Best Workout Headphones for Serious Training: Powerbeats Pro vs Jabra Elite Active 75t
What are the best headphones for working out?
If you're serious about exercise and want headphones that will give you the best experience during training sessions, the two highest rated headphones are the Powerbeats Pro and the Jabra Elite Active 75t. These are headphones for people who don't want to compromise during work outs. You can always train with AirPods, but unlike special workout headphones, Airpods won’t stay in your ears during intense exercise.
Update: Apple and Beats released the Beats Fit Pro, which fill a gap between the Powerbeats Pro and the Jabra Elite Active 75t. If you want great earbuds for the gym, commute, and travel, check out our Beats Fit Pro review.
We spent time training hard with each pair of headphones to share detailed insights into how they perform when running, lifting weights, doing yoga, swinging kettlebells, or doing any other serious exercise.
Both of these are excellent workout headphones with subtle differences that might be important to you if you’re using them to workout.
Summary
The Powerbeats Pro have controls that are more accommodating to serious exercise. The Powerbeats Pro are also a better pick for running and other outdoor activities where you want to hear your surroundings.
The Jabra Elite Active 75t are better at blocking out sound, which makes them perfect for loud gyms. The Jabra Elite Active 75t size, design, and noise cancellation make them competitive with the AirPods Pro, and they are better general purpose headphones than the Powerbeats Pro.
The Basics
The Jabra Elite Active 75t and the Powerbeats Pro are priced similarly. The Powerbeats Pro are technically $250 retail, but go on sale for $170 frequently. The Jabra Elite Active 75t are $180 retail.
Battery life is great with both. The Jabra Elite 75t get 7.5 hours of listen time, and can be charged for a total of 28 hours with the case. The Powerbeats Pro get 9 hours of listen time, and can be charged for a total of 24 hours with the case.
Both headphones are truly wireless, and they’re both designed for working out, so they’re sweat resistant and they won’t fall out during intense workouts.
Stability, Fit, and Comfort
Fit and stability are important for workout headphones, and both the Powerbeats Pro and Jabra Elite Active 75t stay securely in your ear, even during intense workouts like sprints or functional training. Both will stay on even if you do inverted exercises like yoga.
Side note: The Jabra Elite Active 75t are marketed as being waterproof. Can you use the Jabra Elite Active 75t while swimming? While the headphones are sweat resistant, they cannot be used for swimming.
The Powerbeats Pro have a hook to help them stay secure, while the Jabra Elite Active 75t stay secure by applying outward pressure inside your ear. The Jabra have a smaller footprint than the Powerbeats Pro, which makes them better for exercise like yoga where headphones may get in the way.
The Jabra’s fit has one drawback which is that the pressure they exert on the inside of the ear can become abrasive. After a couple of hours, the insides of my ears got tender, and I was aching for a break. The Powerbeats Pro don’t use pressure to stay secure, so they can be worn comfortably for longer.
Design
Design wise, the Jabra are more luxury or executive looking. They are not obviously exercise headphones. They don’t have the hook, so they’re more discreet. And they come in more subdued colors. The aluminum accents look upscale.
The Powerbeats Pro look sportier. The paneling and hook are large, and the Powerbeats come in more vibrant color. They look like workout headphones.
Both headsets look good, but its a matter of taste.
Sound
Both headphones are tuned for working out. They have heavier bass and more vibrant highs than neutrally tuned headphones. Tuning is an issue of personal preference thing, but if you want energetic music to pump you up for your workouts, they’re both a great option.
Beats are infamous for having a bass-heavy, almost muddy sound. On the Powerbeats Pro, Beats kept their soundscape, but improved clarity. Music sounds energetic but crisp, which is great for exercise. The tuning is not subtle, however, so if you want to listen to music outside of workouts, they might not have the best profile.
The Jabra are more neutrally tuned than the Beats, but still keep a workout profile, including a heavier bass. They have great sound quality for their size and form. The companion app lets you change the EQ, so if you want to drop the bass for listening to other types of music, you can do that. Overall, the Jabra Elite 75t are more accommodating to a broader range of music, so you can use them outside of the gym.
Sound Feedback on Jabra Elite Active 75t
One important implication of the tight fit on the Jabra Elite Active 75t is that you get a lot of sound feedback from your body. It feels like wearing earplugs. Talking, breathing, and footsteps all get translated into feedback in your ear. This isn’t a big deal if you’re doing low-impact exercise, but it can ruin music when you’re running, as the effect is amplified. Every step is a muffled boom in your ear.
