After my daughter’s dog chewed through the connection between headband and one of the ear cups on my previous headphones, Pioneer DJ-Cue1, I was suddenly in need of new headphones. That was a little less than six months ago, right before Christmas, so time was of the essence.

One of our local big-chain electronic shops had a campaign where they sold the JBL TUNE 770NC for the same price as the (lower-spec) JBL 520BT. I actually have a history of using “passive noise cancellation” (that is, DJ headphones, closed cans that don’t let much of the outside world bleed in, like the AKG K518DJ and the beforementioned DJ Cue1), so I was a bit sceptical about the active (and as they claim, adaptive) noise cancelling on those, both in battery time and how it works.

To be short, passive is better. You don’t get the “muffled-ears effect” that I got when I used the Sony XM3, but it isn’t that good either. The passive isolation, despite the headphones being closed-back, is totally shit, you could just as well have open-backs. The “environment aware” setting is even more annoying, it selectively seems to amplivy whatever the mike picks up, so you get those high-pitched noise and squeaks and stuff. So in case I need it I just move one (or both) earpieces off the ears.

Another thing that is really bad is the position of the recharge plug. It’s annoying enough that I have to use a cable when recharging (because somehow that is just too much, recharging and using the battery…), but the position of the recharge plug is on top of one of the earpieces under the headband connection. That makes charging while using even more awkward. The DJ Cue1s also had this only-one-function-at-the-time, but the cable was coiled (and made for use in a DJ booth), and the recharge plug was right next to the cable plug. As it should be. JBL? Anybody home? Hello?

But what really annoys me with those headphones is their durability. I am by no means a “messy user”; yes, I do use my headphones (and other equipment) a lot, but I don’t throw them around or squish them into my backpack or anything like that, and despite me having used DJ headphones for a while, I did definitely not abuse them the same way some DJs abuse them. Well, the faux leather plastic on the right earpiece cushion began peeling off from the inside just a month after I bought them, the left one followed shortly after. And a month ago (note, at that point I had the headphones for less than five months) the headband became unglued, and I hate glue in my hair.

Is it really not possible to build headphones that last more than a month anymore? Or is this indicative of general build quality at JBL? The 770NC is (full price) a bit more expensive than the DJ-Cue1 I had before, so where is this money going to? Fancy (hah!) orange flat cables too short to be used with just about anything, and a likewise flat fancy (hah!) cable to connect them to your sound source when charging or not using the builtin amplifier? Nice packaging (the DJ Cue1 packaging was aguably much nicer than this chinesium-looking box the JBL came in)? Or is it as always, the money goes to C-suite idiots who don’t know how to do the prime business they’re involved in?

Sheesh, anyway, don’t buy JBLs. These are my first JBLs and they will be my last. Definitely.