ANC Affected! 🤔 Jabra Elite 10 / 8 Active New Firmware 2.1.8
Firmware 2.1.8 added a whole bunch of quality of life improvements to the Jabra Elite 10 and the Elite 8 Active like a new wind noise reduction mode for ANC, hearthrough and calls that focuses the noise canceling to a certain frequency to cut the flapping sound of wind. Other additions include new voice prompts, auto-volume adjustment during calls, and automatically activating hearthrough when one earbud is taken out of the ears.
The new firmware’s also to improve their adaptive noise cancelling, but I was told by somebody on X that it seemed to have nerfed its active noise canceling by as much as half. If it were true, this would be a scandal because the Elite 10s are now my daily drivers and I’m very happy with them so far. So if anything were to negatively affect its performance, I want to know about it, and I’m sure you would too if you owned one of these. So we’re going to find out if the new firmware affects any of their key performance metrics like its noise canceling, sound quality, and mic pickup for phone calls.
Active Noise Canceling
First I want to address the elephant in the room which is ANC, and whether it’s been nerfed. Samples taken in a controlled environment before and after the updates show that, on the Elite 10, not only has it not been nerfed, ANC actually seems to be a little better. Compared to before, voices seem to be a little quieter on the new firmware. Although I will say that it’s such a subtle difference it’s hard to tell unless you’re comparing side by side like this. On the Elite 8 Active though, ANC seems to be a little weaker. External voices seem to be a little louder now in the upper midrange. Listen to the samples.
Microphone pickup
In terms of its mic pickup, testing it under the same noisy conditions, but this time with wind noise from a fan, there doesn’t seem to be any changes whatsoever to voice clarity or noise reduction be it in quiet or noisy conditions. Listen to the samples.
Sound Quality
In terms of sound quality, frequency sweeps show that both the Elite 10’s and 8 Active’s sound hasn’t really been affected by the new firmware. On the 10, there is a smidge more loudness in the bass and mids that can be heard in the recordings, but the curves are very similar, so it could be due to slight changes in the earbud’s coupling. On the other hand, the 8 Active’s sound seems to be identical to before the update. Listen to the samples.
Conclusion
So by and large, if there is a change in performance, it’s not anything significant, and only the 8 Active’s ANC seems a little weaker.
If you feel ANC is worse in general, check if you might have activated wind noise reduction, because according to Jabra, this will have an impact on ANC and Hearthrough performance. If you have updated these buds and did experience some issues not mentioned in this article, let me know in the comments. If you’d like to check the latest prices of the earbuds featured in this video, click on the Amazon links below.
Jabra Elite 10 - https://amzn.to/3EHIp9J
Jabra Elite 8 Active - https://amzn.to/3RygPDs
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