Jabra Elite 10 Gen 2 Review

The second generation Elite 10 earbuds are a great upgrade from the originals. Unfortunately, this is the end of the line for Jabra's line of earbuds. The company announced that it's leaving the earbud market after releasing some of our favorites.

Performance Comparison

Sound Quality

The Elite 10 2nd Gen provides an exceptional sound profile with balanced frequencies that deliver a clear, rich, and immersive audio experience. The mix sounds natural, with just enough emphasis on the treble and bass ranges to add depth without compromising clarity. After testing them across musical genres, our panel of audio experts found that they produce a warm, authentic sound that complements all music styles.

Our audio experts rave about the bass, noting they're “clean, robust, and balanced, providing depth without overwhelming the mix.” Even in complex tracks like Bob Dylan's “Most Likely You'll Go Your Way,” the bass marches confidently beneath the harmonica, trumpet, piano, organ, and vocals. Even the lively, punchy drums dance distinctly above the lowest tones.

The bass is powerful enough for hard rock tracks like Metallica's “Atlas, Rise!” and hip-hop anthems like Drake's “The Motto” without dominating the mix.

That said, keen listeners may find some inaccuracies, and EDM lovers may want to put more emphasis on chest-rumbling lows. That's not to say that the bass is lacking, and it's noticeably stronger than the original Elite 10 model. It's slightly elevated over other frequencies but in an appealing, balanced way.

Textured hip-hop tracks like “Rambo” shine. Chyng Diamond's fierce vocals layer over flute melodies and piano riffs, punctuated by resonant synth rumbles. The energetic, bass-driven feel lets you really sink into those low, bouncy beats. It's satisfying without overpowering the mix. Powerful booms cap each verse (timestamp 1:32) before stomping into the next. It's a vibe.

These earbuds also excel in the midrange, delivering a warm and vibrant sound that impresses with its clear details and dynamic energy. These well-developed tones showcase everything from the rich, powerful vocals in Queen's “Bohemian Rhapsody” to the authentic textures of acoustic guitars and harmonic riffs. Vocals come across with impressive detail, translating everything from big, powerful vocals to husky whispers. The mids are just as impressive as they were in earlier iterations of these buds, if not better.

The clean, bright, and realistic treble tones have a strong presence in the mix, often shining to a sparkle. Tracks like Bob Dylan's simple “Blowin' In the Wind” highlight the treble's precision, keeping the high notes crisp without becoming harsh, even when he adds the harmonica at the 2:30 mark. Despite the textural difference, the high notes don't sharpen to a keening sound. The earbuds handle the dynamic range well and preserve the integrity of each instrument.

Charlie Parker's “Laird Baird” offers another great example, with powerful alto sax solos and crisp cymbal tones in the background from 1:00 to 1:27 sounding natural and present in the mix.

However, the treble tones can pitch to piercing in older or lower quality recordings, but it happens less frequently than it does with the previous model. New or well-rendered music is stunning in the higher ranges, with the refined high notes pulling up the overall sound scores for this generation.

We often find ourselves listening to these earbuds a click above the mid-volume level at the office and two clicks over when moving around outdoors. Otherwise, surrounding sounds are distracting. On the upside, the Elite 10 2nd Gen maintains clarity at every volume level, sounding clean and fresh even when we blast them.

Soundstage

The sense of space that earbuds can create is referred to as their soundstage. If you're listening to a violin, for example, does it sound like that violin is playing in a concert hall or a closet? The best earbuds allow you to locate instruments around you and give them enough room to resonate. Instead of feeling like it's all in your head, the music surrounds you, creating a live, concert-like experience.

The Elite 10 2nd Gen manages to build a world, allowing you to locate instruments precisely in time and space. In tracks like Otis Redding's “Open the Door,” Redding's stacked, harmonized vocals at around 1:52 stand on their own, front and center, with the accompanying instruments layered in the background.

Similarly, in Redding's spacious “Ole Man Trouble,” each instrument occupies a clear, distinct place in the mix. Redding croons mostly from the right earbud while the brass kicks in from the left. The percussion rumbles nearby from the right over the distant electric guitar, as heard by the drumroll at 1:32, creating a detailed soundstage. The details are great with these buds.

