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- Forthright, detailed and confident sound
- Impressive noise-cancelling
- Excellent control app
- Edgy treble characteristics
- Lose composure at big volumes
- Don’t feel as premium as they really should
The JBL Tour One M3 is the company’s latest attempt to grab a meaningful slice of the premium wireless noise-cancelling over-ear headphones market – and it’s its strongest offering yet. Just as well, because this section of the headphone market is absolutely cut-throat right now.
The M3 isn’t a radical overhaul of what has come before, but with some nice new features – including LDAC compatibility and the option of an extremely handy ‘Smart Tx’ wireless transmitter – JBL has managed to successfully increase the desirability of the Tour ONE model, although it has raised the price at the same time.
Still, if the Smart Tx transmitter sounds like just the ticket, you’ll give the Tour ONE M3 strong consideration – and its talents don’t begin and end there.
What you need to know
This, as the M3 part of the model name strongly indicates, is JBL’s third attempt to muscle its way onto the top table of ‘premium-but-not-quite-super-premium’ wireless noise-cancelling over-ear headphones that’s been lorded over by the likes of Sony and Bose for quite some time now.
And the company gives every impression of having gone all-in and all-out.There isn’t an area of specification that hasn’t come in for at least some attention. The options for control and customisation are impressive, and in the (optional) Smart Tx transmitter JBL has a feature that sets the Tour ONE M3 apart from all of its nominal competition.
The headphones still use Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless connectivity, and as well as multi-point connectivity there’s now compatibility with LC3 and lossy hi-res LDAC codecs, as well as bog-standard SBC and AAC. And proper, genuine high resolution is available if you use the USB-C port for data transfer from an appropriate source. Sound, once it’s been decoded, is delivered by a pair of 40mm mica dome dynamic drivers that are good for a frequency response, according to JBL, of between 10Hz and 40kHz.
Battery life is a very decent 40 hours with active noise-cancellation switched on, and a frankly epic 70 hours if you leave it switched off. The Tour ONE M3 use a total of eight mics to govern noise-cancellation algorithms in an arrangement JBL is calling “True Adaptive Noise-Cancelling 2.0”, and four of these are also in charge of call quality; adaptive beam-forming technology is part of the equation here.
The Tour ONE M3 use a combination of physical buttons and touch-controls for operation, and are compatible with your source player’s native voice-assistant too. They work with the (very comprehensive) JBL Headphones control app that’s free for iOS and Android, and also can be controlled, up to a point, using the Smart Tx transmitter.
Price and competition
At £329 without the Smart Tx transmitter or £379 with it, JBL has pitched the Tour ONE M3 into the toughest of market sectors. There are so many credible brands with dogs in this particular fight there’s hardly room to mention them all.
However, if I just throw out the names Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, ‘Sennheiser’ and Sony for starters, it should be fairly obvious that these headphones aren’t going to have it easy. This is an area of the headphones market where ‘good’ is seldom good enough, and competition is fearsome.
If you’ve got between, say, £250 and £350 to spend on a pair of wireless noise-cancelling over-ear headphones, you’re absolutely spoiled for (well-made, good-looking, high-performing) choice.
Design and comfort
Where ‘comfort’ is concerned, the Tour ONE M3 have nothing to worry about. At 278g they’re far from the heaviest headphones around. A combination of well-judged clamping force, a sympathetic hanger arrangement and some carefully deployed pleather-covered memory foam at the contact points means they’re comfortable to start with and feel no less comfortable many hours into a listening session.
The padded areas are slow to return your body heat, and although the headband adjustment mechanism feels (and sounds) a bit clicky it’s very easy to get a fit to suit, no matter how petite (or otherwise) your head might be.
The design, however, is slightly more problematic – or, at least, it is for me. I’ll deal with the more enjoyable aspects here in a moment, but first I’m going to have to say that I don’t think the JBL Tour ONE M3 look or feel anything like as expensive as they actually are.
That may be partly due to the fact that my review sample is in the “mocha” finish, which doesn’t look remotely as sophisticated as the black or blue alternatives. But it’s mostly due to the hard, cheap-feeling plastics that constitute the majority of the structure. None of the alternative designs from the rival brands I’ve mentioned feel as low-rent as these headphones, and most of them feel and look a lot more upmarket.
With that out of the way, though, there are aspects of the design worth admiring. There’s a lot of articulation in the frame to the point that the Tour ONE M3 can fold into a winningly compact (and nicely finished) hard-ish carry-case. And while the plastic used in the construction of the headphones doesn’t seem anything special, there’s no disputing the standard of construction or finish JBL provides. The Tour ONE M3 feel robust and ready to last for the long haul.
Whether or not that applies when you’re talking about less-than-perfect conditions, though, it’s difficult to say. JBL isn’t providing any kind of IP rating for the Tour ONE M3, which in my experience means you need to err strongly on the side of caution where dusty or moist conditions are concerned.
