Jabra Elite 45h

amazon Jabra Elite 45h reviews

The Jabra Elite 45h on-ear headphones offer great wireless sound and a ton of useful features for just $99.

These days, we see few newer in-ear/over-ear Bluetooth headphones, especially the affordable ones. There’s nothing fancy about Jabra’s new Elite 45h on-ear headphones—no noise cancellation, ambient listening mode, or fitness features—but what they do, they work pretty well. For $99, the drivers offer great sound, an incredibly comfortable fit, a stylish design, and ease of operation. They also use the same app, with user-adjustable EQ and some other useful features, like some of our favorite, expensive Jabra models. All of that makes for great on-ear headphones at a great price, ideal for your home.

Design

Available in black, navy, beige with gold details, black with gray details, or black with copper details, the Supra-aural (on-ear) Elite 45h headphones have memory foam earpads. Luxuriously lined with faux leather upholstery. The headband’s underside is a padded rubber material that provides a secure, lightweight, comfortable fit during long listening sessions. The perforations on the faux leather interior look cool but also cleverly denote the left and right earcups. Internally, 40mm drivers provide a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz.

The earcups swivel flat to slide inside an included neoprene drawstring pouch. The carrying case and the USB-C charging cable (which connects to the right earcup) are the only accessories.

There are controls on the right earcup’s side panel, including a power/pairing button and a central multifunction button for playback and call management surrounded by volume/track navigation buttons on both sides. We’ve never been a fan of this move — combining volume and track navigation on the same button makes it too easy to accidentally skip a track when you’re about to adjust the volume. On the other end of the panel, there’s a single button for the voice assistant and mute—it invokes Siri on an iOS device, or it can be used to work with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. You can set up the following two assistants through their respective third-party applications if they are not already set to default.

The Jabra Sound+ app offers helpful extras like user-adjustable EQ and even a feature called MySound that measures your hearing and creates a listening profile based on the results. Some users will find this quite useful; others will only use the custom EQ when wanting to adjust the sound signature — both ways, both are welcome features.

You can turn off voice guidance (with prompts to let you know when you’re connected, etc.), adjust or disable Sleep, and even tweak parameters like voice levels tell you to listen through the headset when you are on a call. All in all, there are several micro-settings that you can tweak in the app. Considering the headset is only $100, it’s a luxury perk—it’s the same app (accessing many of the same features) you find in Jabra’s higher-end models.

Jabra estimates the Elite 45h’s battery life to be around 50 hours, which is great, but your results will vary with your volume level. Additionally, the headphones can get around 10 hours of battery life when charging in just 15 minutes, which is pretty good.

where can you get a Jabra Elite 45h online

Jabra Elite 45h Best-in-Class Wireless Headphones, Copper Black – Biggest Speakers, Longest Battery, Fastest Charge: Buy it now

Jabra Elite 45h, Titanium Black – On-Ear Wireless Headphones with Up to 50 Hours of Battery Life, Superior Sound with Advanced 40mm Speakers – Compact, Foldable & Lightweight Design (Renewed): Buy it now

Performance

On tracks with intense bass content, such as The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the headphones deliver a strong low-frequency response. At the highest listening levels, the bass is undistorted, and at more moderate volumes, the bass still feels punchy and balanced with high frequencies. The DSP (digital signal processing) does a good job of controlling the bass without sacrificing overall sound quality at higher volumes.

Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Elite 45h’s overall tonal character. The drums on this track sound almost thunderous, but not to the extent that they feel unnatural – they pick up on some extremely severe low-frequency intensity. Impressively, this happens without disturbing the mix — Callahan’s baritone still has room to hear rich and crisp, and the tonal ranges are detailed and clear. It’s a bass-forward sound signature and isn’t meant for purists, but the app allows for adjustments that can tame the lows to a noticeable.

The EQ is so easy to use and so effective, you can dial in any number of variations on the audio signature. That may sound like a given, but some applications show you graphics that show you’re making significant adjustments that don’t necessarily translate to an audible difference. When you reduce the bass in the app’s EQ, the audio drivers are much more balanced, so purists shouldn’t rule out these headphones; they go into the app and do some edits.

In Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum gets enough presence in the mid-highs so that its attack retains its loudness, while the chime and hum The hiss of vinyl often drops to a more audible background than usual. The drum loop gets a little boost, too – bass boost takes it forward, while beat-splitting sub-bass synths deliver a powerful delivery. The sub-bass doesn’t overwhelm the mix, which is a good thing – some bass-forwarding headphones can overdo it – but they certainly have an unsettling presence. The vocals on this track are delivered with solid clarity, without any hint of real sound added.

Orchestral tracks, such as the opening scene in John Adams’ Gospel According to Others, probably have a slightly lower frequency response than they should. It doesn’t sound bad at all, but the lower recording device takes a step forward in the mix here. Regardless of brass, strings and higher register vocals retain their bright, clear place in the spotlight. Again, the EQ makes it easy to tweak certain parameters, so it’s easy to think of the Elite 45h as headphones that by default have sculpted, exaggerated feedback but can be filmed back and balance easily and quickly.

The microphone delivers excellent clarity. Using the Voice Memos app on the iPhone 8, we clearly understood every word we recorded, and there was little to no Bluetooth distortion. Even better, you hear some of your voice in the headphones, which changes the way most people speak and allows for clearer conversations. The mic’s signal is strong and even delivers some low-frequency response. There are also some wind/environmental noise reduction/protection features, so clarity goes well beyond indoor situations.

Conclusion

Most of the in-ear/over-ear Bluetooth headphones that we see today have ANC (active noise cancellation) built-in, and therefore, the price is usually much higher. So Jabra’s Elite 45h headphones are a welcome entry into the slim realm, although some other solid options are still worth considering. We’re fans of the Status Audio BT One for the same price, including a cable for passive listening. For $200 (but often less online), the Sennheiser HD 450BT headphones feature active noise cancellation. But for $100, there’s little to complain about — the Jabra Elite 45h headphones offer powerful, user-tuned audio in a comfortable design with an app that allows for custom control further edit. They are great headphones to use for working from home.

Advantages

The sound performance from deep, powerful

Useful app with adjustable EQ

Comfortable wearing on the ear

Works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant

Clear mic

Defect

Mixed track/volume navigation controls make it easy to skip a track accidentally.