Though these earbuds don't offer the most powerful ANC available, they still build a broad, immersive soundstage. The audio quality pulls you into the music, enhancing a variety of genres, from melancholic ballads like “The Black Dog” by Taylor Swift to intense, bluesy rock like “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin.

If you turn on the Dolby Spatial Sound effect, the music will sound like it's coming from in front of you. When you turn your head to the right, for example, you'll hear the music only in your right earbud. It's a neat effect but not our favorite way to use these buds.

Frequency Curve

To objectively evaluate sound quality, we used the Brüel & Kjaer Type 5128 Head Simulator along with SoundCheck software to map the earbuds' frequency response and compare it to our ideal GearLab House Curve.

We were really excited to find out what was new with this updated version. The Elite 10 Gen 2 earbuds more or less align with our house curve in the chart above, with a few discrepancies. A drop in the upper ranges of the low frequencies and slightly elevated midranges with a lower peak at the transition to treble. The mid-treble range is also higher than we tend to prefer. Since sharpness in these frequencies is typically associated with a consistent treble boost, it makes sense that we notice harsh high notes from time to time. However, this peak is lower than it was in the original Jabra Elite 10, and we can hear the subtle improvement.

User Experience

The Elite 10 2nd Gen earbuds are just as easy and intuitive to use as previous models. A streamlined, user-friendly app effectively highlights each feature. A secure and comfortable fit makes them a pleasure to wear, contributing to their status as one of our favorite earbuds. That said, they can feel crowded in smaller ears, and they tend to fit our male testers best.

Comfort

To assess these earbuds' comfort across a range of ear sizes, we enlisted over a dozen testers to try them out. Each tester found a workable fit using one of the four included silicone ear tips, which have a unique oval design that proved comfortable and effective for our testers. Several preferred them over standard, rounded tips. While those with small ears had some trouble finding the perfect placement, no one reported developing pressure points or discomfort.

We also appreciate their grip-friendly, rubberized finish, which makes them easy to handle and stands out in stark contrast to slick, plastic options. They feel pleasant in hand and settle comfortably into your ears. We appreciate this attention to detail. The tactile buttons offer instant feedback, which isn't a given in our increasingly digital world. The case is also easy to wield with a matte finish but is too wide to fit comfortably in most pockets.

Stability

With its secure fit, we don't worry about losing the Jabra 10 2nd Gen. They stay securely in place in our stability tests, even withstanding headbanging and handstands. Four silicone ear tip options made it easy to find a secure fit for our whole team. We never hesitated to wear them out on a run, to the gym, or even on a mountain bike ride. In fact, at times, the fit was almost too snug.

It also happened to one of our testers, a woman with smaller ears. After a rough training run, she removed the earbuds, but one of the silicone tips stayed behind. It was freaky and a little gross, but she was able to retrieve it without issue. In contrast, the original Jabra 10 earbuds seemed to breathe a bit better, even during a workout.

Luckily, the 2nd Gen buds have the same high ingress protection (IP) rating as the previous model — IP57, meaning they're dustproof and can withstand immersion in water up to a meter deep. They easily withstood our trail runs and sweaty gym workouts, though the case is not waterproof.

Customization

While these earbuds sound amazing, we've truly come to love them for how easy they are to use. The Jabra app is so intuitive that we find ourselves reaching for these over the few options that sound even better. (Their standout comfort doesn't hurt.) The app features are easy to find and useful. They offer adjustable and preset EQ options, a number of neutral soundscape options to aid focus, and active noise canceling and sound passthrough modes, which let you hear what's happening around you as needed.

In contrast to many competitors, Jabra does not offer an ear fit test to help you find a secure ear seal, which improves functions like active noise cancelation and power in the bass frequencies. However, we don't find that it's a necessary service to get excellent sound quality.

Connectivity

Our test team found the Elite 10 2nd Gen a cinch to pair and maintain a connection with both Android and Apple devices. We also survey 1-star user reviews on Amazon for every product in our lineup. Due to the new release, there is not a large enough statistical pool to relay accurate patterns, so stay tuned for our future updates.

If there are connectivity issues, on the upside, the case includes a standard headphone jack adapter. This allows you to connect it to devices with an audio port like those on airplanes or older phones. The case will then wirelessly transmit the sound to your earbuds via Bluetooth. Pretty spiffy.

