The look and feel of the headphones are certain to impress right away: Despite its high audio output, the JBL Quantum One is light and comfortable on the head, never weighing you down or hurting your neck. The Quantum One’s sleek design is really eye-catching, with the JBL logo prominently displayed on both earphones. Plugging in the USB mixer and seeing them light up with every color on the spectrum only enhanced their already impressive performance. We only wish that feature was available when wearing them on a console, but the USB mixer currently does not work with the Xbox One or PlayStation 4. In fact, that was probably the biggest issue we had with the JBL Quantum One headset: it’s compatible with all consoles, but it’s not as stable or sounds as good when used with a PC. However, while the 3.5 mm headphone jack allows for voice chat on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, we encountered far more technical issues on the console than when the USB mixer was plugged into the PC. In terms of performance, the JBL Quantum One is similar to the LucidSound LS50X in that it fits perfectly around my ears and blocks out most outside noise. Furthermore, the audio is among the best we’ve heard in a gaming headset, with every minute detail coming through clean and clear thanks to the incredible customizable surround sound. The Quantum One’s spatial audio technology is certainly cool, which hampered immersion. Fortunately, there’s a small button on the device that brings the feature back to the center, so all we had to do was look straight ahead, press the button, and we were done. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only issue we had with the headphones: the right headphone would occasionally cut out, necessitating a re-adjustment of the jack in the controller’s port, and the microphone wouldn’t pick up our voice unless we were practically eating it. Voices coming in sounded muffled even with the console’s settings maxed out, which could be because we tested an early sample. When it worked properly, the in-game audio sounded incredible, with full surround and spatial sound, but these minor hiccups kept the JBL Quantum One headset from being the best all-around choice for consoles.
