JBL Live 770NC  Headphones Review

The JBL Live 770NC have a very bass-heavy tuning with a couple of big peaks in the treble range when used over Bluetooth with ANC on and without modifying the EQ. Hip-hop and EDM fans might enjoy the boomy (arguably bloated) sound of thumpy kick drums and the deep rumble of sub-bass synths. But all that low-end exaggeration can overwhelm the mid-range, so melodic parts, like lead synths, are comparatively harder to make out and sit low in the mix. Those treble peaks mean you'll hear excited focus on vocals and a bit of harshness on the high registers of guitar solos, while cymbals can sound piercing and shrill. The headphones sound virtually identical over Bluetooth as when they're active and wired, but when wired and powered off, their bass is considerably reduced to a more neutral setting, and the low-treble is also more relaxed; take a look at this comparison.

If that's not your preferred tuning, their companion app is equipped with an equalizer, and when it's set to flat, the sound is the same as the default tuning. You can check out the EQ presets' frequency responses, which are roughly variations on the theme of oodles of bass, except for the 'Vocal' preset, which has a more conservative bass curve. You can also create your own custom EQ.

A comparison of the default sound profile in Ambient Aware, with ANC off and ANC enabled, reveals that Ambient Aware adds a bit more low-mid and bass content.

Lastly, if you're using the microphone, the headphones' frequency response changes. This mode emphasizes the frequencies speech occupies in the mid-range, but can leave audio sounding hollow and thin.

The JBL Live 770NC have poor frequency response consistency. These over-ear's ability to deliver predictable sound is derailed by factors like thick hair and glasses, which result in a drop in bass by breaking their earpads' seal around your ears. It's normal to see slight deviations in the bass and treble regions with most headphones, but the observed variations in the midrange are indicative of how tricky it is to achieve consistently sounding audio between wears. You'll want to take care when placing these so that they sit and distribute clamping force evenly.

The JBL Live 770NC's bass compliance is passable. If you love exaggerated low-end, this voicing could be perfect for you. The whole range is exaggerated, especially the low and mid-bass frequencies, so kick drums have plenty of thump and rumble. The high-bass is a bit more controlled, so basslines don't sound too muddy despite all the low-end heft. As a result, the bassline and subtle low synth pads in tracks like Wildfires by SAULT are very loud but don't entirely overwhelm the sparse piano and spring reverb-soaked handclaps.

The mid-range compliance of the JBL Live 770NC is superb. It's fairly even throughout the range apart from a small boost in the low-mids, which is a continuation of the inflated bass range. That said, while the mids are flat, their accuracy of the mids isn't very obvious in the context of the rest of the sound profile, with the large dose of bass emphasis obscuring this somewhat.

The JBL Live 770NC's treble compliance is great. As a whole, the region isn't especially inflated or recessed, but it's fairly inconsistent, with a couple of big peaks in the low- and mid-treble rendering voices harsh and sibilants piercing. 

The JBL Live 770NC's peaks and dips performance is decent. Despite their bass-rich profile, these headphones don't deviate much from their bass-heavy sound profile. That said, their treble reproduction is inconsistent. A big peak in the low-treble makes voices sound harsh, and another peak in the mid-treble makes cymbals sound piercing. 

These headphones have impressively well-matched left and right drivers. That said, there is an audible channel imbalance in the bass and low mids, with the right driver sounding slightly boomier and bass-heavy while the left emphasizes higher pitched details. You can mitigate for these subtle differences using the companion app’s left/right balance control. For the most part, the issues are minor and fairly inaudible during regular listening.

These headphones have reasonable group delay. In tracks with heavy sub-bass, such as 808 kick drums in trap music, you may notice that the bass sounds a touch loose. However, higher-pitched frequencies, such as those produced by snare drums and hi-hats, are not affected. Above the low-bass, transients are reproduced clearly and accurately.

