JBL Live Pro 2 – Full Review

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JBL Live Pro 2 – The Bottom Line

It’s a great pair of true wireless earbuds, providing good sound, a comfortable fit, and excellent noise cancellation, making them a great all-rounder. In addition to the noise cancelling on offer, these headphones are excellent value for money – you’ll need to pay twice as much to beat them.

JBL Live Pro 2

The JBL Live Pro 2 ear buds, available for a reasonable price, live up to the brand’s reputation for quality audio at a mid-range price point.

Featuring adaptive noise canceling, multi-device pairing and more customization options in the JBL Live Pro 2 app, these noise cancelling earbuds are the latest true wireless earbuds from the popular brand.

The best true wireless earbuds guide will soon include these earbuds, as they’re great all-rounders. I look forward to adding them to it. Powerful, clear, and bassy sound is provided here by 11mm dynamic drivers. A bunch of presets are available in the app for customizing the sound of these buds. A nice layout and plenty of customizing options make the accompanying app a delight to use. JBL is fortunate not to make this mistake, as many companies do.

A minimalist design and mirrored stems and capacitive panels for gesture control make the buds look great as well. They are comfortable to wear, and they come in a variety of sizes so that they fit your ear perfectly. As a result, the earbuds stay in place all day long.

A higher-budget person might want a pair with an improved sound quality and noise cancellation, but you will have to pay a lot more for noticeable improvements. There were also instances when the call quality wasn’t as good, and the connection was lost a few times.

Since there is much to like about these earbuds, it would take a lot of nitpicking to find much fault with them. The Live Pro 2 from JBL prove that cheap headphones can deliver great sound and excellent ANC today. Well done, JBL.

Here are the release date and price details for JBL Live Pro 2

Currently, there are three colour options to choose from: silver, rose (pink) and black. However, we tested the dark blue pair, which looked more black under certain lighting.

Our best budget earbuds guide shows that this is a great price for true wireless earbuds with good noise cancellation, but they are competitive in the $100/-ish mid-range price range. All three of our top mid-range options are similarly priced, including Beats Studio Buds, Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0, and Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 Plus.

In addition, the JBL Live Pro 2 are a lot cheaper than many true wireless earbuds today, like Sony’s WF-1000XM4 Wireless Earbuds, which cost $250. In any case, these are considered high-end buds that are only accessible for people with larger budgets.

Design considerations for JBL Live Pro 2

In addition to the JBL Live Pro 2, the Huawei Freebuds Pro 2 and the Nothing Ear (1 ) all have stem-like designs that look like others on the market.

But that doesn’t mean they look indifferent. JBL uses matte plastic to manufacture the buds and the externally-facing side of the stem has a high shine finish. JBL’s design is more angular. Our team likes this shiny touch and thinks it makes the buds look high-end, but not everyone will appreciate it.

IPX5

IPX5 means these buds are waterproof, but they are not completely waterproof, so you should not throw them in the bathtub expecting them to be fine. In comparison to some buds that lack any water resistance, this level of waterproofing is still a good one (and even the AirPods Pro 2 only have a splash-proof rating of IPX4) but it doesn’t compare to rivals like the Jabra Elite 7 Active, which is rated IP57.

It comes with a choice of three sizes of eartips. We chose the smallest one. We found them to be extremely comfortable to wear.

In order to get the perfect fit, you can use ‘Check My Best Fit’ in the app to play a short clip of music to make sure you’re sealing your ears well. The ANC feature on other buds is similar, but the one offered here got us up and running in no time.

In spite of not being marketed for fitness specifically, we decided to put the JBL Live Pro 2 to the test. During our testing, these headphones stayed in place for a yoga class and a light jog. Although they might not be ideal for intense workouts (if you sweat a lot, they might not seal well), they fared well in our tests.

A 48.4g charging case fits in the pocket of the JBL Live Pro 2 and has a pillbox-style design with a clamshell lid, which is pretty standard for true wireless earbuds today. There are magnets that hold the buds in place as they charge, and LEDs at the front give you an idea of how much power is left in the battery.

The JBL Live Pro 2 has a number of features

We found that the buds lasted for 10 hours and the Live Pro 2 lasted for 30 extra hours, making 40 hours in total. This is not the best battery life we’ve seen from true wireless earbuds, but it’s certainly among the best.

There are 6 hours of battery life in each bud and 30 hours in the case in comparison to the higher-end Sony XM4s with 8 hours in each bud, but just 16 hours in the case.

The Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 Plus, with a battery life of 9 hours in the buds and 41 hours in the case, and the Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0, which boasts a battery life of 10 hours from the buds and 70 hours from the case, are some mid-range stars with similar specs to the JBL Live Pro 2.

With the JBL Live Pro 2, you’ll appreciate its user-friendly app. It’s surprising how many audio technology brands create great buds, then pair them with apps that can’t fully showcase their abilities.

