Jaybird Tarah Pro Wireless Headphones Review

The Jaybird Tarah Pro have a very similar style to the normal Tarah model, with slight variances. They still have a more sport-oriented look, the in-line remote is now curved, and they have a braided, black and white cable. You can also wear the headphones with a normal fit or put the cables over your ears since the earbuds rotate to help you get a better fit. These headphones come in three different color-accent schemes: black-flash, mineral blue-jade, or titanium-glacier.

The Jaybird Tarah Pro are decently comfortable headphones, but like most in-ears, the fit might not be for everyone. They have the same eargels as the Tarah, but the size equivalences are smaller (the medium-sized tip of the Tarah Pro is the same size as the small-sized tip of the Tarah). They have an earbud-like fit that doesn’t enter your ear canal as deeply. Ear tips and stability fins are still mixed in one unit, giving you fewer fit options as you can’t mix and match different sizes together.

Update 08-21-2019: The Tarah Pro are compatible with voice assistants like Google Assistant and Siri for voice-enabled controls. The review has been updated. The in-line remote is very similar to the previous Jaybird X-series and Tarah model. The remote is now slightly curved, but the available controls are still the same. You get common functionalities like call/music management, volume control, and track skipping. You can also trigger your device voice assistant with the multipurpose button. The remote feels more clicky than the Tarah, and you also get audio feedback during the pairing procedure. You’ll also have a voice prompt telling you how much battery is left (rounded to the nearest 20%), which is nice.

Like most in-ears, their design doesn’t trap heat inside your ears, and you shouldn’t notice a difference in temperature while using the headphones. They are a good option for sports as you won’t sweat more than usual.

Like most wireless in-ears, these can easily fit in most pockets or a bag. They can be rolled into a more compact format easily without damaging the cable. They also come with a small pouch that doesn’t add too much bulk, and should be able to fit in pockets. For even more portable headphones, take a look at the Beats Flex Wireless or the Jaybird Run XT Truly Wireless.

The Jaybird Tarah Pro come with a small pouch, unlike the previous Tarah model. This pouch is very similar to the X4's pouch, which slightly protects the headphones from scratches and minor water exposure. Unfortunately, this isn’t as protective as the Jaybird X2 hard case. On the upside, the pouch is fairly small and portable.

Update 06/25/2019: We revised the Build Quality score of the Tarah Pro as we feel they are one of the better-built sports headphones available right now. The text has been adjusted to reflect this.

The Jaybird Tarah Pro are well-made wireless in-ears that have a few differences with the Jaybird Tarah Wireless model. First, their cable isn’t flat but is braided. They have new magnetic earbuds which is great for easier cable management. They also have rotating earbud casings for how you want to wear the headphones. They are still IPX7 for sweat and water resistance, but we do not currently have a test to measure this accurately. They have an overall high-end feel and don't feel like they'll break during physical activity.

The Jaybird Tarah Pro are very stable for most physical activities. Unfortunately, like the Tarah, they only come with 3 eargels options so you can't mix and match fins and tips sizes like the Jaybird X3. On the upside, the Tarah Pro have what Jaybird calls the “Switch Fit” which allows you to rotate the earbud, helping you in finding the best fit for you. You can wear the headphones’ cable under or over your ears, which is a bit more stable. Their wireless design also means the chance of getting a wire hooked on something is lesser than wired headphones, and it won’t yank the headphones out of your ears. If you want more stable earbuds, check out the Bose Sport Earbuds.

• Jaybird Tarah Pro headphones
• 3x eargels
• Carrying pouch
• Charging cradle
• Shirt clip
• Manuals

The frequency response consistency of the Jaybird Tarah Pro is excellent. If the user can achieve a proper fit and an air-tight seal using the assortment of tips that come with the headphones, then they should be able to get consistent bass and treble delivery every time they use the headphones.

The bass performance is great. Their LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 10Hz, which is excellent. Low-bass and mid-bass are flat and within 0.5dB of our neutral target, which results in a deep and punchy bass with just the right amount of thump and rumble. However, the high-bass, which is responsible for warmth, is overemphasized by about 3dB, bringing a bit of muddiness to the bass.

The mid-range performance is also great. The range is fairly flat and even, which is important for the clear and well-balanced reproduction of vocals and instruments. However, there’s a 4dB dip in the mid-range around 800Hz that will slightly nudge vocals and lead instruments to the back of the mix.

The treble performance is also great. The range is fairly even, but there’s a dip around 4-5KHz which is going to negatively affect the detail and brightness of vocals and lead instruments. Also, some sibilances (S and T sounds) can feel a bit sharp for some users, but not everyone will hear it as intensely. This will be most noticeable on cymbals and vocals.

The stereo imaging of the Tarah Pro is great. Their weighted group delay is at 0.08, which is among the lowest we have measured so far. The group delay graph also shows that the entire response is well below our audibility threshold. This ensures a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. Also, the L/R drivers of our test unit were very well-matched in frequency, amplitude, and phase response. This is important for the accurate placement and localization of objects (voices, instruments, video games effects) in the stereo image. These results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently.

The soundstage of the Tarah Pro is poor. This is because creating an out-of-head and speaker-like soundstage is largely dependent on activating the resonances of the pinna (outer ear). The design of in-ears and earbuds is in such a way that fully bypasses the pinna and doesn't interact with it. Also, because these headphones have a closed-back enclosure, their soundstage won't be perceived to be as open as that of open-back earbuds like the Apple AirPods (1st generation) Truly Wireless or the Bose SoundSport Free Truly Wireless.

The isolation performance of the Tarah Pro is about average. In the bass range, where the rumble of airplane and bus engines sits, they achieved 6.5dB of isolation which is mediocre. In the mid-range, important for blocking out speech, they reduce outside noise by more than 19dB, which is very good. In the treble range, occupied by sharp S and T sounds and fan noises like A/C systems, they isolate about 34dB, which is good.

The leakage performance is excellent. These in-ears practically do not leak, so you don't need to worry about disturbing people around you unless you are blasting your music in a very quiet room. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage at 1 foot away averages at 22dB SPL and peaks at 36dB SPL, which is noticeably quieter than the noise floor of an average office.

The mic has a mediocre recording quality. The LFE of 344Hz results in a recorded/transmitted speech that is relatively thin. The HFE of 3.2KHz is poor and suggests speech that is muffled and lacks detail. Overall, the intelligibility of speech on this microphone will still be decent in quiet environments.

The in-line microphone of the Tarah Pro is mediocre at noise-handling. In our SpNR test, they achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of 13dB, indicating they are best suited for quiet environments and will struggle to separate speech from ambient noise in moderate and loud situations.

The main difference between the Tarah Pro and Tarah is a way better battery life on the Pro version. They offer about 13 hours of continuous playback, while the regular Tarah have about 6 hours, and they take about the same time to charge. They also have a useful quick charge feature that gives you 2 hours of battery life for only 5 minutes of charging, according to Jaybird’s specs sheet. Also, they automatically turn off after 15 minutes if the magnetic buds are snapped together, saving battery life. Unfortunately, they come with a proprietary charging cradle, and it is very restrictive as you’ll always need to carry it around to charge the headphones and the cradle's cable is very short.

Update: 03/05/2019: We've updated the review since a software update now gives you new features like button mapping for the multi-purpose button, customizable audio cues and you can now set the Auto-off timer to 15 or 60 minutes, or completely turn it off. We also incorrectly listed that the app didn't have an in-app player, but you can connect through Spotify if you have a Jaybird account as well.

Update: 08/03/2019: We've updated the app score of the Jaybird MySound app to reflect the customization level of their Equalizer. Unlike most phone apps, they have a parametric EQ compared to a typical 5-band graphic one like on the Jabra Elite 65e.

Note: The Personal EQ setting was used to demonstrate how the available customization options looked like and was not used to measure the frequency response of these headphones.

The Tarah Pro support Bluetooth 5.0, so you might experience even better results in wireless range and connection stability than what we’ve measured with our Bluetooth 4.2 dongle. We do plan to upgrade this in our next test bench. Unfortunately, they only connect to one device at a time, which is disappointing since previous Jaybird headphones could connect to two simultaneously.

Their latency is slightly too high for watching videos and gaming. However, they perform better than most Bluetooth headphones so you might not notice the delay as badly as with other headphones unless you’re gaming. Also, some video content apps like Netflix and YouTube offer some sort of compensation depending on your device so you may not notice it at all.

These Bluetooth-only headphones cannot be used with a wired connection.

The Jaybird Tarah Pro do not have a dock or a base, like most sports-oriented headphones.