If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. That’s how the saying goes, right? You see, JBL’s Tour Pro wireless earbuds have visited What Hi-Fi? Towers before. The second-generation model came in for testing at the start of 2023, but it’s fair to say the impression left wasn’t a lasting one, despite it boasting an innovative smart charging case and a huge list of features. Will the company’s persistence pay off with the 3rd-Gen version, the JBL Tour Pro 3? Let’s find out.
Price
We’ve tested multiple pairs of JBL wireless earbuds over the years, but this is comfortably the most expensive. With a launch price of £280 / $300 / AU$400 (they arrived on the scene in August 2024) they are JBL’s flagship pair and this puts them in the same company as some excellent five-star rivals, including the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (£300 / $299 / AU$450), the Sony WF-1000XM5 (£259 / $299 / AU$419) and the Apple AirPods Pro 2 (£249 / $249 / AU$399).
Being new to the market, discounts aren’t readily available, which puts them at a slight disadvantage compared to the other models mentioned here. They have all been on the market for several months and in some cases even longer, which means you can currently pick them all up for less than the JBL pair.
Design & comfort
Wireless earbud design tends to fall in one of two categories: stem or stemless, and the JBLs follow their predecessors by opting for the former. Towards the top of each stem is a touch-sensitive section with which you interact to control the earbuds.
The main plastic body of each earpiece has a textured surface which helps you get a good grip of each bud when you’re manoeuvering them into place. Some rivals use glossier plastics that can slide around in your hands, but that’s not the case here.
JBL Tour Pro 3 tech specs
Noise-cancelling? Yes
Bluetooth SBC, AAC, LDAC
Battery life 7hrs with ANC on, 11hrs ANC off (+33hrs from charging case with ANC off)
Wireless charging? No
Waterproof rating IP55
Finishes x 2 (Black, Latte)
There aren’t any wing-tip extensions for the JBLs like you find on some rivals such as the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, but we found the Tour Pro 3 sit securely in our ears with the stems slotting on the outside of our ears, helping to wedge the buds in place.
Also helping to get the earbuds in a secure position is JBL’s choice of eartip options. The Tour Pro 3 come with an impressive five different sizes of silicone eartip and one pair of memory foam eartips too. That’s very rare (and a big improvement on the three tips provided with the Tour Pro 2) and should be applauded. Combine this with the ear fit test contained in JBL’s Headphones app and you should be able to get an optimum set-up before you press play on your music. Opinion between our testers on comfort was split, though, with one of the team struggling to get a full seal. As is always the case, fit is very personal so we always recommend trying for yourself.
It’s worth noting here that the Tour Pro 3 have two different audio settings depending on whether you choose to use the memory foam tips or the silicone ones. For the majority of our testing, we use the foam tips, but we’ll talk more about this in the sound quality section of the review later.
Features
Have you ever had that feeling when you open a restaurant menu and feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of dishes on offer? That’s sort of how you feel when perusing the list of features for the JBL Tour Pro 3.
There’s a lot going on. As you’d expect at this level, there’s active noise cancelling tech built-in and it can be customised depending on how much you want it to impact your surroundings. Alternatively, you can enable the adaptive ANC setting so the buds adjust it automatically based on the amount of outside noise.
You have specific modes for listening to music and watching video, with the latter ensuring the buds don’t suffer from any lip-sync issues. SBC and AAC are supported, while Sony’s LDAC codec is also on the menu for higher quality Bluetooth streaming.
Additional modes such as Smart Talk allow you to hold a conversation without taking the earbuds out of your ears, similar to Sony’s ‘Speak To Chat’ function.
You can assign different touch controls to the left and right earbuds, although you can’t control volume, music playback and sound mode at the same time as you can with the Bose QC Ultra Earbuds.
There are multiple equaliser settings to choose from or you can create your own personal listening profile through JBL’s Personi-Fi 3.0 feature. This involves you listening to a range of test tones in either ear in combination with your smartphone screen which you tap every time you stop hearing each tone. The system then calculates your unique profile based on the results. We think it’s certainly worth trying out. JBL’s take on spatial audio is also there to try out should you wish.
You have various call settings at your disposal, including the ability to set volume limits and tweak audio so you can hear your voice better while wearing the buds. You can also adjust the tone of not just your voice, but also the person on the other end of the call.
