If you are a parent, you will know that devices are a part of life now. There are two major issues. One is that if your kids are watching educational videos or dumb YouTube shorts, if the speaker is on, that stuff is annoying. The other issue is kids have to take their devices to school and need headphones for classwork.
This is fine and dandy, but if you’re old like me, there is a good chance in your youth your Walkman and Discman did serious damage to your hearing as you slowly turned the volume up for the awesome blasting sounds right into your ears. Well, we don’t want to do that to our kids, so you need to get your kids headphones that let you limit the volume. JBL has some new headphones out, so I checked out the JBL Junior 320BT and Junior 470NC for my kids!
The stuff the two share
The reason I have decided to review both of these headsets at once is because many of the things that make them awesome are shared between the two.
Both of the pairs of headphones come in a simple cardboard box. Opening it up has the headphones, and tucked away behind it are the cables and a cute-as-hell dinosaur sticker sheet. The stickers have a Dinosaur JBL logo, a bunch of dinos, and 2 sets of letters so you can pop stickers on your kids’ headphones with their names. I know, it’s stickers, but my kids bloody loved them. Small details matter.
The headsets themselves are adorable as hell, with simple but distinct colour schemes and with big, easy-to-access buttons on them. The two-tone style looks fantastic but makes it super easy for kids to use. Both sets have a memory foam piece at the top of the band to make wearing the headset comfy. The sizing is perfect, with both fitting my 3-year-old’s headset and both extending juuuuust big enough to fit over my head.
Both also offer up to 50 hours of battery life as well, as long as you don’t use all the features. I pretty consistently saw results close to this, which is super important, as if your kid needs headphones for school, they will need to be able to get at least a few days out of it. They both offer Bluetooth, which is fortunate, as having had to dispose of cable headphones in the recent past, kids destroy those things way too easily. “Can you come to the kitchen?” Then the Chromebook gets dragged off the table. It still hurts to remember that.
Durability and sound
If you have used a cheaper pair of headphones for your kids’ school, then you will know this pain. The pair we got in a stationary pack sounded like absolute crap, and using cheap hard plastic, snapped in a few weeks. It was awful, and while cheap at $30, for only a few weeks these weren’t even worth 10.
Well, in the time I have been playing with the 320 BT and 470NC these have been twisted, dropped, sat on, dropped, stuffed in a bag, and dropped a lot more times. Despite this, they still look brand new, and I have had to tell my kids to take better care of their stuff.
The sound in them is also top-notch. We aren’t talking about a miracle sound quality that would rival a $300 pair of headphones, but I was happy using them to test. Sound quality may not seem like a driving force, but cheap ones can sound awful, creating unnecessary background noise. One pair my boy used said it sounded like it was underwater. Now that they have been using these, I don’t think I will get away with going back.
The app and sound control
Out of the box they don’t blast the sound too loud, but the app gives you so much customisation. Using the normal JBL headphones app, you have all the usual abilities to tweak the sound. But these ones have an extra option called JBL Safe Sound. Here it is super easy to tweak how your kids use the headphones. You can easily set the volume limit from options between Low and Max. You can also set a Daily Time Limit which can also give voice reminders. You can even check a report to see the average volume limit your kids are using per day and the total use time.
This is bloody fantastic. Easy to use, gives you heaps of info if you want it. It’s awesome.
What makes the JBL Junior 320BT special?
This is the cheaper option, coming in at $80. It has a circular-shaped earpiece, which makes it a nice on-ear style pair of headphones. The biggest thing it has going for it is the price and sound quality, which is fantastic in the price range.
The 320BT doesn’t have ANC, which is totally fine. If you want this for a younger kid, not turning on ANC is useful so you know they can hear you. This also means they won’t accidentally turn it on and drain the battery faster.
These headphones are also only designed to be used via Bluetooth, as there is only a USB port for charging, and it’s tucked away, which protects them but would be a pain to use plugged in.
They are a fantastic, cheap option.
What about the JBL Junior 470NC?
At $130, they are $50 more expensive than the 320 BT, but offer a whole lot more. The first, and most useful, is that they have a 3.5mm jack, and the box comes with a 3.5mm-3.5mm cable. This means you can use them plugged into a device, which is handy if the device they are using doesn’t support Bluetooth. It also acts as a handy backup if the battery runs low and can be used on heaps of different devices without having to constantly pair them.
The other thing it offers is ANC. If your kids need to be able to drown out surrounding sound to focus, this is a huge plus, and paired with the over-ear design, they are super comfy. This is going to be helpful when your kids hit school but also annoying when you need to talk to them. The battery life cuts in half using ANC, but over 25 hours is still heaps on a charge.
The button for ANC on the headphones is a winky smiley face, which is an odd choice. But it has the vibes the headphones are going for. The whole headset oozes kid silliness and is friendly.
Should you get one for your kids?
Hell yeah! If you want headphones for your kids, then these options are fantastic. If you are on a budget, then the Junior 320BT will do you fine, but if you want to take it to the next level, then the Junior 470N is well worth the extra cash.
