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Jabra Speak2 75 review: Don’t worry about noise

More productive meetings or at least in which the audio is not a problem. This is what Jabra promises us with its new range of professional speakers: Jabra Speak2 75, Sepak2 55 and Speak2 40.

The first model, which we analyze in our technical laboratory, is specially designed for a hybrid world in which we can hold a work meeting in practically any space and for this we need the voice not to be a problem, especially in cases where there is more than one person in front of the team with which we are going to make an audio call or a video conference.

What Jabra puts in our hands with its Speak2 75 is a wireless speaker that we can connect to any device via Bluetooth. With a circular design and built in high-quality plastic, the speaker that barely rises about ten centimeters above the horizontal plane, bets on a mesh surface designed to offer greater sound transparency. On the outside we find surrounding this mesh, different touch controls with which we can manage the main features of the device: turn on/off, call/hang up, volume up/down, Bluetooth connection status and battery level.

Positioned in a really elegant way, more than buttons what we have on this “interactive circle” are areas that remain illuminated when the speaker is on. Also a light on the outer edge of this circle moves according to the audio signal it receives from the outsidethus prioritizing the work of the microphone that captures the main voice and ensuring that the call has a higher quality.

Inside the Speak2 75, the Danish manufacturer has placed no less than four microphones that have noise suppression technology and “voice level normalization” technology to maintain a uniform conversation at the volume of all the people involved in the conference. . Like most of these solutions, Jabra’s is designed to work easily with platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, or Cisco WebEX. In addition, in this case it has direct access to Microsoft Teams (Microsoft Swift Pair) so its integration into this unified communications platform is even easier.

Like the rest of the speakers in the family, the Speak2 75 has a built-in cable that makes it easy to charge, allowing us to choose between a USB-A or USB-C connector as we prefer and, it must be recognized, that they have been designed in a really ingenious way. to ensure that there are no “loose pieces” that we could lose. In the largest of loudspeakers, Jabra promises a autonomy of up to 32 hourswhile in both the Speak2 55 and the Speak2 40, this autonomy drops to 12 hours.

Design and usability

As in almost all Jabra devices, sobriety and elegance prevail in its new range of speakers (they are Nordic for a reason). The multinational endorses the concept of less is more and if something does not add up, it is subtracted, taking this philosophy here to its maximum expression.

This of course has positive points: a design that we have already mentioned is outstanding, capable of integrating into any environment without clashing, in addition to that feeling of premium device which is valued in many work spaces. Not having edges or “moving parts” also guarantees that unless the speaker falls from a great height, it has great resistance to falls and blows.

In the “must”, the commitment to a perhaps excessive minimalism, which means that the interactive areas do not work as well as they should. By lighting up only when they are on, it is sometimes difficult to find the button we want to press when it remains “in shadow”. Even when we locate it (we will give a generic touch on the outer part of the circle) it does not always respond to the first one, so we must be somewhat insistent. Not that it’s a big problem, but we think should be better solved.

Sound quality

Instead we can only applaud the quality of their microphones. In our tests, it not only offers great voice quality when we are close to the computer (in any case, the minimum that we could ask for from a device that is sold from 300 euros) but also offers the same clarity when we are several meters away. In our case and in tests in which we have placed interlocutors at distances of up to five meters and moving around the room, we have not seen any drop in the quality of the audio that this Jabra Speak2 75 picks up. The device has always identified who was speaking in the room and has displayed a green circle indicating maximum quality.

We have carried out the next of the tests with light background noise (that is, with the windows open, through which the audio from the street, cars, music enters…). Here the speaker has behaved completely eliminating all that noise and keeping our voice in the foreground. Yes, it is true that he has suffered a little more at longer distances. In the last of the tests we have subjected our speaker to moderate-intense background noise, adding music at a medium volume to the noise of the street. The result once again has surprised us for good. And it is that although it is not capable of eliminating the music completely, it is capable of attenuating it and “moving it away” by putting it in the background, while maintaining a strong presence of our voice in the first.

And how does it reproduce the sound? The signal we receive is clear and has a certain punch, which has its merits for a speaker of this size. To put a “but” on it, it sins of over-representing the bass on the medium and high frequencies, which leads to the fact that, depending on the circumstances, it produces that sensation of somewhat distorted or “dull” sound. It is of course not a speaker whose function is to listen to music, so it is not something that should worry us too much (and it does not offer enough volume for it), but it is true that the fact that the design is committed to a route so short in height does not help. All in all, his performance in 90% of the meetings that we may have will be as expected and of course, quite superior to what we can expect from the integrated speakers of any laptop.

Its integration into platforms such as Microsoft Teams is as expected, as is excellent autonomy and it can become the great ally of any company, allowing any space to be set up as a meeting room in an instant. All in all, without being a perfect video conferencing speakerphone, the new Jabra offers solid buying arguments in a few key ways, such as microphones that pick up voice to perception in all circumstances and a great design. To improve, however, some details in the control of the device and to a lesser extent, the audio equalizer.

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