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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.
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