Jabra Elite 10 review - Great-sounding in-ears featuring Dolby Atmos and head tracking

Both the charging case and earphones of the Jabra Elite 10 are made of plastic and available in the colours Cocoa, Cream, Gloss Black, Matte Black and Titanium Black. Everything looks and feels premium and well crafted. The earbuds are held securely in their wells by magnets built into the case. Wireless charging (Qi) is also supported. The wireless earbuds themselves have an IP57 rating, meaning they are waterproof and protected against the ingress of harmful amounts of dust. However, the IP rating doesn’t apply to the charging case.

Unlike the cheaper Elite 5, for example, the Elite 10 comes with not three but four pairs of ear tips for you to adjust the how the earbuds fit in your ear canals. Each earphone should be inserted into the ear canal with a gentle twist such that the earbud’s body is pushed partially behind the antihelix. This is going to ensure you get the most secure fit possible.

The Elite 10 is comfortable to wear in our opinion. The earbuds don’t apply too much pressure despite being noticeable. They have a very secure fit, meaning we never felt like we might lose them even whilst moving. Unlike on most in-ear headphones, the sound bores are not round but rather triangular with rounded corners. As a result, if you ever need new EarGels, you will certainly have to turn to Jabra for them. They are available in Cocoa, Cream and Matte Black and can be ordered directly from the company: a complete set with all four sizes costs roughly €15 (US$15). Similarly, replacement earbuds (€175, or US$175, for a pair) and charging case (€75, or US$75) can be purchased separately.

Jabra says that the Elite 10 offers the “ultimate sound”. Slightly exaggerated, but not wholly unjustified. This is because the Elite 10 indeed sounded exceptionally lively with a clear and transparent sound stage during our testing. We only wish that low frequencies had more oomph. Rock music and action-heavy films lack power when played over the earphones.

Then there is also Dolby Atmos, a technology that gives both music and films an noticeably better audio presentation and makes them sound fuller and more natural. The optional head tracking detects head movements and adapts the audio to make the listener feel as if the sound is always coming from the same direction. Whilst this feature works very well, it is also somewhat a matter of taste.

During phone calls in a quiet environment, the microphones on the Elite 10 make the user’s voice sound very natural. However, they aren’t particularly effective at suppressing ambient sounds, regardless of whether it’s voices or traffic noise. Although muffled, both types of noise remain fairly audible throughout.

Things are different with the Advanced ANC, which is enabled automatically during phone calls. It reduces noise very well and is considerably more effective when you aren't making a phone call – excellent performance for a pair of in-ears. The HearThrough function works well too, but it is accompanied by a noticeable static noise when used in a very quiet space. This noise disappears when there's more going on in the surroundings.

The Jabra Elite 10 only offers support for basic Bluetooth codecs (SBC and AAC) at the moment. That said, LC3 and LC3plus support are coming to the earphones via future updates.

THD (Total Harmonic Distortion): Harmonic distortion quantifies the distortion caused by non-linear components (harmonic content) in relation to the original signal. THD specifically refers to the fundamental component. It's important to note that while the term "distortion factor" is often used interchangeably, it actually refers to the overall signal, not just the fundamental component.
THD+N (Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise):  This value is comparable to THD, but in addition to measuring the interference power of harmonics, it also takes into account the impact of noise as an effective value. For the measurement, a low harmonic sinusoidal signal (typically at 1 kHz and > 0 dB) is played back through the headphones under test. This signal is then recorded by a linear measuring microphone (placed at a measuring distance of approximately 0.40 inches) in an artificial head.

Both THD and THD+N values are expressed as percentages. The lower the value, the higher the fidelity of the signal.

Jabra hasn’t provided any information regarding the capacity of the battery in each earbud. Nonetheless, we know the charging case is equipped with a relatively large 680 mAH battery. The device conveniently supports wireless charging.

The Elite 10 lasted more than ten hours in our battery test, which was performed with volume adjusted to 65 dB(A) and noise cancellation enabled. But we must also mention that battery life may decrease if the ANC algorithm has to adapt to a louder environment.

The Jabra Elite 10 is already available for under €200 (US$200) from retailers such as Amazon.