JBL Tune 770NC Wireless Headphones Review

The JBL Tune 770NC are all plastic over-ears. They're monochrome and matte plastic, except for the prominent glossy logos on each ear cup's housing. They're foldable with substantial padding for the ear pads. Overall, they look a lot like the rest of the JBL Tune line. You can choose between four colors: 'Black,' 'Blue,' 'Purple,' and 'White.' Our 'Purple' unit is a pale lavender shade. You even get a color-matched flat audio cable to complete the look.

The JBL Tune 770NC are satisfactorily comfortable. They're lightweight with a good range of fit adjustability. They also provide a nice amount of padding. The entire headband isn't padded, only the center, which is the part that makes contact with your head. While you can't replace the faux leather-covered ear pads, they're comfortable, dense, and soft. However, the inner diameter of the ear pads and ear cups don't offer much space for your ears, which makes it particularly difficult for average- and larger-sized ears to fit without breaking the over-ear seal.

Like the JBL Tune 760NC Wireless, they also have a high enough clamping force to cause premature fatigue, especially if you wear glasses. The headphones tend to fit folks with smaller- to average-sized heads better. Their headband extension is enough for most heads, but if your head is on the larger side or you have a lot of thick hair, it can be harder to get a comfortable fit, too.

Their controls are decent. The five-button control scheme is on the right ear cup. Each button feels distinct, and you can feel it click when you press one. The buttons are also labeled, so you can look at them if you forget which button performs what function. You can check out their comprehensive controls here.

The headphones will chime if you max out the volume. They also chime when you power them on and when they establish a connection. A voice warns you when the battery gets low, too. The headphones also have lights to indicate Bluetooth status and 'ANC' mode. Some features, such as your preferred voice assistant, require the companion app to configure them.

They're passably portable. Over-ears tend to be large, but the headphones fold down a bit smaller. The ear cups can swivel to lay flat, as well. Unfortunately, they don't include a case to protect them if you put them in your bag.

The JBL 770NC's build quality is decent. Their housings are entirely matte plastic, which feels satisfactorily solid, though not premium. Like most headphones in this tier, you can't remove the ear pads, but they're soft and dense feeling. The ear cups shift on a vertical plane with a good range of motion. Their headband is somewhat narrow, but it flexes to fit, feels securely attached, and isn't brittle, though it seems hollow. The headband slider clicks when you resize the headphones and feels secure, too. On the downside, the headband's hinges come across as a bit flimsy and loose, which, over prolonged or heavy use, can break. Without a case, they seem a bit vulnerable to drops or over-stuffed backpacks. Like most over-ears, they don't have any water or dust resistance.

The JBL 770NC's stability is satisfactory. The high clamping force helps keep them somewhat secure, so you can easily wear them for most daily activities without concern. Unfortunately, they'll come loose if you start headbanging or perform intense workouts.

• JBL Tune 770NC headphones
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable (9.8" / 25 cm)
• 1/16" TRS to 1/8" TRRS audio cable (4.10 ft / 1.25 m)
• Quick start guide

The JBL Tune 770NC's sound profile (when EQ is disabled and connected over Bluetooth) sounds relatively neutral, with an additional dose of rumble and a fairly excited top-end. Their bass has a good amount of rumble and boom without overwhelming other frequencies. The high-bass frequencies into the low-mids are very slightly under-emphasized to avoid muddiness. Otherwise, the mids reasonably adhere to a neutral mid-range for natural-sounding lead and melodic instruments, although they're a bit pushed down by the treble. Most of the treble is over-emphasized for bright and clear articulation of vocals, except for a dip where the low-treble transitions to the mid-treble, dulling details on vocals and impacting presence. Meanwhile, the rest of the top-end comes across as considerably excited, shrill, and piercing on elements like cymbal hits.

They sound virtually identical when you use them over Bluetooth as they do when connected via their analog cable and powered on, but, as you can see here, their bass and treble are more subdued when used passively. Unlike the JBL Tune 760NC Wireless, the manufacturer's app is compatible with these and provides EQ presets to modify their sound profile somewhat, in addition to a custom equalizer; you can see the preset EQ frequency responses here. If you listen to the headphones in 'Ambient Aware' mode or with noise cancelling turned off, they sound the same, but they're less rumbly than with noise cancelling enabled, as shown here. Lastly, like most Bluetooth headphones, if you're on a call, their frequency response changes to cut out the lows and dramatically reduce the highs with an overall volume drop, compared to their standard voicing.