And the features on offer don’t just stop with the earbuds. As is now the tradition for JBL’s Tour Pro series of earbuds and in the more affordable JBL Live Beam 3, they come with an eye-catching smart charging case. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen from rival brands and features a touchscreen to which you can even add your own wallpaper.
Through the screen, you can access the bulk of features and earbuds settings contained within the JBL Headphones app, from all the active noise cancelling and call settings to the ‘Find My Buds’ feature. Some people will prefer to just power up the app and make changes through there, but if your case happens to be out on a table it could make life a tiny bit easier. We find the touchscreen a bit finicky and occasionally slow to respond at times, though, so you’ll need to set realistic expectations before you start using it. An iPhone touchscreen it is not.
But the fun doesn’t stop with the case’s touchscreen – it has two other party pieces. Firstly, you can use it as a wireless audio transmitter from USB or analogue sources such as inflight entertainment systems – similar to B&W’s Pi8 wireless earbuds. Secondly the case supports Auracast, so should there be any compatible devices nearby, you could share your content with them at the press of a button.
Battery life for the JBL Tour Pro 3 comes in at a claimed seven hours with noise cancelling switched on and 11 with it turned off. The charging case adds another 33 hours to the equation if you continue with ANC disabled (although we don’t know why you would measure this if one of the main reasons you’d buy the buds is because of the noise cancelling). These figures are relatively competitive compared to rivals at similar money.
Noise cancelling & call quality
Given our extensive knowledge of the market and the fact that we’ve tested all the big hitters at this kind of price point, it’s fair to say most pairs of premium buds perform solidly where ANC is concerned. And the JBLs put in a solid showing, cutting out the rumbles of a train carriage and the chatter of a crowded bar without too much fuss. We may sound like a broken record when we say we still think the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds just have the edge, but it’s once again the case here. The JBLs still do a good job, though.
Each Tour Pro 3 bud uses three mics to help with call quality and the company claims the windproof design will keep blustery conditions at bay. And during testing we were very impressed with just how well background noise was subdued. The interference from vehicles driving past and wind gusts is minimal and our voice comes through loud and clear. We compare it to the call quality of the Bose QuietComfort Ultra and the JBL buds are clearly the better performers out of the two.
Sound
We think it’s fair to say that the JBL Tour Pro 3 are one of the most accomplished pairs of earbuds we’ve heard from the brand. They don’t disgrace themselves in the company of a number of five-star rivals, producing a very solid, mature performance that gives you a largely entertaining listening experience.
As mentioned previously, we think the memory foam ear tips and accompanying listening mode show the JBLs off in their best light. In our opinion, the sound is more open and nuanced compared to listening through the silicone tips and their sound setting. We think the earbuds expose more layers of a recording and sound a bit more engaging.
The earbuds sound tight and solid, especially in the bass. There’s good depth and differentiation between notes, as a quick spin of Bjork’s Hyperballad highlights. The shifts in weight and depth between each probing hit are explicit and immediate in their delivery. The percussion layered on top sounds dainty and delicate and sprinkled evenly over her precisely positioned vocal. There are a lot of bitty elements to handle and the earbuds do so with careful consideration.
We switch over to Flux by Bloc Party and we are immediately drawn to the detail in the treble, particularly the synths which boast crisp and precisely drawn edges. The fleet-footed drums display good solidity and rhythmic drive. The JBLs deliver the track with speed and purpose, but the class-leaders at this level such as the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds do so with even more dynamic thrust. They also knit all the various elements together more convincingly, which makes for an even more engaging and communicative performance. The JBLs are good, but their closest rivals are a little bit better.
Verdict
In our vast experience of testing audio products over the years, when you give a product so many features and so much functionality, sometimes sound quality can take a back seat.
To JBL’s credit, the Tour Pro 3 are well-executed flagship wireless earbuds and there’s a lot to like. In a sea of premium five-star rivals, the sheer fact that they are competitive in multiple areas including noise cancelling, call quality and sound quality should be applauded.
They don’t quite have the same sonic finesse as the class-leaders at this kind of money, but they aren’t a million miles away. Give them serious consideration, especially if you can find a good discount.
First reviewed: November 2024
SCORES
- Sound 4
- Features 5
- Comfort 4
MORE:
Read our review of the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds
Also consider the Sony WF-1000XM5
Best in-ear headphones: top earbuds tried and tested by our experts