Synced Up Quickly

You can pair your phone with it in seconds. It synced up quickly and the app was connected within minutes. Within the app, the buds show you their battery levels with levels at the top. In addition to the ANC section, the Equalizer section, the Gesture section, where you can learn and change your gestures, and the VoiceAware slider, letting you control how much of your voice is heard during calls, are all included.

This is also where you’ll find other settings, such as the fit test, find my buds feature, power saving mode, voice assistant, and voice prompt options. It’s great that so many features are packed into one place and are displayed in a clear, organized manner.

There’s a capacitive touch panel in the stem that lets you control them with gestures on the buds themselves. With a tap of the left stem, noise cancelling can be switched on and off, and Siri can be triggered by tapping and holding. You can adjust all of these to a certain extent – at least to some degree. However, you can specify which gestures work on each bud based on which you want.

Even though these gestures were mostly responsive, there were times when they were a little delayed – albeit only for a few seconds – as always. When the buds didn’t answer right away, we missed a call, but this wasn’t a big deal when controlling music.

A review of the sound quality of the JBL Live Pro 2

Despite the fact that the earbuds are under $150/, noise cancellation is their main attraction. We think it’s an excellent noise cancelling earbud for under £150/. The best ANC experience would have to cost well over $200/ if you wanted it significantly.

In a tube journey where passengers shrieked and the train shrieked, noises were quieted significantly. Not completely, but very noticeably. There was a sense of eerie silence in an office environment with some voices and ambient noise. These buds are an excellent choice if you work in an office, commute frequently, or just enjoy a deep immersion in quiet and peace.

You can tweak some of these ANC settings. The app lets you enable ANC, but it also lets you customize it. Adaptive ANC adjusts its level based on the ambient noise level in the surrounding area. Visiting a quieter street from a busy tube station worked exceptionally well for us. Adding to the wonderful noise cancelling experience, the Ear Canal Test and leakage compensation are also included.

In the Ambient Aware mode, ANC is switched off, so you still hear clear sound but you can hear most sounds around you. In addition, there is TalkThru, especially designed for office workers who need to communicate while the buds remain in their ears; it works just like Ambient Aware but reduces the volume of sound – ideal for office workers.

Excellent Sound Quality

For the price, these headphones offer excellent sound quality. There is a good balance across the entire range and a rather wide soundstage right out of the box – especially when you turn them up high. Despite the fact that they are not as good at handling bass as the best-in-class Buds, like the Apple AirPods Pro 2, the vocals are, for the most part, clear. There was some depth to detail here, but not as much as with the best-in-class buds.

As you select the Equalizer, you can see how the curve changes as you select Jazz, Vocal or Bass presets. There was some confusion between some of these, but the Bass was our favorite; switching from Vocal to Bass gave us an excellent punch of power as we played Where is My Mind by Pixies.

The presets should be enough for most users. By simply dragging and dropping points across the 10 bands, you can create your own presets using these 10 bands, which range from 32Hz to 16kHz. We tried six and didn’t run into any limits; there’s plenty of room for them.

In spite of the great sound offered here, audiophiles may wish for a bit more clarity and detail, along with a broader soundstage and richer sound. In the end, most people will be satisfied with these headphones, especially after tweaking their sounds and setting up their own presets.

There were some issues with the microphone, especially that it didn’t separate our voice from the ambient noise around us as much as we’d have liked. While we were still heard fairly well, you’ll find clearer calls on the best headphones, such as Sony XM4s. Occasionally, calls dropped in and out due to connectivity issues.

Value for money when it comes to JBL Live Pro 2

The true wireless earbuds are superior in almost every way. Noise cancellation is excellent, and it is adaptive, too, so they’re perfect for commuting and busy environments. EQ customization is great and sound quality is good, although call quality can be improved if you make a lot of calls. Most people won’t notice this unless you make a lot of calls.

In this price range, rival buds offer some key features, such as a marginally longer battery life and a minimalist design, that make them stand out from the competition. The cost of better noise cancellation buds would be almost double as much if you wanted them.

They are worth buying if…

They look far more premium than they are because of their minimal design and mirrored finish.

There’s no doubt you care about ANC, especially when commuting. In fact, these buds provide excellent noise cancellation, so if you need to drown out noise often, you’ll find these to be an excellent choice.

Your’ve got a mid-range budget? These buds are well worth it if you cannot go higher. They truly outperform their price tag.

Buying them is not recommended if…

You want the best sound money can buy Audiophiles seeking the best sound performance may prefer a different brand. JBL’s sound great, but if you’re looking for the best quality sound possible, you may need to look elsewhere.

In spite of the fact that many wireless earbuds have stems these days, (thanks to Apple’s ubiquitous AirPods), there are still plenty that don’t, so shop around if you prefer curved or teardrop-shaped earphones.

If you make lots of calls, you’ll probably want earbuds that are crisper and more reliable. Although the JBL Live Pro 2 has fine call quality, if you frequently make calls, you might want to opt for something with a bit higher quality.