The JBL Tune 770NC have decent frequency response consistency. People with small ears will find it easier to obtain a dependable over-ear seal, but the headphones don't have enough space to consistently seal over average and large ears. As a result, the majority of the frequency spectrum, especially the bass and treble, can sound a bit inconsistent from person to person. That said, most audible frequencies aren't too drastically affected, compared to the notable drop in bass experienced by folks wearing glasses with the JBL Tune 760NC Wireless, for example.

The headphones' bass accuracy is superb. They're a bit exaggerated in the low-bass for added rumble on deep sub-bass synths. Otherwise, though, they provide a good amount of punch to kick drums while allowing you to hear the rest of your audio content just fine.

The mid-accuracy is fantastic. Melodic instruments and vocals sound true to life due to a very balanced mid-range.

The headphones have very good treble accuracy. The curve doesn't deviate too drastically, though most of the low-treble is a bit exaggerated, which highlights vocal clarity and articulation. A dip where the low-treble and mid-treble meet diminishes presence and dulls details somewhat. The rest of the mid-treble is over-emphasized, causing sibilants like S and T sounds, high-tuned snares, and cymbal hits to sound somewhat piercing in songs like The Killing Moon by Echo & The Bunnymen.

The JBL Tune 770NC have great peaks and dips performance, indicating that they follow their own sound profile. The peak in the low- and mid-bass provide added thump, which is followed by a small dip in the high-bass to de-emphasize the boom of kick drums a bit. A minor bump between the low-mids and mid-mid-range pushes leads forward slightly. A series of minor dips and peaks in the rest of the mids alternatingly push down leads in the mix and reduce the intensity of vocals very slightly. The treble is less even; peaks in the low-treble emphasize vocal clarity and brightness, while a dramatic but narrow dip dulls vocal details. Sibilants sound uneven due to the dip followed by a prominent peak, which makes them piercing.

The JBL Tune 770NC have remarkable imaging performance. This performance aligns with other headphones from the manufacturer we've tested, indicating solid quality control and ergonomics. Their group delay measurements land below the audibility threshold, resulting in a tight bass and transparent treble. The drivers are fairly well-matched in phase, except for at very high frequencies, which are above most people's hearing, yielding a stable stereo image. The left and right drivers are evenly matched in amplitude for an even volume in both channels. There's a slight weighted frequency mismatch between the L/R drivers, creating minor imbalances and holes in the stereo image in the bass and low-treble. However, imaging performance varies between units, so these results are only valid for our unit.

These headphones have a poor passive soundstage. Because they're closed-back headphones and don't interact with the environment, they sound focused, like your audio is coming from inside your head. The soundstage isn't immersive or very spacious, either.

The JBL Tune 770NC have good weighted harmonic distortion performance. Besides a couple of peaks in the treble range, the distortion is low enough that your real-life audio will sound clean and pure.

These are the settings we used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid with these settings.

The JBL Tune 770NC have middling full-range noise isolation. Their adaptive noise cancelling somewhat reduces mid-range-like noises like chatter and ambient din, but it's not exactly class-leading. Relatedly, the adaptive noise cannceling doesn't do much at all to filter out low-pitched environmental noise either. Their dense foam ear pads isolate trebly sounds like clinking cups, but if your ears are too big for the small space, it'll compromise the effectiveness of the over-ear seal and make the isolation worse. For a sense of which frequencies each listening mode affects, take a look here to compare the noise cancelling On/Off, 'Ambient Aware,' and 'Talk Thru' noise isolation performances.

A note on the peak in the bass range: when you wear the headphones, you won't notice an increase in bass range noise; this peak appears to be the result of the interaction of the headphones' materials with the testing rig.

