You certainly wouldn’t classify the JBLs as shy and retiring. High frequencies sound crisp and sharp, but not overly harsh or bright.

Inside each of the earcups there's a 32mm driver, and together these help to power JBL's Pure Bass technology. The manufacturer has been providing sound for festivals and concerts for decades, and claims that Pure Bass channels this experience into “making your favourite artists sound incredible.” We'll put that assertion to the test in the next section. The US company claims that you'll get up to 12 hours' use with Bluetooth and ANC activated, and that extends to 22 hours with those functions switched off. While that is by no means best in class (the similarly priced Anker Soundcore Life Q20 offer up to 40 hours, for example), it's certainly not to be sniffed at – especially as you can restore the headphones to full capacity from empty with just two hours of charging.Comfort is noteworthy. All that plastic keeps things light. In fact, these might be the lightest headphones I have ever used…or at least close. We’re definitely talking Koss Porta-Pro territory here, folks. Rather better news is that for a relatively slight headphone, the 12 hour battery life on wireless with a two hour recharge is very commendable. What is no less welcome is that the Bluetooth is really well implemented. Pairing and re-pairing is completely straightforward and once you have connected, it is completely stable and the range on offer is sufficient to allow you to wander away from your Bluetooth source- up to a few meters- without any interference or drop in quality. There are rather more expensive Bluetooth devices that don’t offer the stability that the Tune 600BTNC does. Some might prefer a more balanced, rounded sound, but in many respects the JBL Tune600BTNCs are very capable. Their punchy sound performance paired with a simple, smart design, excellent noise cancelling capabilities and hours upon hours of battery life make these some of the best budget headphones you can buy. All in all, I think you’ll be hard pushed to find a better pair of noise-cancelling headphones for this low of a price. JBL Tune 660NC review: also consider

As for wireless runtime, the manufacturer specifies twelve hours with activated Noise Canceling—a good, but not outstanding value. However, the handset can also be used purely passively and with noise cancelling via a supplied cable. Charging time is two hours. Sound Quality

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If there’s one thing JBL does well at time and time again, it’s delivering on sound quality. And that’s not just from their headphones, it’s from all of their audio products. This pair of headphones use JBL Pure Bass tuning, claiming to punch out deep and powerful bass.

The low end offers a natural but energetic sound. While neither terrible or fantastic, detail is present. A strong bass response rounds out the lows, with good impact and surprisingly competent control. With that robust “thump” in the low end, and no real bleed to mess things up in the lows, this part of the frequency range remains fairly impressive. Midrange The Active Noise Cancelling was even more impressive, even though these don’t encase your whole ear. I could barely hear the taps on my keyboard and missed being spoken to pretty much every time someone tried. Testing it out with some aeroplane noise from YouTube, although you could of course hear it, it was very dulled out especially with the volume turned up high. These won’t beat the likes of Sony WH-1000XM4 or the Bowers & Wilkins PX7, some of the priciest pairs of noise-cancelling headphones you can buy but I must admit, they did hold their own. On the other hand, the noise reduction in an ICE worked much more effectively. Here, the static, low-frequency driving noise was well suppressed and allowed a clearer sound. Accordingly, I would not compare the offered noise-cancelling with specialists from Bose or Sony, but consider it a rather nice addition, which one receives for a moderate additional cost. Aiding portable use, the JBL Tune 600BTNC also uses hinges on the headband, so the earcups can be folded up to decrease space in your bag or purse. Tight. Specifications The specs for this JBL reveal a standard frequency range and a low nominal impedance – just what I would expect from an on-ear wireless headphone. Sound Pressure might actually seem a little on the low side…until you turn these things on and get some tunes bumping. Here the active noise cancellation increases the sense of clarity, and as a result, this headphone can seem VERY loud. Low End

JBL Tune 600BTNC - Q&A

Strong, rich audio with a heavy focus on the low-end is what you get from these headphones. Whether that’s right for you or not will depend on how you like your music, if you’re hungry for bass then look no further. If you want to hear every lyric word for word then maybe look elsewhere.

Turning off the noise-cancelling relieves a bit of that excess weight, but turns out to be counterproductive. It introduces additional noise and the music loses its clarity and drive. How much this matters is open to debate. It does mean that there no technical means by which the JBL can receive a lossless audio signal but equally, I’m not totally sure how many owners will ever send them one and thinking about it as a device for travel and holidays, someone like myself who notionally cares about such a thing wouldn’t be falling over myself to use lossless in such a situation. Throw in the added dynamic that any iOS device (which will form a large swathe of the target market) still can’t form the other half of an Apt-X partnership anyway and JBL’s decision is fairly understandable. Or, for something a little more discreet, take a look at the best true wireless headphones you can buy. The fundamental character of the JBL doesn’t change with the move to wireless. This is still a headphone that wants to present music with a fundamentally positive spin. This works best when you play livelier sounding music with a bit of force to it. When you play more delicate material with real instruments some of the slight failings of the JBL are easier to determine. The tonality is pretty good but there is a congestion and compression to the midrange that robs them of some of the realism that they are capable of elsewhere.The JBLs sound expressive and confident throughout the frequency range. Billy Corgan’s vocal sounds reassuringly solid and expressive. As such, the JBL makes use of a technology that they imaginatively enough call Pure Bass Sound. The actual engineering that goes into this is not something that the company expands upon hugely (and given the very different technology that goes into the variety of products that are described as having it, it is reasonable to assume that it might be more than a single piece of engineering anyway) but the intention is to generate the ‘live’ bass effect that we have come to expect from many venues - not least because they often use hulking great JBL speakers. Another cheap pair of noise-cancelling headphones worth considering is the AKG N60NC, they’re slightly more expensive than these but the audio quality is really excellent for what you pay.