Jabra Elite 75t Review

The Jabra Elite 75t are the company’s latest true wireless headphones, and at $179.99, they aren’t cheap. Straight from the box, you can expect a sweat-proof, snug fit and a bass-forward sound. They also work with a great companion app with a 5-band EQ that lets you turn down the powerful bass and change the HearThrough mode so you can hear what’s happening around you. We like how customizable they are, and anyone who wants really deep lows (or is willing to use the app to fine-tune the sound) will be happy with how they sound.

Jabra Elite 75t Earbuds Specs

PROS:

1. Excellent sound quality with deep bass and clear highs.
2. Waterproof and dustproof construction.
3. Superior audio quality thanks to the mic.
4. The app supports Alexa and Google Assistant, and it has a 5-band equaliser and a “HearThrough” option.
5. Combining helpers.

CONS:

1. The bass is excessively amplified by default.
2. The grade for resistance to water is average at best.

Design

The Elite 75t’s earpieces are small and don’t have any stems or tips. They come in black or black-and-grey colours. There are three sets of plastic ear tips that fit well and stay in place. Each earpiece has a button on the outside panel that, when pressed, does different things depending on which earphone you use. When you press and hold the button on the left ear, the volume goes down. If you press it twice, you can skip a track, and if you press it three times, you can go back.

When you’re not on a call, one press toggles the HearThrough mode, which uses the surrounding mics. When you are on a call, a single press mutes the mic. With one tap, the right button lets you play or stop music or handle phone calls. Long-pressing it turns up the volume, and hitting it twice brings up your phone’s voice assistant (Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, or Google Assistant, depending on your phone).

Bluetooth

The Jabra Elite 75t has Bluetooth 5.0, which not only helps make the battery last longer but also makes it easier to connect wirelessly. I almost never had Bluetooth problems in New York City, which is known to be hard on true wireless earbuds, especially older types.

Even though the earbuds are smaller, the battery life is now rated at 7.5 hours at a moderate sound level, up from 5 hours on the Elite 65t. With noise cancellation on, the AirPods Pro are rated at 4.5 hours. The case gives the battery an extra 20.5 hours of life. At least for the buds themselves, my first tests show that the battery life numbers are correct.

Design

The Elite 75t are 20% smaller than the Elite 65t, which were Jabra’s last true wireless in-ear headphones. Even though that doesn’t seem like much on paper, it makes a big difference when you’re holding it. The Elite 65t’s earbuds were too big for some ears, but the Elite 75t’s small earbuds should fit almost everyone.

The Elite 65t still has one button on each speaker, but the volume rocker is no longer there. Instead, holding down the left cordless earbud for a long time makes the volume louder, while holding down the right earbud for a long time makes the volume quieter. Unfortunately, this volume setting makes it very hard to get the exact volume you want, and we often ended up with a volume that was too high or too low. It’s just easier to use the phone to change the volume.

But the controls for playback are easy to use, and you can still call up your phone’s assistant. Alexa users can also set Alexa as their preferred assistant, which can be changed in the app.

Performance

Even though the style is a big step up, the sound quality takes a step back because there is too much bass. The Elite 75t makes an amazing amount of bass impact, but it’s also hard to listen to. Big bass isn’t always a bad thing, as we saw with the Sol Republic Amps Air 2.0, which have a lot of good bass. But the Elite 75t’s bass isn’t very good. It makes the mids sound muddy and takes away clarity. (We would even say that the default EQ curve is unlistenable because it gave us headaches when we used it for a long time.)

Thanks to the changeable EQ on the Jabra app, we were able to turn down the bass. The headphones were closer to neutral when the bass and mid-bass sounds were cut by 50%. But this means you won’t be able to change the EQ settings if you use the Elite 75t with something like a laptop that doesn’t support their iOS or Android app. We wish Jabra had tuned the 75t to be balanced and added an EQ so that people who wanted more bass could add it.

Final verdict

Even though the Elite 75t’s tuning was too heavy on bass, it is still a good follow-up to the great Elite 65t. The Elite 75t is a pleasure to use because it is smaller and has a much longer battery life. Even though the sound quality isn’t the best and they don’t have active noise cancellation, they are still a good pair of truly wireless earphones to use, especially if you often talk on the phone with your headphones on.