Jabra’s Elite 85t True Wireless Earphones Take Active Noise Canceling Technology To A New Level

Jabra is probably best known for the range of high-quality headsets used by call center workers and emergency response services around the world. However, Jabra also makes some great Bluetooth headphones for smartphone users who need to make hands-free calls. Until now, the Danish company hasn’t made a pair of true-wireless, active noise-canceling earphones, but that gap in the Jabra product lineup has changed with the launch of the Jabra Elite 85t.

The wait for a pair of Jabra true wireless, noise-canceling earphones has been worth it and Jabra’s engineers have learned from the mistakes made by other brands that jumped into the Active Noise Canceling (ANC) market way too soon before the technology was fully matured. 

Jabra claims that its new Advanced ANC can deliver a level of noise-canceling that goes one step beyond standard ANC technology. By incorporating a dual chipset in the new Jabra Elite 85t earbuds, the company has beefed up the efficiency of the ANC circuits to process audio signals for optimal sound quality and best-in-class noise cancelation. 

Jabra is a member of the GN Group, a conglomerate based in Denmark with more than 100 companies. The GN Group researches advanced hearing-aid technology and it’s this expertise Jabra has used to make the Elite 85t, the company’s first pair of true wireless ANC earphones to include the advanced sampling of ambient sounds.

The Jabra Elite 85t are some of the smallest earbuds to offer premium ANC and they are about the same size as Sennheiser’s excellent Momentum TW2 ANC earphones. The Elite 85t earphones have five levels of ambient sound awareness via a HearThrough function. This enables a custom level of transparency, enabling wearers to hear travel announcements, traffic noise or any other sounds that a listener might want to be aware of. There are five levels of ANC also available via the excellent Jabra Sound+ app.

The Jabra Elite 85t is a semi-open design that makes the ANC function sound and feel more natural. The amount of extraneous sound these earphones can filter out is very impressive. I often have a problem wearing ANC earphones for extended periods, but the Jabra Elite 85t are very comfortable to listen to. With up to 5.5 hours of playing time on a single charge, these earphones are more than adequate for a long commute, a hefty session in the gym or a long jog. They may not provide quite enough playing time for a transatlantic flight, but with a total of the 25-hours backup charge, they can easily be topped up.

Inside each earpiece is a 12mm dynamic driver that reproduces a gorgeous level of bass that sounded so good on the selection of the Blue Note jazz recordings I used for the test. The midrange and treble are incredibly well balanced, and the sound is as good as the excellent GRADO GT-220 true wireless earphones that I reviewed earlier this month. The GRADO earphones don’t have any ANC function, so if you want the same superb sound of the GT-220 and you’d like ANC, the Elite 85t will suit you perfectly.

Bluetooth has come a long way since its early days. Times have changed and Bluetooth can now compete with wired earphones. The Jabra Elite 85t support SBC and AAC audio codecs but there’s no support for the aptX. The designers of these earbuds felt that supporting the Qualcomm aptX HD codec would drain too much power for only a small increase in audio quality over AAC. I think that was probably a good decision. These earphones sound great to me and the AAC codec means there isn’t an issue with lip-synching when watching movies and the codec is supported by iOS and Android devices.

I used the Jabra Elite 85t to make some phone calls during my review and they picked up my voice very well. I’m not a fan of using true wireless earphones for phone calls, but I would use these as the sound feels more natural. Jabra has used six microphones for picking up the user’s voice, that’s three mics in each earpiece, including two on the outside and one on the inside. Jabra claims it’s improved the microphone’s resistance to wind noises and during my tests, I didn’t pick up any wind sounds when standing outdoors. 

The microphones on the inside and the outside of each earpiece are also used for Jabra’s Advanced ANC function. These earphones are up there with the very best ANC true wireless earphones on the market from the likes of Sennheiser and Sony. As I was unable to test the Elite 85t on a flight, I turned the washing machine on to maximum spin to see how good the ANC would be at cutting out noise.

The ANC was very effective and probably the best I’ve heard on true wireless earphones. They cut out the noise effectively and I can imagine they’d be great for listening to music on a flight. Noise is monitored and analyzed using Jabra’s algorithms and there’s a dedicated ANC chip that works alongside the Qualcomm Bluetooth chipset that Jabra has used in the Elite 85t. The dedicated chip delivers a far more effective level of noise-canceling than earphones using the built-in algorithms of an off-the-shelf Bluetooth chipset with an ANC function.

The Jabra Elite 85t come with a two-year warranty against dust and water damage and are rated at IPX4 for protection from dust and moisture. They can be charged wirelessly using any Qi-Certified wireless charging mat or else using the supplied USB-C cable. The Jabra’s Sound+ app is surprisingly good and enables users to have up to three custom listening profiles plus EQ profiles to suit all listening tastes. 

Each earpiece includes touch controls for pausing music and accepting calls etc. The controls also enable the user to switch between ANC and HearThrough modes. However, there doesn’t seem to be any way of turning the ANC on and off using the controls. To activate and deactivate ANC, the user has to use the Sound+ app. This seems like a silly oversight to me and I hope it’s something that can be changed in a future firmware update. And speaking of firmware updates, these are delivered via the Jabra Sound+ app. As soon as I’d paired the Elite 85t with my smartphone for the review, the Sound+ app notified me that there was a firmware update available. The update process was easy to do and took around 15 minutes to complete. Some true wireless earphones have flakey firmware update procedures, but Jabra has made it so easy. 

Verdict: The new Jabra Elite 85t are state-of-the-art true wireless ANC earphones. They sound superb and their Advanced Active Noise-Canceling function is incredibly effective at blocking out unwanted sounds. The battery life is pretty good at 5.5 hours with ANC on and 7 hours with ANC off. The EarGels fit well but there are only three pairs in three different sizes supplied in the box. I’d have liked to have seen a spare set of EarGels and maybe one a size larger. Jabra’s wait for Advanced ANC technology to mature was a good decision. The company’s research and access to the specialist knowledge of its sister companies in the GN Group paid real dividends here. If you want a pair of true wireless earphones that sound great and that cut out annoying noises with ruthless efficiency, you’ll love the Elite 85t. The two-year warranty is a nice bonus and the build quality plus the small size of the charging case make them a brilliant buy. 

Pricing and availability: Jabra Elite 85t true wireless ANC earphones are available now and cost €229 / $229 / £219.99. Different color choices will be available from January 2021.

More info: www.jabra.com

Features:

• Compact design and oval silicon EarGels for a secure seal and comfortable fit.
• Dedicated ANC chip for more efficient noise canceling.
• Six microphones and wind protection for clearer call quality. 
• Four ANC microphones inside and two outside.
• 12mm dynamic drivers.
• Semi-open design with natural HearThrough function.
• Adjustable ANC with dual sliders from full ANC to full HearThrough. 
• IPX4-rated durability and a 2-year warranty against dust and water.
• Up to 5.5 hours playing time with ANC on, and 7 hours with ANC off
• Qi-certified for wireless charging, and compatible with all Qi-certified chargers 
• A customizable equalizer in the Sound+ app
• Voice-assistant enabled for Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant.
• ‘MyControls’ define button settings and Jabra MySound for individualized sound .

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