bose do this too). But the real plus is that they automatically pause music/white noise when you take an ear cup off your ears. I found this to be very useful: being the only headphones user at my office, people seem to want me to take off an ear cup to listen to them. Plus it saves battery life. - they at least muffle human voices. The Bose and Sonys seemed to actually make nearby conversations stand out even worse than when not wearing headphones. - they turn on and off simply by swiveling the ear cups, which you tend to do anyway to make them lie flat when not in use. No hunting for that tiny power button! Plus they can be set to "sleep" after a period of time to save battery. - They were the best of all three at not getting hot uncomfortably hot during use (ANC + music, plus phone calls tested on all three headphones). - the volume " buttons " (really more of a clickable area, not a tiny button) are easier to use than Bose's finicky swipe gestures (the Sonys were the easiest to use tho as you just tap lightly in the correct area). - most importantly for me, they work well with both my cellphone and my win10 laptop, at the same time. They are NOT designed to work with computers, and Jabra does not make BT drivers for computers, so this capability may be highly variable depending on your computer and operating system (OTOH, the Bose 700s ARE supposed to pair with computers, and I could get them to at times, but not consistently.). BTW I can't recall if I tested this through the Jabra Sound+ software our without the software. FWIW, What worked for me: (1) to my windows settings and (2) select the headphones as my audio output, then (3) select the special Windows headphone profile from the two options, and them (4) pair them with the computer Bluetooth as I would any other BT device. NOTE - buried in the online FAQs is this important info: the voice assistant only works with one device at a time, and always selects the last device you pair with. So unless you use Cortana, pair with the computer first, then your cell. - to switch from one paired device to the other (For both the Jabras and the Bose) you simply pause the "active" device (e.g. Pandora on your laptop) and hit play on the other device (eg podcast on the cellphone). For phone calls though it's seamless -- just answer them, no need to switch which device you are paired to. - finally the Jabra software was easier to use, not glitchy, and offered tweaks that are more useful on a daily basis than the Bose. There were 3 things that confused me at first: when you use the Jabra software, you end up "pairing" your phone twice. Jabras online FAQs explain why but the bottom line is that it's designed to do that. The other initial confusion was the software's "moments" function: "moments" are simply a way to select settings for different types of uses with a single click. Eg at home I like to have "hear through" on so that I can converse w my spouse while listening to music, and so I have that "moment" set to "hear -through" set to On. But at work I want to other voices blocked as much as possible so I can focus, so I have "hear-through" set to Off. And third, to use moments you do NOT need to enable the moments auto-select function (I read that it's a little unpredictable so, rather than have my audio settings change unexpectedly, I'd rather just choose them manually). As far as looks -- The headphones look like what they are -- a nice upper-mid priced set of headphones. The outer covering o. The beige model is a light beige, unattractive woven fabric that I suspect will look gross in a couple of years, so I'd recommend the darker colored ones. The case shell is a tad bit flimsy but is cleanable plastic. They feel solid and I really don't notice the slightly heavier weight on my head compared to the Bose. The cords match the headset color (a nice touch) and they include an airplane audio adapter (both true of the Bose, but surprisingly, neither are true of the Sonys). In the end, the Jabras were the best suited for my needs because of their better noise cancelling of voices; Siri integration; ability to pair simultaneously with a phone and my laptop; lack of glitchiness and easier to use controls; simpler and more useful software; and clever convenience features when compared to Bose. The sound quality for music was pretty similar and the Jabras didn't drop phone calls the way the Bose did. They don't look as high end as the Bose but then again they cost $100 less so I don't mind.

3.0 out of 5 stars

By Michael - Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2019

No ANC during calls

I thought I could upgrade to muti-use headphones with improved noise isolation. This is not a replacement for office calls. The active noise cancellation does not operate during calls so both you and the person on the other end hear all the ambient noise. The voice clarity is also not as good as my Plantronics voyager focus UC. The 85h makes my voice sound muffled to the recipient. It has tight sound for music listening. ANC works well for low rumbling background noise (when not on a call), Bluetooth 5 connects to 2 devices although I have to stop and start the music on my computer to hear it once it has switched over to my phone to hear something there. It does not automatically switch back to the active source once the sound is complete like the plantronics. It is enjoyable to listen to but is not the right choice for calls.