The JBL Live 770NC don't produce audio that interacts much with your outer ear. Their soundstage also isn't open or spacious, which is par for the course with closed-back headphones. Your audio sounds like it's coming from inside your head and not from two speakers in a room. 

These headphones have impressively low harmonic distortion. You can listen at high levels without experiencing audible distortion artifacts. 

These headphones don't require an amp to drive them, and you can drive them from a mobile device or laptop.

The JBL Live 770NC include a spatial audio feature in their companion app. You get three preset digital signal processor (DSP) settings: 'Movie,' 'Music,' and 'Game.' These apply the DSP to whatever audio you're listening to. Unlike the Sony 360 Reality Audio on the Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless, you can use it with any audio source as a novel and immersive way to experience music and movies. However, it's somewhat limited in comparison to what you'll experience with the Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless' virtual surround sound because the JBL lack analysis of your ears, and unlike Apple Spatial Audio found on the Apple AirPods Max Wireless, the JBL lack head tracking to help create even greater immersion.

These are the settings used to test the JBL Live 770NC. Our results are only valid in this configuration.

The JBL Live 770NC are over-ear wireless headphones, and they look quite a bit like the JBL Live 670NC Wireless on-ears, just with larger ear cups. They're plastic with tonal metallic accents on either side of the headband and metallic circles with large logos on the outside of each ear cup, pretty standard for the brand these days. Their padded headband is covered with a somewhat coarse tweed fabric that's color-matched to complement the plastic. Over-ears tend to be bulky, but the taper of the two-piece ear cup housing cuts down on their overall visual presence. The earpads are thick, and on the ‘White' colorway, they give the impression of cushy marshmallows. Other colors available include the stealthy 'Black,' 'Blue,' which is aesthetically busier with contrasting navy and silver, and 'Sandstone,' which adds some flash with rose gold accents.

The JBL Live 770NC are comfortable. They're reasonably light and don't clamp down too hard. Their ear cups have a good range of motion to fit a variety of head shapes, and the headband has adequate padding. If you've got a shaved head or are bald, the fabric covering the headband can feel a bit rough. The ear pads aren't removable, and the actual stuffing is a bit stiff, which can impact your ability to get a good seal over your ears. Still, the pads feel slightly softer than the JBL Live 670NC Wireless' ear pads.

Folks with large ears might find there's not enough room for the pads to encircle your ears fully. At the same time, the space between your ears and the drivers offers a good distance, so your ears probably won't press against the drivers.

The JBL Live 770NC have impressive controls. They use a combination of touch controls and physical buttons to cover most commands. There's even a hands-free smart assistant you can configure to Google Assistant (the default) or Amazon Alexa. The buttons feel distinct from each other, so you won't accidentally misfire a command. Their touch-sensitive surface is only on the right ear cup, which you can't alter—sorry, lefties. You can access virtually all the controls without opening the app, which is great.

The headphones chime, indicating they've registered commands on the touchpad, but not when you use the buttons. All of the chimes sound the same, and when you hit maximum volume, the chime is drowned out by your audio. Each step of the Bluetooth pairing process and cycling through listening modes (ANC and Ambient Aware) emit unique accompanying voice prompts.

Physical buttons on the right ear cup:

• Power Slider
• Slide up: Powers the headphones on/off.

• '+' button
• Single press: Raises the volume.
• Press and hold: Skips track forward.

• '+' and '-' button
• Press together: Performs factory reset.

• '-' button
• Single press: Lowers the volume.
• Press and hold: Skips the track backward.

• Multi-function button:
• Single press: Plays/pauses audio. Also answers/ends a call.
• Two-second press: Activates Siri or another voice assistant.

• Ambient Aware button:
• Single press: Toggles between ANC and Ambient Aware mode.
• Press and hold: Activates Talk-Through mode, which amplifies your own voice using the integrated mics.

• Bluetooth button:
• Single press: Pair additional device.

