JBL Live 770NC review: For the bass lovers, and the bass lovers only

The JBL Live 770NC headphones have one key user in mind: Bass fanatics. Whether they’d be best suited as our best headphones for detail or bass has a very clear-cut answer. I am usually a detail-oriented audio girl, but the Live 770NCs gave my premium-sounding Shure Aonic 50 Gen 2s a run for their money.

JBL makes some of my favorite speakers, including the earth-shaking bass-booming Xtreme 4, so I wasn’t surprised when the Live 770NCs rampaged through my ears with bass to rival much bigger speakers. If you’re a bass addict, you’re going to want to listen to what the Live 770NCs have to say.

Although the ferocious bass means a lot of clarity and detail is lost on some tracks, for those bass lovers, it’s an easy sacrifice. The $199 price point makes these cans noticeably cheaper than pedigreed rivals like Bose QuietComfort Ultra, AirPods Max, and Sonos Ace, and bass lovers could be snagging a fantastic deal with the JBLs.

Are they the right headphones for you, though? Well, are you the kind of person who always cranks up bass on custom EQs? If you are, you’ll want to keep reading my JBL Live 770NC review.

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? Mid-range headphones
• Who is it for? Sorry, detail listeners: these are only for the bass lovers.
• What does it cost? $199 / £159
• What do we like? More bass than a slow-moving river
• What don’t we like? The advertised wear detection simply straight-up does not exist

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: Specs

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: Price & availability

The Live 770NC headphones are available on Amazon U.S. for $199, and Amazon U.K. for £159. At $199/£159, the JBL Live 770NC headphones straddle the line between budget and mid-range. This price means I don’t expect incredible audiophile-level sound quality, but I do expect good sound and comfort. JBL’s priciest headphones are the $299 Tour One M2s, which I gave a 3* in my review due to the poor wireless sound quality. Our best mid-range headphones are the $179 Sennheiser Accentums, whose punchy sound and battery life paved the way for a 4* review.

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: Design & controls

The first thing I thought after unboxing the Live 770NCs was, “Oh, these are really flimsy.” The headphones lack the premium weightiness I liked when testing the Tour One M2s. The inner foam over the drivers is noticeably thinner than on the Tour One M2s, and the material is less silky. Still, these are $100 cheaper than the latter, so it checks out.

While there’s certainly a lack of premium feel you might expect from $199 headphones, in actuality, the Live 770NCs are pretty comfortable to wear. They look a little strange while wearing, almost like they’re clamped on your head (think the Cybermen from Doctor Who), but you can’t feel this during wear.

Overall, the headphones look pretty nice; there’s nothing particularly impressive or off-putting about their basic yet effective appearance. They’re not as stylish as Marshall Monitor III or AirPods Max, but they get the job done.

The controls are what you’d expect from a pair of JBL cans: there’s a customizable touch panel and action button on the right cup. I found the touch panel a little too sensitive during usage, but you can turn this off should it irritate you.

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: Features & connectivity

The Live 770NCs have wired and wireless connectivity in the form of a 3.5mm jack and Bluetooth 5.3 respectively. I found the range to be at least two flights of stairs during testing, so about the same as my AirPods Pro 2.

In terms of features, you get the standard JBL fare: customizable touch controls, a range of EQ presets and a customizable one, Personi-Fi (a hearing test that adjusts playback based on your needs), and spatial audio. Spatial audio is a take-it-or-leave-it feature in my opinion; it negatively affects sound quality but could be great for TV and gaming.

Sadly, there’s no LDAC or aptX compatibility, which I’d like to see on a pair of headphones with nice 40mm drivers and a good frequency range.

However, despite lacking in hi-res features, the Live 770NCs do perform their namesake role exceptionally well: ANC. When I was listening to Scowl (more on that in the ‘sound quality’ section), I was blown away by how little I could hear outside of the music. This is a great ANC performance.

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: Call quality

I tested the Live 770NCs on a work call and was promptly told that my built-in MacBook Air M2 microphone was far superior. My colleagues reported a distorted voice and warped sound. I would not recommend these headphones for professional usage.

When I called my boyfriend with the headphones on, he reported he could hear me and understand me, but my voice definitely sounded distorted and tinny.

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: Battery

Battery life is pretty good at 50 hours with no ANC. Not as much as the Marshall Monitor III headphones, but much, much better than the Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones. I listened to these headphones for about 24 hours with ANC on and I’m down to 30%, so I’d report this battery life as pretty darned good.

Obviously, the battery is not used when listening via wired playback so no need to worry about recharging with the USB-C cable if you’re a solely wired listener.

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: App

As you’d expect on a pair of JBL headphones, you get access to the creatively-named JBL Headphones app. This app is where you control things like EQ, spatial audio (leave it), and undertake your slightly-sci-fi-inspired ‘Personi-Fi’ hearing test. I just like the diagram it generates after examining you, to be honest.

