JBL Live Pro 2 TWS in test: The best overall package up to 150 euros?
A TEST REPORT from Jonas Wilhelm 
on January 30, 2023, 9:00 | Write a comment
With the JBL Live Pro 2, JBL introduced the successor to the popular JBL Live Pro+ at the end of 2022. In recent months, we have extensively tested the new headphones from the popular Live series for you.
You can read below how the JBL Live Pro 2 have performed in everyday use over the last few months and whether I can recommend them for a price of around 130 euros.
tl; dr
The JBL Live Pro 2 are great headphones with no major weaknesses. The sound is of a high standard and offers a lot of bass, typical for JBL, which many people will like. The active noise cancellation is also of a high standard, which I really liked a lot. In addition to the good sound and the good ANC, the headphones also score points with me for their good battery life and stylish design. The Live is also very comfortable to wear. pro 2. Operation via the headphones themselves and via the JBL Headphones app always worked well, provided they were recognized in the app.
For a price of around 130 euros, I can recommend these headphones to most people without hesitation. The overall package is just right and has convinced me. You can buy the JBL Live Pro 2 for 130 euros from JBL, MediaMarkt, Saturn or Amazon.
Delivery
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- Picture: TechnikNews
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- Picture: TechnikNews
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- Picture: TechnikNews
The compact packaging of the headphones shows the JBL Live Pro 2 itself and its most important functions. In addition to the headphones themselves, the delivery also includes a USB-C cable and other silicone attachment sizes. A quick start guide and the usual paperwork are of course also included.
Design & processing
The design of the headphones is very stylish and chic. Weighing 4,8 grams pro Headphones, the headphones are nice and light and sit comfortably in the ear. The weight of the charging box is also quite light at 48,4 grams. Thanks to its compact size, it also fits in any trouser pocket, which is really nice. The headphones are almost entirely made of plastic, which is mostly matte, only the touch-sensitive bars for controlling the media are made of glossy plastic, which is unfortunately very susceptible to fingerprints. They are also protected against the ingress of water and sweat with IPX5, which is why you can wear them in the rain or even during sports.
Picture: TechnikNews
The charging case is also made of matte plastic, so it's not really prone to scratches and fingerprints. There are three LEDs on the front of the charging case that indicate the battery level. The magnets in the charging box are very strong, which is why both the headphones and the lid are held in place well. Everything is very high quality and stable, which I really liked.
Operation & comfort
To operate the Live Pro, there is a touch field on each of the headphones, which you can use to control the noise cancellation modes or media playback. Out of the box, the noise cancellation modes are set to the left and the media playback is set to the right. For most users, including me, the default setting is a good choice. If you touch the touch surface for about 3 seconds, the smartphone's voice assistant is triggered. JBL also offers the option of using Alexa via the headphones, which could be a cool feature for some people who already use Alexa in everyday life. However, the user can also use the JBL Headphones app to set which functions they want to control on the left and which functions they want to control on the right headphones if they don't like the default setting.
The headphones also feature wearing detection, which automatically resumes or stops the music when you take the headphones on or off. Fortunately, the wearing comfort of the headphones is very high, as they are very light and sit well in the ear thanks to the silicone attachments. In addition to the pre-installed silicone attachments, the scope of delivery also includes 3 other sizes, since every user should have the right silicone attachment size in order to be able to wear the headphones comfortably.
Sound Quality, Adaptive ANC & Transparency Modes
The JBL Live Pro 2 offers a total of two 11 millimeter drivers that can reproduce frequencies in a frequency range of 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Unfortunately, the highs are not quite as balanced as the mids and lows, but this only slightly affects the overall sound. The sound of the headphones is really good and, as is typical for JBL, offers a lot of bass, which is why the Live Pro 2 completely convinced me in terms of sound.
The headphones also offer adaptive noise cancellation, which is a really cool feature of the Live Pro 2. This ensures that the ANC is always adjusted to the ambient volume, which worked just as well as with the JBL Live 660 NC, which I have already tested. Overall, I really liked the noise cancellation again. Most annoying noises are filtered out, which always worked well. The headphones are only unable to filter extremely loud or high noises, which I don't really think is a bad thing in this price range. The Live Pro 2 also have 2 different transparency modes, which are called "Ambient Aware" and "TalkThru". The "Ambient Aware" mode is a classic transparency mode that lets the user hear the environment and worked well. "TalkThru" is the name of the second transparency mode, which highlights voices, reduces background noise and makes the music significantly quieter, which also worked well and is suitable for conversations.
Charge the battery
The battery life of the headphones is around 6 hours with adaptive noise cancellation activated, which is a pretty good value. I also really like the battery life of the Live Pro 2 without noise cancellation activated, as it is quite long at around 10 hours. With the charging case, the headphones can be fully charged about another 3 times before you have to charge the case again. Once it is empty, it can be recharged via USB-C with the included cable in just over 2 hours. I think it is great that the case can also be charged wirelessly, which means it takes about twice as long to charge as with a cable.
JBL Headphones app
Screenshot: JBL Headphones app
As with most current headphones, JBL also offers a very good app with many functions for the headphones with the JBL Headphones app, which I really liked. The JBL Headphones app can be used, for example, to control the noise suppression modes or to customize the control gestures. The app also has a well-implemented equalizer that the user can use to adjust the sound of the headphones to their personal taste, or set one of the pre-made equalizers. Another cool feature of the app is the ear canal test, which allows the headphones to measure the ear canal and adjust the sound to the user. Via a fit test to determine the correct silicone attachment size. Unfortunately, the headphones were sometimes not recognized by the app, so I had to reconnect them.
Prices and availability
The JBL Live Pro 2 came onto the market with a recommended retail price of 150 euros, but that is no longer the price. The headphones now only cost around 130 euros, as they have dropped in price a little. You can buy them at MediaMarkt, Saturn, Amazon or simply directly from JBL: