The sky is the limit when it comes to audio products. No amount of tuning done to the drivers of a pair of headphones or speakers can make them a one-size-fits-all kind of product. However, the closer the brand can get to giving the people buying them worth for their money, which includes excellent design and build and a well-rounded sound signature, the better its chances to make something that earns them a reputation for being the best the business. In terms of wireless headphones, given the evolution of technology, the room for improvement has become smaller and smaller. There are some quality-of-life features that brands add.
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However, most battles for supremacy are won in the tuning department and how well their headphones can perform in day-to-day use. From the outside, it is hard to gauge why a brand is charging three times as much as its competitors when, on paper, their products come pretty close. You have to use it to believe it. So, when wireless headphones showed up at the Digit Test Centre, I put them through our rigorous testing process to ensure that they met the claims that the brands made. When the testing was over, the results were pretty self-explanatory. So, without any further delay, let’s look at the products that won the Digit Zero1 Award and Best Buy Award in the Best Performing Bluetooth Headphones category –
Price: ₹24,999
The JBL Tour One M2 was one of the rare products that bagged both the Digit Zero1 and Best Buy Awards in its category this year. Priced at a whopping ₹24,999, we expected nothing but the best from these headphones. And, from the get-go, they were impressive. Let’s start by talking about what won these headphones the Zero1 Award.
For the Zero1 Awards, our sole focus is on the performance of the products. And, for headphones, our primary focus when gauging their performance is their sound signature. With the JBL Tour One M2, you get a typical V-shaped sound signature out of the box. The mids come close to our baseline reading of the flat response recorded using Pink Noise, while there was a boost in the highs and the lows to make up for any lost detail in sound in those frequencies.
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The bass on JBL products is on the heavier side for the most part. However, with the Tour One M2, my experience with the headset was fairly well-rounded. There was a very nice thump to the sound, which ensured that tracks like Uptown Funk sounded great. However, the bass was not muddy at all and neither did it eat into other frequencies. The balance maintained by JBL in other frequencies also meant that listening to tracks like Rescue Me, Skyfall, and others was a great experience overall. Even at max volume, there wasn’t any distortion, and the microphone also handled every scenario I put it through with ease and grace. There were a couple of instances like in very noisy areas where there was a bit of background noise that seeped in. But, for the most part, the headphones were great.
Their ANC, too, was better than any other headphones that showed up at the Test Centre this year, as the headphones managed to drown out almost every background noise, apart from sudden shrill noises, which on some occasions seeped through. In our battery life test, the JBL Tour One M2 clocked in 28 hours, which added to its tally. With all these metrics in, there was no question that the JBL Tour One M2 made for the best-performing headphones of 2023, making them the winner of the Digit Zero1 Awards 2023.
When it came to the Best Buy Awards, I had to look at the features and build quality of these headphones as well. Over here as well, the headphones shined through with their excellent and comfortable build. The metallic in-lay in the headband, the soft cushions on the earcups, and the overall quality and fit of the materials used were things that impressed me a lot. Due to their great fit, not only did the ANC and sound signature benefit, but the isolation was also excellent. I could easily use the headphones with ANC off on my desk and be happy. As for the other features, the JBL Tour One M2 ticked all the boxes bar two on our sheet, with their battery life being one of the only things holding them back from getting an even higher score. On that note, I would have loved if JBL had added support for LDAC or aptX over LC3 and LC3+ because of their much wider adoption across the industry. If that were the case, the JBLs would have missed only one box, which is that of an IP rating, which is, anyways, a rarity in these types of headphones. With that said, the JBL Tour One M2 made an excellent case for themselves, despite their hefty price tag, becoming the winner of the Digit Best Buy Award 2023 in the Best Performing Bluetooth Headphones category.
Runner Up: Sonic Lamb Headphones (Buy now)
Price: ₹15,999 The new kid on the block, the Sonic Lamb Headphones, impressed me immensely when I tested them. These headphones had shown up at the Test Centre a couple of months back, having created waves in the industry after their launch. The Sonic Lamb Headphones, with their unique combination of an impulse driver (primarily used for bass) and the main driver, delivered an awesome performance. Because the frequency reproduction workload had been split between two drivers, the sound signature as recorded by our test rig was very close to our target flat response (Note: The bass frequencies, because of the mechanism used by the headphones for their reproduction, were not accurately represented in our sound signature readings). However, as I had prefaced in the intro, with audio, you have to use it to believe it.
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So, when I got to using these headphones, while the representation of bass and the mids and the highs was accurate, there was a separation between the bass and the other two frequencies, which I could not wrap my head around. In some cases, both the drivers worked together like a charm, but when I was paying special attention to the bass, it felt slightly disconnected from the rest of the sound. The staging and the separation in songs like Pull Me Under and Shine On were immaculate, considering the price of the headphones. The place where these headphones lost out, apart from sound signature, was the lack of ANC. The passive isolation on these headphones is great. But the lack of ANC pulled these headphones back by a decent margin. The mic was great, and the distortion or the lack thereof, when I maxed out the volume, was something that helped these headphones secure the runner-up spot in the Digit Zero1 Awards 2023 for the Best Performing Wireless Headphones. With a bit more development by the makers, who are Indian by the way, these headphones hold the potential to bring the fight to the big names in our next edition of the Zero1 Awards.
For more information on Digit Zero1 Award winners across various categories of products, please visit: https://www.digit.in/zero1-awards