Noise Cancellation

For earbuds to offer top-tier active noise cancellation (ANC), they need a solid seal and top-notch tech. The Elite 10 2nd Gen does a great job of both improving on the results of the original model and moving up in its position relative to competitors in this category. They manage to soften the chaos of our surroundings, allowing us to ignore traffic or typing distractions and focus on the music.

All earbuds provide some passive noise isolation, which works best to block out high-frequency sounds, and these do a solid job. What they've improved upon is their active noise cancellation, which works best for lower frequency, consistent sounds like rumbling airplane engines. They aren't as immersive as the top options in this category, but they've certainly improved.

The earbud's “HearThrough” mode, which pipes sound past the seal when needed, is also improved. It now offers a more natural sound, reducing its previous reediness.

To evaluate the noise isolation and ANC of the 2nd Gen earbuds, we tapped the Bruel & Kjaer 5128-B tester and SoundCheck software to see how effectively they block the sounds of a busy café. You can tour the testing process in the following video clip below.

Notice how higher-pitched sounds drop out of the mix when you insert the earbuds, isolating them from a respectable portion of the cafe chaos. In the chart below, you can see SoundCheck's results from the test, showing that the ear tips do quite a bit to lower the volume of incoming sounds.

When we activate the ANC, lower-pitched noises fall away as well, turning down the deepest bass tones by at least 20 decibels. In the higher bass and lower midrange (from around 100 to 300 Hz), it's only able to lower the noise by about 15 decibels. From there, it rises to nearly 40 deciles in the mid-treble range before dropping again for the highest high notes. All told, it softens sounds even more effectively than the previous generation.

Battery Life

Jabra claims that these earbuds will run for up to 6 hours with their power-sucking ANC feature activated and up to 8 hours without it. In our test the Elite 10 2nd Gen lasted 8 hours and 5 minutes without ANC. To standardize our approach, we set the volume of each set of earbuds to 75% and let them run through our favorite playlist till they die.

While 8 hours is a respectable result, quite a few options last hours longer. Still, anything that can get you through the bulk of a workday is effective in our book. It helps if you have solid charging habits. This case holds three additional charges, keeping you going for roughly 24 hours before you need to find an outlet. A quick 5 minutes, in its case, will give you an extra hour of runtime.

Call Quality

For a phone call to work, both callers need to be able to hear each other, regardless of what's going on in the background. The Elite 10 2nd Gen does the job, even in incredibly challenging conditions. While a few options earned higher scores, these earbuds work in chaotic environments and sound loud and clear in mellow settings. That's good enough for us.

Again, we used SoundCheck software with the Brüel and Kjaer 5128-B head and chest simulator to test call quality. We played recordings of a female and male voice through its mouth speaker over background noise to see how well the earbuds could distinguish and isolate speech in three scenarios.

Making a clear call from a subway platform is the ultimate stress test, and these earbuds manage it with above-average scores. The man's voice comes through much more clearly than the woman's, though, with her words sounding muffled compared to his clear tones. We can still understand her, though, and this performance marks a notable improvement over the previous version of these earbuds.

With the mild hum of office noise in the background, both male and female voices come through clearly with minimal interference. The background sounds faded, making these earbuds an excellent choice for anyone who spends a lot of time on calls throughout the day.

In a quiet room, both voices are clear and easily understood. The sound is crisp and precise, delivering excellent performance in quiet environments.

Should You Buy the Jabra Elite 10 2nd Gen?

The Jabra Elite 10 2nd Gen earbuds stand out for their excellent sound quality, dependable comfort, and intuitive app. While they may not be the best option for those needing top-tier noise cancelling for work and travel, they do deliver satisfactory performance in the test. If you prioritize comfort and ease of use as much as you prize top-notch sound quality, these earbuds are an ideal choice. They're expensive, but we think they're worth it.

What Other Earbuds Should You Consider?

If you would like to save some money, the previous generation offers a similar performance across the board. Although we really think the upgrade to ANC is worth the $50. The Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 are just as comfy and easy to use with slightly (and it's a small increment) lower audio quality at a marginally lower cost. If you're looking to maximize audio quality, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra offers stunningly immersive noise-canceling technology that takes your favorite songs to the next level for just a bit more cash. The Bose QuietComfort II and Apple AirPods Pro 2 also offer improved ANC, but they don't sound quite as good and are less comfortable.