Jabra BT620s Bluetooth Headset
- Compatibility: Computers Mobile / Cellular
- Design: Behind the Head
- Usage: Consumer
- Connectivity: Wireless
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Audio engineer assesses the Jabra
Pros
Generally very good audio quality, lightweight, xlnt battery life
Cons
Confusing, unlabelled operating controls; signal sometimes intermittent or wavery, especially when moving head position
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Amazing audio quality yet some signal dropouts, lightweight and wireless, but controls take some getting used to
I recently purchased the Jabra BT 620 S headphones to pair with my LG LGLP cell phone with bluetooth capability. As a sound engineer who has mixed movies in 5.1 surround, and as a musician/composer for twenty years, sound quality is very important to me, and I find earbuds uncomfortable to wear for more than 3 minutes and extremely weak in volume!
My local Cingular/AT&T dealer set me up with these Jabra headphones, and overall while the unit is not perfect, I am pleased.
The whole concept of pairing the LGLP cellphone with Jabra is that LGLP plays back MP3 music or other audio material, transmitting it wirelessly to the Jabra via a bluetooth signal. You can control playback, volume, and song selection from buttons on the Jabra. You can also make phone calls on the Jabra. It's really a pretty amazing concept.
If there is any snafu with the Jabra unit, I would say the user interface and setup are confusing. My initial attempt at connecting to the LG via bluetooth was unsuccessful. I am ashamed to admit that I gave it to my teenage daughter and she figured it out.
On the right side of the unit are the music controls, on the left side the phone controls --- more or less. These buttons and toggles and what they do are not labelled in any way! So right there, simple as it may seem, I'm still trying to get over the learning curve. There are blue and green and red lights which flash erratically to give a status report on power levels and charging etc, it would help if the manufacturer just but a little print on the controls! I find the interface confusing and unintuitive.
When executing increases in volume and starting/stopping or skipping songs, there is a bluetooth communications delay of maybe half a second to a second. So don't expect smooth volume changes using bluetooth, it happens in steps.
Audio quality is generally pretty good but signal strength is not perfect and you will experience some dropouts if you move your head.
For example, I was bicycling at the beach last week and if I kept the LG cellphone in my pocket, then turned my head to the right, the signal would flat drop out every time. This did not happen in other head positions, but most reliably occurs when I turn my head to look to the right! If I hang the cellphone on the neck collar of my t shirt, the drop out will not occur.
If signal gets interrupted, then the signal gets buffered and there is a slight pitch shifting in the blue tooth signal. If you walk around or cause some disruption to the bluetooth signal, there might be a dropout of signal buffering which causes slight pitch changes.
The Jabra headphones use an "open air" design, meaning the earcups do not fully enclose the ear. I would prefer that they fully enclose the ear, but that would probably make them illegal for driving or other public uses where safety is an issue.
Compared to earbuds, the Jabra is a joy to use. The volume you can get out of the Jabra is probably 10-12db higher than earbuds. Yet it is hardly as loud as your home stereo system, but getting there.
Bottom line: the audio quality is good enough to satisfy me for recreational use. For open ear headphones, the bass frequency response is pretty good, not great. The frequency response on the high end probably goes out to about 10000 to 12000 hz, which is pretty good. The main deficit is that the bluetooth signal does drop out sometimes, especially in particular positions of the head.
Otherwise, for the lightweight wireless convenience, you can't beat the Jabra. In that context, the music quality is great, essentially the same as what my cellphone produces on it's own.
Phone call quality is excellent too. How the Jabras pick up my voice without a dedicated mouthpiece is a bit of a mystery, but in both directions, phone calls are very intelligible, strong and clear in volume.
My local Cingular/AT&T dealer set me up with these Jabra headphones, and overall while the unit is not perfect, I am pleased.
The whole concept of pairing the LGLP cellphone with Jabra is that LGLP plays back MP3 music or other audio material, transmitting it wirelessly to the Jabra via a bluetooth signal. You can control playback, volume, and song selection from buttons on the Jabra. You can also make phone calls on the Jabra. It's really a pretty amazing concept.
If there is any snafu with the Jabra unit, I would say the user interface and setup are confusing. My initial attempt at connecting to the LG via bluetooth was unsuccessful. I am ashamed to admit that I gave it to my teenage daughter and she figured it out.
On the right side of the unit are the music controls, on the left side the phone controls --- more or less. These buttons and toggles and what they do are not labelled in any way! So right there, simple as it may seem, I'm still trying to get over the learning curve. There are blue and green and red lights which flash erratically to give a status report on power levels and charging etc, it would help if the manufacturer just but a little print on the controls! I find the interface confusing and unintuitive.
When executing increases in volume and starting/stopping or skipping songs, there is a bluetooth communications delay of maybe half a second to a second. So don't expect smooth volume changes using bluetooth, it happens in steps.
Audio quality is generally pretty good but signal strength is not perfect and you will experience some dropouts if you move your head.
For example, I was bicycling at the beach last week and if I kept the LG cellphone in my pocket, then turned my head to the right, the signal would flat drop out every time. This did not happen in other head positions, but most reliably occurs when I turn my head to look to the right! If I hang the cellphone on the neck collar of my t shirt, the drop out will not occur.
If signal gets interrupted, then the signal gets buffered and there is a slight pitch shifting in the blue tooth signal. If you walk around or cause some disruption to the bluetooth signal, there might be a dropout of signal buffering which causes slight pitch changes.
The Jabra headphones use an "open air" design, meaning the earcups do not fully enclose the ear. I would prefer that they fully enclose the ear, but that would probably make them illegal for driving or other public uses where safety is an issue.
Compared to earbuds, the Jabra is a joy to use. The volume you can get out of the Jabra is probably 10-12db higher than earbuds. Yet it is hardly as loud as your home stereo system, but getting there.
Bottom line: the audio quality is good enough to satisfy me for recreational use. For open ear headphones, the bass frequency response is pretty good, not great. The frequency response on the high end probably goes out to about 10000 to 12000 hz, which is pretty good. The main deficit is that the bluetooth signal does drop out sometimes, especially in particular positions of the head.
Otherwise, for the lightweight wireless convenience, you can't beat the Jabra. In that context, the music quality is great, essentially the same as what my cellphone produces on it's own.
Phone call quality is excellent too. How the Jabras pick up my voice without a dedicated mouthpiece is a bit of a mystery, but in both directions, phone calls are very intelligible, strong and clear in volume.