Tactile surface on the right ear cup:

• Tap once: Play/pause audio.
• Tap twice: Skips to the next track. Answers/rejects call.
• Tap three times: Skips back to previous track.
• Hold for two seconds: Activates voice assistant. Toggles mic on/off while on a call.

Voice command:

• 'Hey Google': Activates Google Assistant.

The JBL Live 770NC are acceptably portable. After all, they're wireless over-ears, so they're only going to be so compact. The headphones' articulating hinges bend the arms inwards to reduce their footprint, and the ear cups can rotate to lay flat. You can sling them around your neck or slide them into their carrying pouch to take them on the go.

The JBL Live 770NC's cloth pouch is passable. It's virtually identical to the JBL Live 670NC Wireless' pouch, a basic, grey, soft fabric with a drawstring. Annoyingly, the drawstring can reopen on its own by simply jostling around your backpack. Nevertheless, the fabric protects your cans from surface scuffs and scratches, even if it won't mitigate the impact of accidental drops.

The build quality of these over-ears is good overall. Their hinges seem reliable, and the ear pads feel nice, not too soft or overly firm, and covered by good quality faux leather. You can't swap the ear pads, which isn't ideal for long-term durability. When adjusting their fit, their metal yokes click reassuringly. The included braided TRS audio cable feels nice; it's not so stiff as to stress the internal wiring, and of course, you can easily replace it without needing to buy new headphones. However, the USB charging cable is very short, which can lead to placing the headphones in awkward locations during a recharge, which isn't ideal for the port. Their overall frame seems fine but a bit creaky, and their plastic doesn't feel very dense, so don't drop them.

The JBL Live 770NC's stability is good. They can easily accompany you on a walk and a light jog, but anything too dynamic risks them falling off; that's pretty normal for over-ears. Depending on how well they fit you, you can do some isometric exercises like weightlifting. Since they're wireless, you won't need to worry about catching the audio cable unless you've connected them to a device like an old Apple iPod Shuffle.

• JBL Live 770NC Wireless headphones
• 1/16" to 1/8" TRS audio cable (4.1 ft or 1.25m)
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable (8 inches or 25cm)
• Carry pouch
• Quick start guide and warranty papers

Their full-range noise isolation is good. The ANC-equipped headphones reduce the deep rumbles of bus engines, although not as effectively as they filter out midrange noise like the ambient sounds of an office. Assuming you achieve an unbroken over-ear seal, their passive isolation blocks a solid amount of high-pitched noise pretty evenly.

While the results appear to indicate that the headphones amplify noise in the bass frequencies, this is strictly limited to the testing rig and the headphones and isn't the case with real-world usage. If you're wearing the headphones, you won't hear environmental noises as being louder than if you remove them.

Their noise isolation performs decently in common scenarios. The combined ANC and passive isolation cuts out environmental sounds fairly similarly. With that said, their noise isolation seems to have the most noticeable impact on typical office noises. They don't perform quite as well with airplane cabin noise, either. Given that much airplane cabin noise resides in somewhat lower frequencies, which the ANC system doesn't attenuate quite so effectively, you'll still hear more of the din than you otherwise would with headphones like the Anker Soundcore Space Q45 Wireless. Still, they're by no means poor performers.

The JBL 770NC don't have a wind mode that specifically mitigates the anti-noise produced as an overcorrection when wind interacts with exterior ANC mics. That said, the ANC doesn't struggle to deal with wind noise. A gust can negatively impact their ANC's effectiveness and produce the unpleasant whoosh of anti-noise. Still, on the whole, their design manages it well, considering there's no wind reduction mode.

As expected, different listening modes like Ambient Aware and basic ANC Off behave differently when faced with wind, which you can see here to compare.