As you can see, there’s a standard fare of customization. It’s worth noting that if you listen via wired playback, you don’t get access to the app — it’s Bluetooth only.

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: Audio quality

To test the Live 770NC headphones, I listened via Bluetooth and the 3.5mm headphone jack. As these are predominantly designed to be wireless headphones, it makes sense to discuss wireless sound quality first.

As the Live 770NCs run on Bluetooth 5.3, the audio quality should be better than a pair of headphones with 5.0. As soon as I put the headphones on, I immediately thought the sound quality was better than the JBL Tour One M2 headphones I reviewed recently. But the Lives are $100 cheaper, I thought. Despite this difference in price, it’s true: the Live 770NC headphones sound much better than the Tour One M2s. If you’re torn between these two JBL products, it’s a no-brainer: with the Live 770NCs, you get great sound quality and you save $100.

Obviously, that’s not to say the Live 770NCs sound anywhere near as good as the phenomenal (and $450) Sonos Ace headphones, or the AirPods Max. I’d actually say the Live 770s sound most similar to Bose QuietComforts; there’s clarity in the vocal and high mid-range, but the bass is a little muddled and messy. Likely this is from JBL desiring a super punchy, thumping bass performance and taking it too far.

However, this is a bass performance some listeners will crave. I slapped on ‘Bass boost’ EQ and played ‘Von Dutch’ by Charli xcx. I was blown away by the ferocious bass that leaped into my eardrums. It was like a rabid animal baring its teeth and pounding the walls — if you’re into take-no-prisoners bass, then these could be the headphones for you.

To mellow myself out a little, I headed on over to Deezer for hi-res (or, as hi-res as you can get with Bluetooth sans LDAC) listening. After activating JBL’s ‘Extreme bass’ EQ, I felt ready to take on whatever the Live 770s decided to throw at me.

Just to give my eardrums a real rough-housing, I played ‘Backbone’ by Chase & Status and Stormzy. If you don’t know who either of those artists are, let me just say: this track is a beautiful, fierce grime and DnB lovechild. With the extreme bass EQ turned on, I could feel the rampaging breakbeat percussion and electronic brass squelches in my jaw. This is a set of headphones ripe for bass fanatics.

To bring me back down to earth, I switched off the bass EQs and let the headphones shine with their default sound. I played ‘Not Hell, Not Heaven’ by Scowl, which is an emo/punk track. The lead guitar was clear and strong, but the rest of the track was a little blended. I suppose this is just a symptom of these headphones: they’re not for the detail listeners, they’re for true bass lovers.

Next, I switched genre to a more down-tempo acoustic vibe — all that energetic rock and DnB really took it out of me. I played ‘I Was Neon’ by Julia Jacklin, who has the syrupiest vocals you’ve ever heard. I found it a little muffled in the low end of the frequency spectrum, again, and there was a slight pinch to the upper mids. I turned on the ‘bass boost’ EQ and this pinching immediately stopped, which suggests to me that these cans were designed to be a bass-fest.

I connected the Live 770NCs to my MacBook Pro and loaded up Spotify, which I know lacks audio quality, but my phone has no aux connection. As with the JBL Tour One M2s, upon plugging in the aux cable you lose access to the app, EQs, touch controls, and voice assistant, but you also aren’t using up battery. Swings and roundabouts, as they say.

I played ‘Teardrop’ by Massive Attack, as it’s such a special song with heart-wrenching motifs. The vocals were clear and affecting, with none of the pinchiness I experienced while listening to Julia Jacklin via Bluetooth. The bass still overtook the song, eclipsing a little of the treble, but if you’re a bass lover you’ll want this.

I put on ‘Blaxploitation’ by Noname, who is the master of jazz-rap. The double bass — you guessed it — dominated the song, and I felt like the strings were vibrating in my brain. Lastly, I listened to the Sprechgesang croons of Wet Leg’s ‘Chaise Longue’, and my opinion was solidified: the Live 770NC headphones are fantastic for bass lovers. Detail fans, though, will be left unimpressed.

JBL Live 770NC headphones review: Verdict

Are you a bass fanatic who doesn’t really mind squashed mids and trebles in favor of excellent bass performance? And you don’t want to spend over $200? Well, these are the headphones for you.

The Live 770NCs perform their bass-bouncing job really well. Yes, you lose clarity in exchange of a fierce bass performance, but that’s kind of expected at this point. No, detail listeners and audiophiles will not be impressed. But for your $199, you get headphones that strut into the middle of the room, break everyone’s eardrums (a la Marty McFly in the opening scene of Back to the Future), and strut back out again.

If that sounds like something you’d be into, these are ideal. I’d skip the spatial audio features and ramp up the bass on the custom EQ, and then you’d be good to go. The JBL Live 770NC headphones know what they are, and they’re not sorry about it: this is a bass fest.