Jabra Elite 45h

The handy, shapely design is quite light at 165 grams, which makes them comfortable to wear. The fit is rather loose, meaning there is low contact pressure. Flexibility is also good as the on-ear system has oval-shaped ear cups rather than round ones, and they can be tilted and swivelled. They are also slightly slanted so that they fit exactly on the ears. This makes the fit optimal for medium to large heads, but the ear cups aren’t so suitable for smaller, narrower heads and they can slip off when on the move.

Despite the light, compact design, these on-ears offer excellent mileage and scored points in our endurance test with a peak value of more than 60 hours; this means we would recommend the Elite 45h for use as travel headphones, even without folding them they save space. While a full charge via the supplied USB-C to USB-A cable takes just under 90 minutes, the powerful quick-charging function can be used for spontaneous use. This provides sufficient battery capacity for up to 14 hours after just 15 minutes of power. However, wired use of these headphones it is not possible.

Device control

To switch on and pair the on-ears, which support Bluetooth standard 5.0 and multi-pairing with two devices at the same time, use the slide button on the right side, where all controls are located. These include a 3-button remote control, whose middle button controls playback as well as answering and ending phone calls. The volume can be controlled with the upper and lower buttons, which can also be pressed and held to help you select a track by jumping forwards and backwards with the plus and minus buttons. In addition, a separate button is reserved for direct access to voice assistants, and here the overall control is reliable and instant. The wireless connection also proved to be pleasingly stable in combination with various Android and iOS systems over a range of up to ten metres. They also have good speech intelligibility during phone calls. Your own voice is very clearly reproduced, as background noises are expertly suppressed by the integrated microphone technology.

Jabra Sound+ App

The app offers a battery status display and tracking function for the headphones as well as the option of firmware updates, a user manual and extensive personalisation options. These range from activating and deactivating multilingual voice guidance and energy consumption settings to configuring call behaviour. A hearing test can also be completed, giving you the option to generate a so-called “MySound hearing profile”, which compensates for imbalances between the left and right ear as well as age-related hearing loss, and is permanently stored on the Elite 45h. Once you set it up, it is always active, independent of the app, but cannot be deactivated, only deleted, so that no direct A/B comparison is available. However, a good feature is the ability to make an additional sound adjustment via EQ, which is also permanently stored, so that the headphones can be used with a personal sound profile.

Sound

The straightforward basic sound of these on-ears has a powerful, compact and well-defined low frequency range, which reproduces bass-oriented productions in a powerful way. The clear reproduction of vocals is also appealing, and benefits from a subtle, well-rounded warmth. In the high-frequency range, however, a drop can be detected, which is particularly noticeable in classical music, where the trebles are otherwise present and have no hardness. The earthy sound character, however, appears a little dull overall and lacks a sense of spaciousness, which is subjectively improved by using the listening profile, making the sound appear more open and also more detailed. This is helped by the fact that the weaknesses in the high frequency range can be satisfactorily corrected with the help of the excellent EQ. However, high-quality audio codecs such as aptX or the AAC format are not available, so the SBC has to be used with standard Bluetooth.