Jabra’s Elite 85h over-ears might not have the best noise cancelation on the market, but they do offer some unique features that you won’t find on alternatives from Sony or Bose.
From Gizmodo’s review:
I was surprised by how handy the SmartSound feature ended up being. It’s useful because it’s mindless. Most other noise-canceling headphones, including Jabra’s own Elite 65t, offer ways to adjust the power of the noise-canceling on the fly so that you can hear important stuff, like on-coming traffic in a busy urban setting. However, that typically involves remembering the setting exists and then tapping a button to activate it. SmartSound adjusts automatically, so when I come out of the subway, the noise-canceling chills out a bit and then I don’t get hit by a car. You can also adjust the noise-canceling settings with a button on the left ear cup.
Even cooler: they don’t have a power button. They use proximity sensors to turn on automatically when you put them over your ears. The same sensors will pause your music automatically when you take them off, AirPod style.
This being a Jabra product, they also excel when taking calls:
The headphones have a total of eight microphones, six of which are used to pick up your voice when you’re on the phone or talking to a voice assistant. According to my mom, I “sound like I’m standing right next to her” when I’m calling on the Jabra headphones. When I call with the Sonys, she sometimes says stuff like “You sound like you’re underwater.”
If those features trump pure noise cancelation strength in your hierarchy of headphone needs, the 85h is $50 off on Amazon today, bringing them down to $250, slightly cheaper than most deals we see on the high-end alternatives from Sony and Bose.