Jaybird Vista 2 Review

While we appreciate the incredible sound quality the Vista 2 earbuds can provide, they work best for our testers with larger ears. Their cumbersome size feels cramped for testers with petite ears, compromising comfort and sound quality. These sturdy, waterproof buds are an excellent option when they fit.

Performance Comparison

Sound Quality

At times, Vista 2 mix is so masterful that the soaring vocals and layered instrumentals are truly stunning. In other instances, the crowded feeling of these large earbuds diminishes the experience. For testers with larger ears, mostly men, these earbuds sound nearly flawless, making classics like “Nuthin But A G Thing” by Dr. Dre or “Forgot About Dre” by Eminem feel like a fresh experience.

To test the Vista 2 earbuds, we listened to a wide range of genres, from booming hip-hop to balanced pop ballads and harmonica-laden country tunes. These earbuds performed well across categories, but we particularly enjoy bass-heavy rap and electronic music like Major Lazer, DJ Snake's “Lean On” (NGHTMRE Remix), and mid-based pop R&B like Whitney Houston's “I Have Nothing”, which we played on repeat.

In Houston's “I Have Nothing”, her vibrant, resonant voice pierces through every one of the song's layers at 1:21. Her voice is centered, and the instrumentation compliments rather than competes with it. Punchy brass accents, firmly rooted percussion, and twinkling keyboard work maintain balance without compromising Houston's clarity. The warm, rich bass pairs with clean, crisp treble frequencies to create an irresistible sonic soundscape.

The earbud's lower frequencies are powerful but balanced in the mix. In “Take the Power Back” by Rage Against the Machine, the bass is intense but clean at 3:17, the kick drum is expansive, and the guitar sounds dynamic and multi-directional.

Mid-tones are rich and warm, with crisp clarity. Charley Crockett's Americana shines in “The Man from Waco”. In Whitney Houston's 1991 version of “The Star Spangled Banner”, the warm bass and her astonishing vocals shine, especially at the 0:12 mark. It's breathtaking.

The cymbals can sound slightly tinny though, especially with the active noise cancelling feature activated. It's in this high frequency, treble range that the earbuds struggle most. Among our expert testers, the high notes sounded flawless to those with larger ears who found a good fit.

Testers with smaller ears noticed moments when high frequencies feel thinner and colder than the lower notes, sounding piercing or tinny at times.

For example, in the intro to “Resurrection Bay” by John Craigie from 0:01 to 0:17, the guitar sounds consistently warm and bright, but the harmonica slips into a sharp bite that makes us reach for the volume button. Craigie's vocals are clean and resonant, but the dynamic shifts between the vocals, acoustic guitar, and harmonica aren't balanced.

These earbuds are at their best with the volume above normal listening levels. At times, the active noise cancelling feature can cause some distortion, creating a vocal echo or strange tinny quality, as if the music were playing in a can inside a cave. (We'll dive deeper into this issue below.)

Soundstage

Earbuds, due to their compact in-ear construction, often produce a contained, internalized sound that seems to come from inside our own heads. That's very different from how we perceive live music, with instruments positioned in front of us on a stage. Advancements in technology have enabled some models to deliver a more expansive sound, making your favorite songs feel as though they're coming from beyond the earbuds.

When we talk about the perceived location of music in three-dimensional space that we hear through a pair of earbuds, we're referring to their soundstage. Our testers found that the Jaybird Vista 2 can create an expansive soundscape at times, especially for testers with larger ears.

But, iff they're too big for you, they can create a crowded feeling that diminishes the soundstage, making the music sound distant and less immediate. Testers found that, when this happens, turning the volume up can create a fuller, more well-rounded sound.

When all frequencies are in harmony, the Vista 2 earbuds do some inspiring work. Take “Oh so Shaky” by Charley Crockett, a lively song that features a keyboard, electric organ, bass, guitar, percussion, brass, and Crockett's cool baritone.

At 0:45 the first percussion kick drops into a groove that the Vista 2 buds handle effortlessly with a warm, full sound. The brass accents that start around 0:54 never sound overpowering or pitchy. And the stacked harmonies that start at 1:52 feel tight and unified, maintaining distinct separations between each singer's voice to create depth. It's an impressive performance.