The Powerbeats Pro have this effect, but significantly less pronounced (like 5% as much) If you’re on a run, you hear the music more than your own feet.
Be warned, if you’re a runner, the pounding from the Jabra Elite Active 75t might be a turn off.
Noise Cancelling, Isolation, and Safety
Noise cancelling is a great feature in some circumstances, but can be a safety risk if you need to hear your surroundings. If you’re a runner or do outdoor exercise where you need to be aware of what’s happening, this is worth paying attention to.
The Jabra Elite 75t have good Active Noise Cancellation and the earplug fit also helps them block out sound. This noise cancellation and isolation great if you’re in a gym and don’t need to hear your surroundings. It is not great if you’re on a run and want to hear what’s going on around you. The Jabra has a “Hear Through” mode that’s supposed to let in external sound, but it’s not good. You may struggle to hear external sound even with it on.
The Powerbeats Pro don’t have ANC. They also don’t have the aggressive seal as they rely on the hook to stay in place. The Powerbeats Pro let in more sound which has the opposite benefit: if you’re in a loud gym, it’s harder to block unwanted noise, but you will sadly be able to hear your surroundings. The Powerbeats Pro also come with a special ear-tip that allows more sound to come through.
Connectivity
As a third-party device, the Jabra Elite Active 75t miss out on features in the Apple ecosystem. On the Android ecosystem, both headphones have similar connectivity features.
The Jabra Elite Active 75t can connect to two devices, and do a decent job of connecting to whichever device was playing music.
The Powerbeats Pro can connect to more devices, but if they’re not Apple devices, you may have to manually select the device. If they are Apple devices, the Powerbeats Pro automatically connect to whatever is playing music. It can be your Apple Watch, iPhone, Mac, or iPad. It’s really seamless.
The other big connectivity benefit the Powerbeats Pro get on the Apple ecosystem is the hands-free access to Siri. Saying “Hey Siri,” will cause the Powerbeats to automatically summon the assistant for you. This is incredibly valuable if you want to do something while your hands are busy during a workout. If you’re under a deadlift bar, doing downward dog, or sprinting and want to slip a song, you can ask Siri to do it. It sounds trivial, but it’s actually great when you’re working out hard.
Controls
The Powerbeats Pro have a smart design around controls. Each earbud has a complete set of controls, including the volume rocker and the Play/Pause button. So if you need to do anything, you can use either hand, which is handy while exercising.
The Jabra Elite Active 75t has just one button on each earbud. It is fully mappable through the app, and you can assign actions for single press, double press, triple press, and hold. But there are too many functions to assign to one earbud, so you have to choose which earbud you want to do which action. “Volume Down” might be on the left and “Volume Up” on the right. It’s a small thing, but again, if you’re in an intense workout, it matters.
You can also assign a control to summon your voice assistant (Siri or Google) but it’s not a handsfree experience.
Outside of the Gym
There are a few things worth mentioning outside of working out. Its hard not to talk about the Jabra Elite Active 75t without talking about the AirPods Pro. The Jabra Elite Active 75t are great exercise headphones, but in many ways, they hold their own with the AirPods Pro in a way that the Powerbeats don’t. The Powerbeats don’t have ANC, and they also come with this massive charging case that’s clearly a better fit for a gym bag than a pocket. The Powerbeats Pro are great for exercise, but not much else.
The Jabra Elite Active 75t come in a smaller case that’s about the size of the AirPods Pro’s. And unlike the AirPods Pro, the Jabra Elite Active 75t will not fall out of your ears when you exercise. Combining this with the clean design and ANC, the Jabra have some of the best of both the “executive” and “exercise” worlds, even if they’re missing specialized features.
Verdict
If I had to give a recommendation based on my experience, the Powerbeats are better single-purpose exercise headphones. They have a few thoughtful features clearly catering to working out. This is compounded dramatically if you’re in the Apple ecosystem. It’s magical to load your Apple Watch with music, pop in the Powerbeats Pro, and control everything hands free. Also, if you’re a runner, I think the Powerbeats are a safer bet: the Jabra Elite Active 75t block out more sound than I personally found safe, even with “Hear Through” features. And having your footsteps pound through your head ruins the listening experience.
If you’re looking for general purpose headphones that are great at the gym and on a commute, the Jabra Elite Active 75t are great at a lot of different things. They’re particularly great for noisy gyms, or for using throughout the day when you’re not working out.
It’s hard to pick a straight winner as they are both excellent headphones for anyone who wants to take their music and workouts seriously.