Pros
- Balanced sound
- Solid voice quality
- Long battery life
- Useful ANC
- High-quality charging cradle
reliable auto-pause
Cons
- ANC & voice quality are not sufficient in loud environments
The JBL Live Pro 2 is now available and wants to stand out from the market with a different highlight. The focus here is on “perfect phone calls”, as the manufacturer states. Can that be true? If you search the web for “in-ear phone” or “Bluetooth headphones for telephony”, you will find hardly any hits worth mentioning. However, anyone who sees the many people making phone calls in city centres and railway stations knows there must be a market for them.
Accordingly, in addition to sound quality, battery and handling, we also focus on voice quality with the JBL Live Pro 2.
Sound quality, ANC & App
The sound of the JBL Live Pro 2 is balanced mainly in the basic setting. The trebles are pronounced, the bass powerful but not exaggerated. The mids are somewhat blurred. The equaliser of the free JBL app is nice here. With the “Club” mode, the mids of pop songs come out well, a bass mode pushes a lot of bass onto the ears. You can also create individual sound profiles.
You can also set the use of voice assistants in the app. Alexa, Siri or Google are available, depending on your preference.
The active noise cancellation (ANC) is noticeable but does not entirely block out noise. If you are out and about with the headphones, you can still hear mainly low-level noises, such as cars or slamming doors. This can significantly reduce ambient noise but not completely block it out. If you want to have quiet from the outside world even without music, you have to go for over-ear headphones like the Bose Quiet Comfort 45, the Valco VMK20 or the Nura Nuraphones. In addition, we show a comparison of twelve true-wireless headphones with ANC elsewhere.
Ambient Aware is the name of the function that allows ambient noise to pass through completely. Here, you listen to your own music at full volume, and sounds from the surroundings are played in their entirety. This is not useful on a bicycle or in other situations with a lot of wind. The wind that the microphones transmit to the headphones greatly diminishes the music experience. Although you can adjust the sensitivity of Ambient Aware, we do not get a satisfactory result.
The experience is better with Talk-Thru. Here, we mainly hear only voices from the outside world. Other noises faded out. However, the music volume is significantly reduced with Talk-Thru.
All in all, the earphones’ functions make sense in quieter environments. For example, in an office to concentrate better. Thanks to Auto-Pause, the headphones immediately pause the music as soon as you take the earphones out of your ears.
Voice quality
“Perfect phone calls” are supposed to be possible with the JBL Live Pro 2 – at least that’s what the manufacturer says. In reality, it looks different. The person we are talking to can hear us clearly and the surroundings. Especially wind, squeaking trains or road traffic arrive at the other person as disturbing noises. This means that a short phone call in noisy surroundings is possible, but it is not enjoyable.
The situation is different when using the JBL Live Pro 2 in quiet environments, such as in the office. Here, we can easily talk to the other person for a more extended period without them getting tired of the noise.
Battery
With ANC, the earphones last about eight hours on one charge, according to the manufacturer. Without ANC, they last around ten hours at medium volume. We slipped from 50 to 20 per cent battery level during three hours of continuous listening. Accordingly, six to seven hours (with ANC) seems realistic. If you listen at full volume and talk on the phone in between, the battery life is naturally reduced. If you put the earphones in the charging cradle for 15 minutes, you get four more hours of battery life. In total, the charging cradle provides 22 to 30 hours of additional battery life.
Conclusion
Solid sound, many setting options, good ANC and solid ambient aware for normal ambient noise – the JBL Live Pro 2 are excellent earphones, but not perfect. If you are looking for perfect ANC, voice quality or sound, you should look at other earphones. Here we recommend a look at our article on twelve true-wireless earphones with ANC.