Their adaptive noise cancelling is sub-par in common scenarios. The low hum of airplane cabins and the deep thrum of common sounds on the street will still reach your ears. Office sounds are slightly less disruptive, as the noise cancelling handles mid-range noise more evenly than bass. That said, you'll still hear keyboards and background chatter, even if it's muffled to an extent. The adaptive nature of the noise cancelling appears to mainly alter the headphones' treble attenuation, which isn't usually active noise cancellation's strength anyhow. As mentioned earlier, the bump in the bass range is likely due to an interaction between the headphones and the testing rig's materials, and it's not something you'll experience while wearing the headphones.

These headphones don't have a wind reduction mode to offset the noise resulting from air interacting with the microphones, which the noise cancellation system feeds back as 'anti-noise.' The effectiveness of the noise cancelling function depends on the angle of the wind hitting the headphones. Not surprisingly, while their noise cancellation effectively reduces mid-range noises, without a wind reduction mode, it introduces noise to other frequency ranges. If you compare the noise cancellation mode 'on' against the noise cancellation mode mode 'off' here (as well as 'Ambient Aware' and 'Talk Thru'), you'll see that the normal listening mode handles bass and high-mids into treble better in windy conditions.

These headphones have a good leakage performance. At normal listening volumes, they leak a somewhat muffled version of your audio that's not especially bright. Leads and vocals will sound the clearest, and due to their small ear cups, a bit of bass can escape, too. However, the overall loudness shouldn't be bothersome to others unless you're in a quiet library blasting your tunes.

Their microphone system's recording quality isn't bad. It captures your voice with good intelligibility, but your voice lacks weight and body. S and T sounds come across as a bit exaggerated, and your voice can sound thin, especially if you have a deep voice.

The microphone system is decent at noise handling. With consistent background noise, the mic prioritizes your voice but can't completely reject the noise, even if it's relatively quieter. In the presence of sudden and loud background sounds, the mic rejects some of the noise, so it's not ear-piercing for the person on the call, but it's still a struggle to understand your words.

The JBL Tune 770NC have excellent battery performance. They last over 47 hours with noise cancelling enabled, which is slightly longer than the manufacturer advertises. Battery life depends on variables like your output volume and listening modes, so your experience can vary. A USB-C charging port is located at the top of the right ear cup hidden under the yoke (seen here), so you can't charge and wear them simultaneously. They take just shy of two hours to fully charge, and five minutes of charging supplies three hours of playback. You can use them passively if you drain the battery as well. Using their companion app, you can enable auto-off timers to help conserve the battery in 30-minute increments with up to 90 minutes.

The JBL Headphones companion app for the JBL Tune 770NC is great; you can look at it here. It expands the headphones' feature set with a custom equalizer and EQ presets. You can toggle through the listening modes ('ANC' On/Off, 'Ambient Aware,' and 'Talk Thru') and adjust the sidetone—called 'VoiceAware' for calls. There are video and audio modes to compensate for Bluetooth latency, a volume limiter, and a channel balance adjustment. Plus, you can choose your voice assistant and preferred language, in addition to setting up an auto-off timer.

These headphones have decent wired connectivity. You can listen to them passively for the lowest possible latency or with a slightly higher latency with the headphones powered on. Both values are low enough to avoid lip-sync issues with videos. They connect via a 1/16" TRS cable to the right ear cup and terminate in a standard 1/8" TRRS jack. While you get a (somewhat short) 9.8" (25 cm) USB-A to USB-C cable, it's only used for charging.

These headphones have very good Bluetooth connectivity. They support multi-device pairing for two devices. Their latency over SBC is somewhat high and is noticeable even if you use their 'Video Mode' (the measurement shown above), which is meant to mitigate sync issues. However, latency can vary with different devices and apps. There's an 'Audio Mode' as well, which has a higher latency and is very close to the same latency as the standard SBC connection, but latency doesn't matter with audio-only content. While we don't currently test for it, the headphones also support LE Audio, which you can select via your device's Bluetooth settings when pairing.

These headphones can connect via Bluetooth to PCs with Bluetooth compatibility for full audio and mic support. They can also connect via their analog cable but will only output audio.

You can connect the JBL Tune 770NC to your PS4 or PS5 controller. However, the mic will not work, so you'll only hear audio.

The headphones can connect to your Xbox console's controller, but they will only output audio. If you need to speak with teammates, you'll require an outboard mic.