JBL Wave Buds 2 & JBL Wave Beam 2: What is the difference?

the JBL Wave series is back with a bang. the new Beam 2, and the new Buds 2. Spoiler alert: the Wave series has leveled up in sound quality, and you guys know how much I care about sound. No, really—it’s now truly audiophile-grade.

That’s not all. The Wave series now comes with ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) support. This means that the Wave, Tune, Live, and Tour series—four series that JBL makes—all feature ANC now, in this article, we’re going to talk about the two new products.

Quick Review

The Wave Buds 2 and Wave Beam 2: Design

The thing with the Buds 2 and Beam 2 design is that JBL provides you with a choice of fit. You’ve got two different designs: if you want the Bud style, you pick the Buds 2, and if you want the Stick style, you pick the Beam 2. The cases are available in different colors. I like the blue one, which has a matte finish and flips open easily with one finger. I like that!

There’s also a small indicator light at the front that shows connection status or charging info, which is nice. Plus, there’s a Type-C port at the bottom. The Buds, on the other hand, have a unique topless design, meaning there’s no lid. This design will attract a lot of dust, which you need to keep in mind.

The one problem with the JBL Wave Beam initially was that the magnetic endpoints would sometimes have connection issues, especially if they got wet after exercise and couldn’t connect properly. But with these, JBL has taken that feedback and improved the design. Now, these endpoints are stainless steel and wider, which is a nice improvement. JBL claims there won’t be any connectivity issues or problems with losing charge if you put them in the case, and we didn’t notice any anomalies in our testing either.

Both the Buds 2 and Beam 2 also have an IP54 rating for water and dust resistance, which is nice, and you get an IPX2 rating on the case. While all of this is similar to last year’s models, it’s a slight refinement. One noticeable change is that the shape of the housings has been improved, which results in a better fit, especially for the Buds.

I must mention this specifically because someone in our office bought the original JBL Wave Buds and found them to be slightly uncomfortable. With the Wave Buds 2, though, they’re much more comfortable now. Both the Buds 2 and the Beam 2 are now great for long listening sessions, which is a great improvement.

The Wave Buds 2 and Wave Beam 2: Connectivity and Control.

The Buds 2 and the Beam 2 now support Bluetooth 5.3, which is an upgrade. When connecting these buds for the first time, you get support for both Google’s Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair, meaning they will automatically pair with an Android device without any issues. Bluetooth pairing happens effortlessly, and I didn’t face any connectivity problems while testing the products, which is great.

However, one aspect I found slightly inconvenient is the lack of a dedicated Bluetooth pairing button. Pairing Bluetooth requires you to tap the gesture control on the buds once, then hold it for 5 seconds. This process felt somewhat counterintuitive. A dedicated Bluetooth pairing button would have been much more practical.

One of the most significant upgrades is the addition of Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). During testing, the ANC performed fairly well, effectively reducing constant hums like the whirring of a fan or air conditioner. Importantly, the ANC doesn’t create the unpleasant “vacuum effect” in your head, which is a common issue with many other earphones.

You also get support for Ambient Aware and TalkThrough modes. Ambient Aware is JBL’s version of a transparency mode, allowing you to hear your surroundings, and it works well. TalkThrough, on the other hand, lowers the music volume, making it easier to hold conversations. It does this without introducing robotic noise, which I appreciate.

All features of these truly wireless earbuds can be accessed through the JBL app. From there, you can:

Enable Smart Audio and Video settings.
Adjust gesture controls.
Play around with the equalizer.
Take advantage of multipoint connectivity, which works exceptionally well.

These are your basic settings, but JBL includes some unique features specific to their products:

Adjust the Left-Right Channel Balance, useful for those with hearing sensitivity in one ear.
Add a maximum volume limiter and modify voice levels.
Use the Find My Buds feature, power-saving options, and access relaxing sounds—a new feature in the Wave series.

The relaxing sounds feature offers soothing audio options for moments of calm, as the name suggests.

Smart Audio and Video Settings

These are vital in JBL’s context. The Smart Video setting, when enabled, reduces latency, which is crucial for watching YouTube or Netflix content and for gaming. Latency was an issue in previous JBL models, but it has improved significantly in this version.

