What you need to know
- On June 11, GN brand Jabra announced the latest version of two of their Elite products, the Elite 8 Active Gen 2 and Elite 10 Gen 2.
- On that same day, Jabra’s parent company, GN, announced that it was killing off the Jabra and Talk consumer brands.
- Jabra will likely offer deep discounts and incentives to clear out the remaining stock of its earbuds, a task they project to complete by the end of 2024.
- The Elite 8 Active Gen 2 and Elite 10 Gen 2 will be available later in June.
- Via press release, GN says it will support its products for the next several years.
On June 11, 2024, GN-owned brand Jabra announced the second generation of its Elite 8 Active and Elite 10 true wireless earbuds. Then, on that same day, GN announced that its name really stands for “Good Night” because that’s what it’s saying to Jabra’s Elite and Talk product lines as the company kills both.
In a press release, Peter Karlstromer, CEO of GN Store Nord, said that the company “cannot generate a fair return on investment compared to the many other opportunities we have within our Hearing, Enterprise, and Gaming businesses.”
Translation: GN is dropping the Elite and Talk lineups because they will be too expensive for them to keep up with the competition. This is despite Jabra acknowledging that refocusing the Elite product line towards the premium segment in 2023 did, in fact, result in stronger profits than before.
Elite will be missed. Talk, not so much.
Jabra has a reputation for bringing true wireless earbuds to the market that strike a delightful balance of great sound, reassuring IP ratings, and solid ANC and transparency modes. Seeing GN sunset this brand is quite a surprise to many, especially on the same day as announcing updates to its current lines, which add a Bluetooth feature update as exciting as their LE Audio cases: support for the LC3 codec. If that’s Greek to you, we’ve written an in-depth Bluetooth primer that makes sense of it.
I’ve been a fan of Jabra since I first tried its 65t earbuds. I have notoriously small ear canals, and Jabra’s earbuds are one of the only manufacturers whose products fit in my ears without falling out during exercise. In my early days of reviews on YouTube, Jabra earpiece reviews were among my most popular.
Now, this isn’t a complete surprise regarding the Talk product lineup. With the ubiquity of great true wireless earbuds, mono Bluetooth headsets just don’t have the utility to keep up with many users. Plus, they look like the earpieces your uncles walk around with in their ears all day at the barbeque, which is to say, they look dated.
That is to say, killing the Elite product line will probably affect more people (myself included) than the Talk lineup, but it’s still an unfortunate situation no matter which way you look at it.
Fierce competition on both ends
The rubber meets the road here where the options for high-quality go-anywhere, do-anything Bluetooth earbuds are concerned. Jabra has a lot of competition in the fitness-focused earbud space at similar price points. Brands like Beats, Bose, and Sennheiser all offer compelling devices, although Jabra has them all beat in the water and dust resistance category. In some instances, even Jabra’s case is more water resistant than competitor’s earbuds.
The tradeoff is that some of those competitors offer access to Hi-Res Wireless Audio codecs, something that Jabra earbuds have lacked despite their premium price tag. It can be argued that the importance of those codecs for consumers and their purchasing decisions is questionable based on the blind audio test we conducted, but it could still be a deciding factor for audiophiles.
On the low end, Amazon presents a dozen budget earbuds promising to provide sweat-ready tunes for a fraction of the cost. One of the only ones that have made that promise and come close to offering the quality of Jabra’s Elite series is Anker’s Soundcore brand, though their noise canceling and sound signature aren’t quite as robust.
Still, Jabra is a major player in the space, and it’s almost always a bad thing to see the competition go away (LG, anyone?). Often, fewer players allow other manufacturers to rest on their laurels and slow down innovation. With few competitors already that offer high-quality, fitness-focused earbuds, even Jabra suffered from this to a degree, only offering AAC and SBC codec support with no Dolby Atmos support on the new Elite 8 Active Gen 2. However, even companies like Sennheiser have also eschewed innovations like Atmos, and Apple’s top earbuds support only AAC, ignoring innovations like aptX Lossless or LHDC.
That isn’t to excuse Jabra for not offering such innovations and conveniences but rather to question market demand. To put it another way, Jabra does durable, gym-ready, all-around use earbuds with solid call quality well, and over the years, they have focused on improving the things that matter most: noise cancellation, transparency mode, call quality, and IP ratings.
Continuously seeking to perfect their strengths is great. However, with the race to lossless audio going full throttle on the best wireless earbuds and LC3 promising broadcast capabilities that will make Bluetooth connectivity publicly accessible in a profound way, GN’s In-N-Out burger-style formula of sticking only to what they do best and thriving in that space looks like it wasn’t going to work as well for them as it does for the highly lauded burger franchise.
So, what’s next?
So, what now? Is it worth still picking up a pair of Jabra Elite earbuds now that things are winding down? The short answer is yes.
According to the press release, GN will reduce the inventory of affected products, which they expect to have completed by the end of 2024. However, the company has stated that it will continue to service and support its products for “several years,” which means you’ll still be able to pick up the Elite 8 Active Gen 2 and Elite 10 Gen 2 later in June, and I, for one, can’t wait to test these out! But after that, you shouldn’t expect any new Elite earbuds in the future. As Porky Pig once said, “That’s all folks!”
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