Jabra Speak2 75 Review: An Authentic Space Age Speakerphone

Jabra Speak2 75 Review

Speakerphones have come a long way. They used to be tied to a conference room desk with multiple wires tightly bundled with nylon tie-wraps. A well-worn and stained laminated manual often sat nearby, or not.

Early in the pandemic, Jabra sent me a Jabra Speak 55, which has been answering business calls and managing audio for 100s of remote family dinners since early 2020.

The pandemic has subsided, but Jabra’s innovation has not. The “Speak” line has become “Speak2.” And its flagship is the resonant, super wide-band $369 Speak2 75.

What we like

Pros

• Rich sound from 65mm speaker
• Full-duplex audio
• USB-A/C and Bluetooth®
• Capacitive buttons
• Lights indicate microphone quality
• Long-lasting battery (32 hours)
• IP65 rated for dust and water resistance
• Certifications for all major conferencing systems

At over a pound, the Jabra Speak2 75 doesn’t just sit on a surface; it SITS on a surface. No worries about accidental bumps around it during a call. To move the Speak 2 75 you need to want to move it.

A pound, however, isn’t too heavy to remain portable. The felt bag holds the speaker and its Bluetooth dongle in well-designed comfort for road trips or office visits. The brushed aluminum exterior and fabric grill look great. It’s much more professional looking than the Speak 55 with its glossy black plastic vibe. The case is made of 33% sustainable materials, including post-consumer recycled, post-industrial recycled, or bio-based materials. The box is also very eco-friendly.

The storage bag also includes a spot for the included Bluetooth dongle. As with business-caliber earbuds, a dongle offers better connectivity than native Bluetooth.

The Speak2 75 delivers rich audio, from deep voices on calls to deep bass on tracks that pour upward from its 65mm speaker. If I didn’t own dedicated stereo speakers, I would probably use the Jabra Speak2 75 as a desktop speaker. It’s that good. Tapping the Speak2 75 for streaming audio and video makes perfect sense for those looking to minimize clutter.

Jabra calls its audio “widescreen for your ears,” which has a Dolby ring to it without being Dolby. But this technology is about conferencing audio, not music. Rather than surrounding listeners, it taps more available frequencies to create more nuanced audio.

On the other hand, or better, other ear, the noise reduction technology keeps the voice forward and the sounds of rustling bags and keyboards to a minimum.

The Speak2 75 also offers full duplex experiences that allow people on both sides of the call to talk more naturally. Of course, that means more fluid responses, but also talking over people and interrupting them—all technology comes with a price.

Input is managed by four beamforming microphones, reducing background noise. A ring light indicates microphone pickup quality. Voice Level Normalization equalizes the volume for all voices on a call.

Jabra has certified the Speak2 75 for all major conferencing and UC platforms, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Jabra offers a Teams version of the speakerphone, which understands the protocols associated with Teams call management, mapping indicators and buttons for call behavior.

In my opening paragraph, I praised the Jabra Speak2 75’s stoutness. Much of that weighty footprint comes from a substantial battery that powers the speakerphone for up to 32 hours. That’s a marathon-level performance. I mean a dance marathon, not an actual marathon. (At this year’s New York Marathon, Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola crossed the finish line at 2 hours, 4 minutes and 58 seconds to set a new record. See CBS NY here. The Jabra Speak2 75 would still have days of power remaining after that quick jaunt. Somewhere in the multiverse, teenagers in a Milwaukee soda parlor have been dancing since 1955. No, not really.). 

Given the transition period between USB standards, Jabra nicely includes a USB-C cable with a USB-A adaptor hooked on. Between those cables and Bluetooth 5.2, there should be no issue connecting to any device.

This is THE speakerphone for smallish conference rooms—but more importantly, it’s the speakerphone for home desks, desks in hotel rooms, kitchen counters and kitchen tables. And it does a pretty good job on a patio table as well.

What could be improved

• Power button could be easier to find
• USB-C Bluetooth dongle

Unlike the capacitive buttons that hide when not in use, the power button is always there. However, because of the subtlety of the capacitive buttons, it too is subtle, a bit too subtle. I find myself picking up the speaker under a light and tilting it so I can see the power button to turn it off and turn it back on.

I would also like to see Jabra start shipping USB-C Bluetooth dongles because, for many, the USB-A dongles require, well, another dongle for them to work.

Jabra Speak2 75: The bottom line

Jabra’s engineers keep one-upping themselves. My workhorse Speak 55 looks a little dated and sounds a little dated, too, but I didn’t know that until the Jabra Speak2 75 arrived. The Speak 55 worked off its diaphragm and cone for years, and it’s still going. The Speak2 75 is part of a long tradition of quality manufacturing and sound. I can’t recommend it enough.

Jabra provided the Speak2 75 for review. Images courtesy of Jabra unless otherwise noted.

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