To round out our panel of human audio experts, we use a Brüel & Kjaer Type 5128-B Head Simulator (a.k.a. Darwin) and its cohort software, SoundCheck, to analyze the earbuds' frequency response curve. It shows how loud each frequency sounds in relation to the rest. When we compare it to the GearLab House Curve, which we consider an ideal frequency response for earbuds, we have some hard data to examine alongside our listening experience.

As you can see above, the bass frequencies of the Vista 2 earbuds are a little softer, the midrange is slightly louder, and the highest frequencies oscillate more than we'd like. All told, the Vista 2 earbuds follow the idealized curve closely in most ranges. This isn't surprising, given our positive listening experiences.

User Experience

The Vista 2 earbuds are large. Among the dozen testers who tried them out for size and comfort, even those with the largest ears say they are a tight fit. This means that they stay put, but they aren't always a pleasure to wear. A number of our testers also wore these during a full day at the office and for recreational pursuits like climbing and running to stress-test their stability. All of us tried out the app along the way. Overall, they performed decently in this metric.

Comfort

The large-volume Vista 2 earbuds are not a great option for smaller ears. They are bulky, and the three interchangeable ear tips that allow you to adjust the fit are bigger than most.

Our testers with smaller ears, mostly women, find that they feel less comfortable the longer they wear them. None are able to wear them for an hour or more at a time without distracting levels of discomfort.

Even the male testers with the largest ears in the test found that the Vista 2 earbuds fit, but still felt bulky. Some noticed pressure on their tragus, the knob of cartilage that extends from the front of your ear towards your ear canal. Almost all of us noted the irritating feel of the hard silicone ear tip pressing against the sensitive inner ear. In short, none of us really love the fit and feel of these things.

Stability

Since they are so large, once they are in your ears, these earbuds are pretty well wedged in place. Of the three ear tip sizing options included with the Vista 2, two have a wing that is meant to wedge into the folds of your outer ear. If they fit you, they work great. From jogging to climbing at the gym, we never worry about the Vista 2 earbuds flying out of our ears.

We don't worry about getting them wet either. With an ingress protection (IP) rating of 68, they block dust and water splashes well. The first number tells you how well the buds resist solid particles, mostly dust, and a 6 means that it is “dust-tight”. We like knowing that when we're biking on dirt roads or down dusty trails. The 8 means that you can submerge these earbuds up to a meter underwater without damaging them. We wouldn't try that, but it definitely makes us feel better when we're sweating mid-summer or when an unexpected rainstorm comes around.

Customization

The Jaybird earbuds work with Apple and Android products and have an app that is easy to navigate, and that gives you a reasonable amount of control over your listening experience. You can adjust the factory settings on the frequency response curve (shown above), using presets or your own personal equalization (EQ) settings.

You can also control how much noise the earbuds cancel out or pass through to you. (We'll discuss this more in the next section.) Turning these features off will maximize your battery life. There's also a “find” feature that tells you where your earbuds were the last time they were connected to your device. We never had to use it, thanks to its user-friendly case. It comes with a lanyard to attach to your key ring, making it easy to keep on hand.

Connectivity

Unfortunately, we do have more connectivity issues with the Jaybird Vista 2 earbuds than we experience with most other options in the test. The music sometimes cuts out mid-song. When we check the Bluetooth connection, though, everything looks fine, and the listening app says it's still playing the tune. To fix the issue, we have to disconnect and reconnect the earbuds to our devices. This is just as frustrating as it sounds. A few times, when we got them running again, there was a disorienting, tinny echo. It stopped after we hit pause and play a few times, but it was not pleasant. To see if other users shared our experience, we looked outside our own testing facility and crowdsourced information from 1-star Amazon user reviews. We noted all instances of negative feedback regarding connectivity and found a percentage of the total number of user reviews for this model. The Vista 2 falls right in the middle of the pack, with a reported issue rate of 1.3%.

