The JBL Tune510 BT headphones shot a thought across my mind – I am loving where sound quality is going. The standard is getting exponentially higher. At this rate, I’m going to buy one of the cheaper pairs of headphones for listening, because every day the quality seems to be getting better across the board. Giving more accessibility to nice sounding gear is always laudable. Cue the JBL Tune510’s.
From the staple JBL Pure Bass, to the multi-point connections, these headphones have it all, for a mere $49.99. Let’s jump right in.
Specs
- BT v5.0
- 32 mm driver
- Maximum Play Time – 40 hrs
- Charging Time (from empty) – 2 hours
- Bluetooth profile version – A2DP v1.3,
AVRCP v1.6, HFP v1.7
The speed at which the JBL Tune510’s charge is worth noting. Five minutes can get you up to two hours of playing, meaning that to get it to full charge requires a comparatively small wait of 2 hours for days of listening. Insanity. It’s Bluetooth version makes these compatible with just about everything.
Features
- Foldable
- Multi-point connection
- Remote Control
- Voice Assistant
- Built-in mic
- Hands Free Call
- Pure Bass Signature
- Siri/Google Now
As with nearly all JBL Products, the Tune510’s come with a long list of features. It includes multi-point connection, which allows you to choose from up to two different sound sources for easy transition while listening. The remote control on the right cup allows for volume control, pause/play, and hands free calling, all at the press of some buttons. That’s cool and all, but how do they sound? Let’s find out.
Look & Feel
Simple all black look. Pretty strong build for a cheaper pair of headphones, very light. A little tight on the ears, but it molds quickly to their shape, allowing for more comfort.
Soundstage
In line with the rest of the Tune series, one could assume these are geared towards the common listener. The soundstage proved that to be so. The 510’s provided surprisingly good width, all things considered. Where it fell somewhat short was in spatial positioning, which was dramatic – sound was either dead in the middle, or panned hard outside. This never became bothersome to me, but if you are looking for accuracy in that department, it isn’t ideal. As far as depth is concerned, it sounded pretty confined, but again, not in a way that was unlistenable. For the price, better than the standard.
Lows
It has a strong, well-tailored low end in terms of definition. The JBL Pure Bass was a bit too strong at times though, not so much as to compromise the music, it just would just overpower the other ranges, carrying them along the experience. Therefore if you like bass over everything, these are perfect. Otherwise, you might want to tip-toe around these. When it was good though, it was great. Stronger in the subs as compared to the low-mids, which allows for all the fun without the clutter.
Mids
A little too much mid, to where vocals would be hard to interpret. Facets of the song faced clutter when busy. This made it so that the lows and highs did not have as much punch to them, for the mids, when boosted even the slightest bit, can take the edge away from other ranges that give them their timbre, as well as their spatial placement. This gave a sense of oneness to the music as a whole, but sometimes too much so. One wants each instrument to have their own defined place, and the mids allowed for them to milk up together, making vocals especially hard to distinguish at times.
Highs
In heavy contrast to their more expensive distant cousin JBL Club One’s, the highs flipped between flatness and brightness, leaning more towards the former. Oddly enough though, particularly with rap, vocals would sear through quite nicely. There wasn’t much clarity or air, which based on your preference you might not care about, but I believe a better frequency response in the upper-highs would do these some good.
In All
As stated in the first line, I am very pleased with the ever-rising quality of consumer audio. Obviously these are not the highest quality headphones, but it’s getting to the point where I can sleep better at night, knowing that no matter which set people end up choosing, they’ll get the best sound possible. JBL affirms this belief with the Tune510’s. Though there are some faults, taking the price into consideration does away with these faults. You are getting more than what you are paying for with these.
Conclusion
I would recommend the JBL Tune510 BT headphones to casual listeners that primarily enjoy rap music. The characteristics I listed above about each range varied greatly when playing this music, probably because of the large amounts of compression associated with creation in the genre. Regardless, it just sounded different, better even. It would allow for fuller, punchier, more consistent high end that allowed Mos Def to preach at his sonic-best on Black On Both Sides, and KMD at their’s on “Get U Now”.
Let’s all give a round of applause to JBL and all of the other companies making good sound more affordable. We thank you.
JBL Tune510 BT are available on Audio46
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