JBL Live 780 NC review: 80 hours of battery life, zero compromise on sound

The Live 780 both folds up and folds flat for easy stowaway in backpack or office bag. There are touch panels on one side of the earcups as well as a physical toggle for powering on the device and a customisable button to summon your AI assistant or to adjust noise cancellation.

Battery life

The biggest improvement on earlier versions has to be the 80 hours of battery life. This is available if you switch off the noise cancellation.

You can set the intensity of the noise cancellation to the exact levels you prefer via the app. (Image: Nandagopal Rajan/The Indian Express)

With noise cancellation you get only about 50 hours, which again is really pushing the envelope. In case you get drained out, a five-minute charge can get you back from Mumbai to Delhi on that late night flight, completing two more episodes of Ted Lasso on the iPhone.

Noise cancellation

The noise cancellation is what I have come to expect from JBL. It just cuts out all ambient noise around, from the motor of my fish bowl to kids playing basketball in the court five floors below.

But what is even better is the ability via the app to set the intensity of the noise cancellation to the exact levels you prefer. You can also toggle from the headphone itself to aware and conversation modes, which feel natural and not tinny or extra loud like in some competing brands.

Sound quality

You invest in a JBL headphone for its audio quality and signature Hi-Fi sound quality. Fresh out of watching The Odyssey, I wanted to figure out how Ludwig Goransson’s haunting scores feel on the Live 780.

From the bass heavy Zeus’s Law to the sharp Troy, the headphones helped me relive the cinematic experience, but not before I turned off the Max Volume Limiter, which clearly limited the headphones from going full blast. As I switched to Sushin Shyam’s punchy Makane Makane, I felt the Live 780 was clearly relishing the opportunity to push above its weight, especially when it came to bass.

If you want to restrain the lows a bit, then you can use the equaliser on the app with its presets as well as customisations. I felt the Studio preset brought the Live 780 to full life, while I had to switch to vocal mode for songs like Kanavaanathu, where I felt the extra bass was a distraction. But once in vocal mode, I felt Chinmayi and Uma Devi just take over and fill the space around my head with their stunning rendition of the number.

The harmonium at the start of Parul Mishra’s soulful Rangi Saari reminded me of the power of spatial audio, transporting one out of the stuffy July morning in Noida to a windswept evening by the Ganga in Benaras. This is the power of good audio: to let you forget your stress for a while and take you where the mind relaxes and unwinds.

Personal-Fi & call quality

I was really looking forward to setting up the Personal-Fi personalised sound. However, the set up failed for some reason every time I tried. I am not sure if this is because ambient noise in my apartment was high, even with the fan turned off. But I had no way to go lower than this. Anyway, this has to be sorted as users will not be able to get into a sound-proof room to set this up.

The adaptive EQ features compensated for this to some extent with its leakage compensation feature that personalises to your ears. The call quality is good and natural. But if you are listening to something and a call comes in, the volume will drop drastically and you will need to adjust it to listen properly. I found this a bit awkward.

Verdict

Available now at Rs 15,999, the JBL Live 780 NC is a very capable headphone with signature sound and noise cancellation, contemporary features, customisation and trendy design packed into a value for money price point. This is exactly what JBL does with its audio devices, and with this one too it has not disappointed. Yes, there are some small niggles that keep this one away from getting a full score. But for the price, I can live with these.