Gesture Controls

The gesture controls are thoughtfully designed. You can choose one of four options:

Ambient Sound Control
Volume Control
Playback Control
None

You can assign specific functions to each earbud. For instance, you could have volume control on the right earbud and playback control on the left. However, this means you sacrifice Ambient Sound Control, which may feel limiting. I opted for volume control, as many buds in this price range don’t offer it, and the gestures work reliably with minimal latency.

That said, one notable drawback is the absence of in-ear detection. The buds won’t automatically pause or resume music when removed or reinserted into your ears. This is a feature I’ve come to expect, and its absence is disappointing.

The Wave Buds 2 and Wave Beam 2: Sound Quality

Talk about the sound, and both these buds actually come with 8 mm drivers inside each housing. They have support for the SBC and AAC codecs. As for CeX, they don’t have any support for high-res CeX like LDAC or LHDC, but in this price range, you cannot expect more.

Now, to talk about the sound signature—I’m going to be talking in context with the Beam 2. The default sound signature is a U-shaped one. What you get is heightened bass and heightened treble. It’s a very messy sound, one we are very well aware of. But here’s the thing—remember how I said smart audio is also very important? So, I switched on smart audio and changed the EQ to the Studio setting. The sound came alive and changed completely. The entire sound signature turned into a kind of balanced sound with a little bit of heft in the bass because the bass is very important for JBL. It was something that I appreciated.

Now, when I changed these two settings, I noticed that the bass had very little decay, and the attack was much faster. Now, of course, the volume was less, but the attack was faster, and that’s a trade-off that I prefer, especially in a song like Rumble by Skrillex, where you want the bass attack to be very, very tight. The Beam 2 doesn’t disappoint.

The mids are also particularly weighty and impressive. In a song like Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin, when the drums kick in, you want to hear the correct tonality of the drum beats. And you know what? Again, the Beam 2 did a fairly decent job for its price.

Now, with the treble, I noticed that it has a fair bit of extension, and you can hear the shimmer and sparkle. But the problem is that it sounds a little thin. I would have liked a little bit more weight in the treble section as well.

There are a few more things I liked about the sound: the sound staging and the imaging in particular. Especially for this price range, you can actually hear every single instrument in the mix, which is something that I was, again, taken aback by.

When you listen to Stairway to Heaven, the initial portion, where you want the initial guitar chord progression to sit on the left, the Mellotron to sit on the right, and the vocals in the front, the Beam 2 impressed me again.

For this price range, what I specifically liked about the Beam 2, more so than the Buds 2 itself, is the detailed retrieval. I could listen to nuances in the sound that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to hear in some other truly wireless earbuds that I’ve tested in this price class. This is JBL leveling up in terms of sound quality.

And you know what? I must say this—something I didn’t measure officially but want to fix in the future is the fact that we want to draw our frequency graphs. But for now, I genuinely feel that the sound signature with the Studio EQ on and smart audio enabled is very close to a Harman target. I’m not so sure about it, but I think it’s very close.

The Wave Buds 2 and Wave Beam 2: battery life

Now, the battery life on both these buds has been improved. You get 10 hours of music playback with 30 hours in the case, which is kind of nice. However, this is with ANC off. When you switch ANC on, you get about 8 hours of playback, and the case provides 24 hours of battery backup. So, you can charge the buds thrice using the case.

When we tested it, we got about 7 hours of playback with ANC on, which is not too bad and not too far off from what JBL claims. As for charging, you get a Type-C cable inside the box, and if you charge these buds for just 10 minutes, you get 4 hours of playback, which is nice.

Conclusion

If you look at it holistically, JBL has made a 360° improvement to the products. The battery is improved, the mics are better, the fit is better, you also get ANC now, and most importantly, the sound quality has leveled up.

I wouldn’t hesitate to say this: the Beam 2 would especially be, you know, among my top three best-sounding truly wireless earbuds in its price class right now. Fun, engaging, and yet filled with clarity—and trust me, this is something I never expected I would say—but yeah, it’s what it is.

And you know what the best part is? The price. The Beam 2 retails for Rs 4,000, and the Buds 2 retails for Rs 3,500.