Noise Cancellation

These earbuds technically offer an active noise cancellation mode, but it's one of the least effective we've tried. Like all earbuds, they also provide a degree of noise isolation by physically blocking soundwaves from entering your ear. To compensate for this, they'll also pass surrounding noises through to your ear using what Jaybird calls a “SurroundSense” mode if you need to be aware of your surroundings.

One of the biggest benefits of ANC technology is that it blocks out distracting sounds to let you immerse yourself in your favorite music or to help you focus on work. The ANC feature on the Jaybird Vista 2 doesn't accomplish this, unlike other earbuds we've tested. We notice very little difference in background noise levels whether it's turned on or off.

What does seem to change is the quality of the sound, which becomes hollow and somewhat reverberant, like you're in an aircraft hanger. It seems like more trouble than it's worth, draining battery life and occasionally causing distortions at higher volumes. We often noticed vocal echoes or a strange tinniness to an entire track. When we turn the feature off, the issue resolves.

Luckily, since these earbuds offer such a snug fit, they do effectively isolate your eardrums from ambient noise. It's easier to block high-frequency soundwaves, which are short and scatter more easily than longer waves. As a result, you don't hear as many high-pitched noises like dishes clattering or, say, cymbals crashing.

Low sounds, like bass notes or the drone of an airplane, do get past these earbud's defenses. If you activate their SurroundSense mode, they will pipe in all the noises around you, even the high-pitched sounds they passively block.

Aside from using the noise cancelling features and reporting back, we also have the highly advanced Bruel and Kjaer 5128-B sound recorder and head simulator, and the SoundCheck software test them for us. To do so, we make sure the earbuds are placed securely in the ears of our Bruel and Kjaer 5128-B head and then play background noises with the ANC turned on and off. The chart above shows how many decibels the earbuds block in each frequency. As you can see, the amount of sound blocked is similar, with or without the ANC feature. Either way, they only reduce sounds in the mid to high frequencies.

Battery Life

We tested the battery life of each pair of earbuds by playing them at a standardized volume until they died. In this case, they lasted six and a half hours, which places them a little better than average in relation to other options in the test.

While their battery life is respectable, the Vista 2 earbuds underperformed on Jaybird's claim of eight hours on a single charge. It helps that the case will hold two charges before you need to find an outlet, though. In theory, that's 19.5 hours of entertainment. If you need more juice in a hurry, a five-minute charge from the case will buy you an hour of listening time.

Call Quality

When it comes to making phone calls, the Vista 2 earbuds sound quite clear, even when there's a disturbing amount of background noise. They are one of the better performers in the review in this test. To compare them to other options, we play recordings of female and male voices through our high-tech head simulator in a silent room and with distracting sounds in the background.

The only issue we noticed with the microphones in the Jaybird earbuds was some gain static when the volume was set too high. We didn't notice it again after the light adjustment.

When we try a staged phone call with the chaos of a subway platform in the background, we consider it a stress test. Few of the earbuds are able to hold their own in such a blaring and unpredictable environment. We're impressed that the Vista 2 earbuds hold their own. They sound clear, and even though they are hard to hear at times, they do manage to isolate your voice from the background noise more than most.

With office noise playing in the background, we can still hear both voices clearly. While you can detect a keyboard clicking away in the background, it's more annoying than distracting. The speakers' voices are still firmly in the foreground.

In the audio below, you can listen to a staged phone call held in a quiet room. Notice that the rather whimsical recordings sound clear in both the low pitch of the man's voice and the higher pitch of the woman speaking. That's not always the case with other earbuds in the test.

Should You Buy the Jaybird Vista 2?

If these earbuds fit you well and you don't need top-of-the-line active noise cancellation, we have no trouble recommending them. Their audio mix can sound stunning and rarely fails to impress, no matter what genre of music we try. We also love how rugged they are. With best-in-class water and dust resistance, they shrug off sweat and dusty trails and are one of our favorite active options as a result. They're also likely to last, especially since the lanyard on their case and a location feature on the app make them harder to lose. These large, tight-fitting earbuds block quite a lot of background noise, which helps to compensate for their poorly performing ANC. If you don't like listening to the low drone of an airplane engine or need help ignoring distractions at the office, these aren't your best bet.

What Other Earbuds Should You Consider?