When was the last time you heard of a premium earbud that wasn’t from the usual suspects? If you’re an avid Stuff reader or an audiophile with some deep pockets, you won’t have missed the WF-1000MX5, some of the best buds in the business. But those are from Sony, very much a usual suspect when it comes to headphones and earbuds.
Now, it’s Jabra‘s turn in the spotlight with the newly announced Elite 10 and Elite 8 Active earbuds. The Danish audio outlet’s Elite 10 marks the company’s most sophisticated buds to date, while the Elite 8 Active is the latest Jabra offering for runners who don’t want to compromise on quality.
For the stay-at-homes
The Elite 10 is the company’s follow-up to the Elite 7 Pro, mingling those buds’ best features with Jabra’s next best thing; the Elite 85t. Specifically, Jabra claims it’s retained the “all-day” comfort found in the 85t, combining it with something new, ComfortFit, offering the “most natural, airy fit and less occlusion, due to its semi-open design.” Essentially, there’s more silicon for a softer feel in-ear.
Taking that further, Jabra’s gone and installed some larger drivers than both of its predecessors, 10mm in size. Driver size isn’t everything – at least that’s what our partner keeps telling us –but Jabra’s promising a more powerful sound and a frequency response of 20Hz – 20,000Hz. These buds also join the Dolby Atmos bandwagon, offering support for Dolby head-tracking spatial audio. Although these don’t support LDAC or aptX HD high-fidelity codecs, we’re told they’ll get support for the LC3plus codec in a future firmware update, which technically counts as HD.
Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) hasn’t been forgotten, although Jabra calls it Adaptive Hybrid ANC owing to its ability to adapt to the environment around you. It’s doing so by using infrasonic (yeah, that’s a word) waves that’ll, apparently, measure your ear canal. From there it’s able to detect ear leakage (of audio) or even a change in wind direction. Oh, and it’ll block out twice as much noise as Jabra’s standard ANC, according to the company.
“Crystal-clear calls” are Jabra’s next big promise, making use of the Elite 10’s six built-in microphones and ‘voice clarity algorithms’. There’s also Bluetooth Multipoint functionality and six hours of battery life, make that a combined 27 hours if you’ve got the case handy. While these might not have the ‘active’ tag, they still come with an IP57 rating so they should fare well in a workout.
All that costs, though. South Africa is still awaiting an official price drop, which will likely be higher than the $250 (R4,700) in the US.
For the grass-touchers
Jabra’s other set of new buds, the Elite 8 Active, won’t set your pockets quite as far back as the Elite 10. That doesn’t mean Jabra’s sacrificed quality for price (or at least, not that much). The company is going as far as calling the Elite 8 Active “the world’s toughest earbuds.”
Jabra has put these through the rigorous Standard for Ruggedized Electronics (810H) test used by the US military. The Elite 8 Active passed the required tests which include high temperature, humidity, rain, and altitude. Unsurprisingly, they also come with an IP68 rating, for consumer peace of mind, we guess.
The 6mm dynamic drivers might not be as big as the others but the Elite 8 Active will also receive LC3plus codec support in a future update. It’s got a similar adaptive ANC like its more-prolific brother, meaning it’ll still adapt to your surroundings, but loses the “advanced” aspect found in the Elite 10. That all amounts to longer battery life with Jabra claiming up to eight hours on a single charge and 24 more from the case.
These must’ve been first off the ship as Jabra’s confirmed their R3,500 local price. Expect to find them at Circuit City or one of these stores before too long.