JBL Quantum 600 Headset Review

I’ll open this review by being honest; I’m not a fan of wireless headsets. In the past, I’ve found them unreliable, spotty with distance, low audio quality, and terrible to be used to chat to others with. However, that has been changed with the JBL Quantum 600 headset. Much like being made a recent convert to 4K gaming with the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, I’ve been converted to using a wireless headset with my PC for all my listening needs.

Product Name: JBL Quantum 600
Product Type: Headset
Manufacturer: JBL
Compatible With: Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, Mobile, MAC, VR (PS5/XSX yet to be tested)
Available: Now
Price: AUD$229 / USD $149

Audio Specifications
Frequency response 20 Hz – 20 kHz
Microphone frequency response 100 Hz – 10 kHz
Max input power 30 mW
Sensitivity 100 dB SPL @1 kHz / 1mW
Maximum SPL 97 dB
Microphone sensitivity -40 dB @1 kHz / Pa
Impedance 32 ohm
Microphone pickup pattern Unidirectional

Dimensions
Driver Size 50 mm Dynamic drivers
Weight 346 g

Control and Connection Specifications
2.4G Wireless transmitter power <4 dBm
2.4G Wireless modulation π/4-DQPSK
2.4G Wireless carrier frequency 2403.35 MHz – 2479.35 MHz

Battery
Battery type Li-ion battery (3.7 V / 1300 mAh)
Power supply 5V 2A
Charging time 2hrs
Playtime with RGB lighting off Up to 14hrs (9 hours with RGB on)

What’s in the box?
JBL Quantum 600 headset
Type-C to Type-A charging cable
3.5 mm audio cable
USB wireless dongle
windshield foam for microphone
QSG | Warranty card | Safety Sheet

My first experience with the JBL Quantum 600 headset was an interesting one. Between the time I got it and starting the review, I forgot that they were wireless from the get-go. This is the first time in a while that I’ve had to review a wireless headset and frankly I was expecting bad things. However, once I got the very comfortable headset onto my head, out the wifi dongle (No Bluetooth?) into the USB port of my PC, and turned the headset on, suddenly I had crystal clear surround sound coming out through the earpieces of the unit. The next surprise came from walking away from my computer, something that I rarely do when I have the headset on, and ventured into the lounge room where I couldn’t hear my wife talking to me while music played in the headset, showing that the JBL Quantum 600 has a good noise-canceling enclosure. I took the headset off and the music continued to play so loud that my wife could hear it clearly from the other side of the lounge room, about 20 foot-ish in size. Next came the microphone, which I tested by talking to The Outerhaven owner/operator Keith Mitchell in TeamSpeak as we discussed our PS5 experiences. My voice came through clean and clear in a quality that rivaled the Blue Yeti microphone I usually use, even at a maximum distance of about 20 feet from my PC.

Unfortunately, not every piece of technology is perfect, and the JBL Quantum 600 does have a few flaws. The first one comes from the connection type; the JBL Quantum 600 uses a 2.4G Wireless (aka Wifi) connection, which while giving the maximum length available for the medium, it’s still not enough. I could walk about 20 or so feet before the headset would disconnect and go haywire trying to reconnect. This limitation comes from using a Wireless dongle in an age where really good Wifi/Bluetooth connections are either built into motherboards or 3rd party network cards. I know this was done for range, but when I can barely make it out of my office, why have a wireless headset when I have a 3.5mm headphone cable that does the same thing. To be honest, you get a better connection of the same length with bluetooth and then it would extend the connection options and quality for the headset.

The second part of all this comes from having anything else connected audio-wise to your PC. The JBL Quantum 600 headset seems to want to be the only thing you have connected at all. I have a bluetooth speaker connected to my system for times when I’m watching videos or listening to music while writing articles. It seems that the JBL Quantum 600 didn’t like this and managed to disconnect my bluetooth connection for this speaker to the point where I had to reboot my system to restore the bluetooth speaker. Since the two use different connection types, you’d think this would not be an issue at all, but it is.

The other problem I had was needing to install an extra program in order to make changes to the JBL Quantum 600 headset like turning off the RGB lighting effect to extend the battery life to the advertised 14-hours instead of the 9-hours with the RGB turned on. I know the JBL Quantum 600 already has a lot of switches and knobs on the headset to do all the fun stuff like volume, mute, etc; but there was nothing stopping JBL from including one more button that turned the RGB on or off, making it a lot easier to configure on the fly instead of installing yet another control panel style program on an already bloated system.

As I mentioned at the start of the review, I went into reviewing the JBL Quantum 600 headset with a bit of a negative mindset due to my past with wireless headsets, but after spending time with the headset I have been converted to using this headset as my primary headset when recording podcasts and also when playing PC games like World of Warcraft where communication is needed. The wireless nature of the JBL Quantum 600 really opened my eyes (and ears) to how things can be done without having to have wires all over the place. Finally, wireless technology is at a level on par with other high-end headsets that are on the market and I can easily recommend the JBL Quantum 600 to anyone who wants a great gaming/streaming/podcasting headset for their setup.

Review Disclosure Statement: JBL Quantum 600 Headset was provided to us by JBL for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please go review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.