JBL Live 780NC Review: Bass-First Headphones With Long Battery Life

The JBL Live 780NCs are a classy pair of headphones. Between their subtle colors and clean, tight seams, they feel well designed. They’re flexible, stretching and twisting with ease, and they don’t creak or crack when contorted. They come in black, blue, green, sand, and white. I received the sand color.

(Credit: Mark Knapp)

There’s a fine blend of materials here. The headband is plastic with a soft silicone padding on the bottom. It may not be the most breathable material, but it makes for a gentle, supportive crown. The plush cushioning in the earcups, leatherette finish, and modest clamping force hold them securely. I found my ears got a little warm, and I had some mild discomfort on the crown of my head, but that was only after wearing them for most of the day. I experienced neither of these when I wore them for only a few hours. At 9.2 ounces, they’re not a terrible burden.

The earcups attach to metal sliders that offer a good range of adjustment and both flex and pivot to keep them aligned with the sides of your head. The sliders can fold to help with squeezing the headphones into a bag. And the earcups fold flat for an even lower profile or to rest on your collarbone when you’re taking a break.

(Credit: Mark Knapp)

The control setup is mostly satisfying. The right earcup includes a three-way switch with a clear on/off position, so there’s no fussing around with 5-second holds to power the headphones on or off. The third position toggles Bluetooth pairing mode, and the toggle promptly springs back to the On position after selecting this mode. The listening mode control is beneath the power switch. The left earcup has a two-way volume button. All the physical controls are well placed for easy pressing. 

An additional capacitive control surface sits on the outside face of the right earcup. It responds to taps and holds. I found it mostly reliable, though light, single-finger taps sometimes fail to register. By default, a single tap plays or pauses audio, a double tap skips forward, a triple tap skips back, and a press-and-hold calls up your phone’s voice assistant, but you can customize these.

The 780NCs include a proximity sensor that pauses playback when you remove the headphones, and it does so quickly. Where some headphones include a sensor in each earcup, these headphones include only one in the right earcup; they won’t pause playback if you lift just the left earcup off your ear, as you might when briefly conversing with someone.

(Credit: Mark Knapp)

The JBLs have 40mm drivers with a frequency response of 10Hz to 40kHz, which qualifies them for High-Res Audio. They connect via Bluetooth 6.0 and support the LDAC and LE Audio codecs for high-quality sound, with AAC as a fallback. You can tune in to Auracasts. They support Bluetooth multipoint, but I found its behavior a little off. While connected to my laptop and phone, it often failed to start audio playback from my phone, even though no audio was playing on the laptop. Like most headphones, many of these features require tapping into the mobile app, though LDAC and multipoint are enabled by default. The Nothing headphones also have LDAC and multipoint support.

The headphones come packed with a soft, suede-like pouch that includes an interior pocket for the included USB-C-to-3.5mm cable. Surprisingly, it doesn’t include a charging cable, though it shouldn’t be hard to find one that works with the USB-C port.