Their leakage performance is good. Most of the audio range that escapes the headphones isn't audible except in very quiet spaces. What does escape that's audible in busier spaces like offices is a rather trebly band of audio, mainly bright percussion and vocal harmonics. How loudly you listen to your music and the space you're in influence how much of your audio people nearby can hear. While the headphones' companion app includes a leakage compensation function, in testing, it effectively made no difference (you can see the comparison with the leakage compensation on and off here).

The beam-forming mic system on the JBL Live 770NC is mediocre, though it's also not fully compatible with our testing rig. Your captured speech rolls off the lows and the highs, resulting in a somewhat distant, muffled tone that slightly exaggerates sibilants (S and T sounds).

Their mic's noise handling is mediocre. In environments with consistent background noise, the headphones manage to mostly prioritize your speech, but distortion remains present. If there are chatty people in the environment, the microphone system also picks them up. The mics struggle with sudden and loud sounds like trains and obscure the intelligibility of your voice.

The JBL Live 770NC have superb battery performance. The manufacturer advertises they'll reach 50 hours of battery life with the ANC on (and 65 hours with it off); our tests yielded 55 hours with ANC enabled. That's more than enough to get through several workdays, a flight or two, and a few commutes without reaching for the USB-C charging cable. According to the manufacturer, if you get caught with a drained battery, a quick five minutes of charging gives you four hours of playback. In addition to the long battery life, you can enable the auto-off timer via the app (30-minute, one-hour, or two-hour settings), so you don't drain the battery overnight if you fall asleep while wearing the headphones.

The companion app for the JBL Live 770NC is great. The JBL Headphones app is shared by many of its models and comes with a pretty robust set of features to control listening modes (ANC, Ambient Aware), tools to shape their sound like parametric EQ and presets, and more, which you can view here.

Spatial audio applies one of three DSP modes to your media to simulate a surround sound experience, but without head-tracking or any analysis of your ears. There's Personi-Fi: essentially a custom EQ combining your unique hearing with what the manufacturer thinks is the best way to hear the sound profile. Low Volume Dynamic EQ adjusts the EQ so that at quieter settings, you can hear the sound curve in a more pleasing way that accounts for how our ears perceive sound at low levels. You also get an adjustable sidetone, latency modes, a decibel limiter to protect your hearing, left/right driver channel balance, and you can set up your voice assistant for hands-free use (with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant).

The JBL Live 770NC let you use noise cancelling when plugged in with their 1/8" TRS cable and powered on. However, you won't have access to their app when you use them with their analog cable. You can also use them passively, but as expected, this means you don't get ANC.

The JBL Live 770NC have great Bluetooth connectivity. They can connect with two devices simultaneously, so you can easily switch between your work computer and phone when you go for lunch. Although they lack high resolution and adaptive Bluetooth codecs like the aptX suite or LDAC, they have optimized listening modes that are selectable through the JBL Headphones app. These modes include 'Normal,' 'Audio,' and 'Video,' with the latter somewhat reducing the latency to accommodate lipsync issues. It does a bit, but you'll likely still notice some latency. Other factors can influence latency as well, so your experience may vary. 'Audio' mode yields lower latency, while 'Normal' mode yields the greatest latency, but that's not typically a concern if you listen to music or podcasts only. While the manufacturer advertises these headphones as having Bluetooth LE Audio, the manufacturer hasn't yet rolled out the feature in an update as of our testing date.

The JBL Live 770NC can deliver audio via their 1/8" TRS audio cable, but they won't transmit any sound via the mics. You can connect them over Bluetooth if you want to use their microphone system. However, you'll experience latency, and their sound profile changes when the microphone is active. In other words, they're not a substitute for a proper headset, but you can use them for solo gaming, the occasional meeting, and music just fine.

You can plug the JBL Live 770NC into your PlayStation controller using their audio cable to receive audio only. However, their microphone doesn't work when you plug them in, so you'll need an outboard mic to talk with your friends.

The headphones can only receive audio when plugged into your Xbox controller, but the mics are disabled. You'll need a separate microphone to chat with your team.