Controls and features
There’s an-even-more-comprehensive-than-usual suite of control options on offer with the JBL Tour ONE M3, and they’re mostly pretty successful in their implementation. The greatest amount of control is available via the JBL Headphones app.
This lets you adjust ANC and gives you fine-grained control over the external sounds admitted when the ambient aware mode is selected. It has a suite of EQ presets to choose from and the ability to customise your own levels. You can tweak the spatial sound setting (‘off’, ‘fixed’ or ‘head-tracking’), and even take a hearing test to allow some audio compensation relative to your specific hearing profile.
That’s not all. Want to check for firmware updates? Adjust the length of time the headphones stay on without receiving a signal before they power down? Set a volume limiter? Go right ahead. This is by no means an exhaustive description of the control the app allows you to exert over your Tour ONE M3 but it should give you a good idea of how comprehensive it is.
In addition to the app controls, there are physical controls on the headphones themselves. On the left earcup is a volume rocker button, while on the right is a power on/off/Bluetooth pairing slider and an “action” button that allows you to select between noise cancelling, ambient aware and talk-thru modes.
The surface of the right earcup also has a touch surface that gives you control over play/pause functions, and can be used to call your voice assistant, too. Sometimes, when you’re feeling for the action button it’s possible to accidentally trigger the touch controls, but in general these are effective and well-implemented interfaces.
The most remarkable and unusual form of control, however, comes via the Smart Tx transmitter. The Smart Tx transmitter is a little battery-powered block with a USB-C slot at each end, a power button on the top and a full-colour touch-display on its front surface. One of the USB-C inputs is for charging its battery, the other is for connection to a source, either digital or analogue. So for those situations in which wireless connectivity is not normally available – the in-flight entertainment system of an aircraft, for example – the transmitter can be physically connected to the source and will then transmit wirelessly to the headphones.
Bowers & Wilkins has been doing something similar with the retransmission case of its true wireless earbuds for a while now, but JBL takes things further with its solution. As well as offering a lot of the same functionality as the app on its touch-screen, which means you don’t need to dig your phone out of your pocket to make changes, it can also transmit to multiple users simultaneously via Auracast. Connecting headphones do need to support Auracast, though.
Other features of the Tour ONE M3 are rather more predictable, but no less worthwhile. Bluetooth 5.3 wireless connectivity and compatibility with LDAC and LC3 codecs as well as SBC and AAC is good to see, as is the ability to listen via USB-C and charge at the same time.
Battery life of between 40 and 70 hours (depending on noise-cancellation, volume, file type and all the other variables) is profoundly competitive, and frequency response of 10Hz to 40kHz produced by a couple of 40mm mica dome drivers is not to be sniffed at, either.
Sound quality
The sound quality of the Tour ONE M3 isn’t, strictly speaking, a game of two halves; it’s more like a game of two thirds/one third. What’s for sure, though, is that unlike JBL’s all-conquering range of wireless speakers, the Tour ONE M3 don’t have what you might call an all-court game.
On the plus side, they’re bold, punchy and assertive performers. Leave the EQ settings alone and listen to Looped by Kiasmos and you’ll discover that low-frequency presence is considerable, and bass sounds hit with the sort of implacable weight that effectively underpins the overall presentation. Control is good, and rhythmic expression is pretty convincing as a result.
At the opposite end of the frequency range there’s a forward, bright tonality to treble sounds that can come off as exciting right until the moment it becomes a little edgy and fatiguing. There’s not quite the substance at the top end to balance out the shine, and the crunchier a recording you’re listening to, the more upfront and forceful the treble becomes.
Detail levels are high at every point, though, and this is especially apparent in the midrange. The vocal performance in Anhoni’s Drone Bomb Me is described with every shred of character and attitude intact, and the direct and unequivocal nature of the midrange reproduction makes for an involving listen. Tonally, though, it’s again on the edge: there’s a hint of stridency to the balance here that can only be slightly mitigated by investigating your EQ options.
Frequency response is tilted towards the bottom end just a little, but not fatally so, and the sweep from bottom to top is fairly smooth and uneventful. Dynamic headroom is considerable, so the changes in intensity or outright volume in a recording are handled confidently. And with spatial audio switched off, the soundstage is coherent and nicely defined.
Switch spatial audio on, and the effect is more subtle than in a lot of alternative designs and all the more successful for it. The sound opens up without losing any of its definition, and the space that’s available between the individual elements of Regina Spektor’s Fidelity somehow makes the recording sound more, rather than less, unified and together.
It’s volume that’s the JBL’s Kryptonite, though. Everything I’ve said so far applies when you’re listening at reasonable, nothing-special volume levels. Turn it up a bit and the Tour ONE M3 get audibly over-excited. Their composure deserts them and they become a two-dimensional and in-your-face listen that seems determined to make every part of a recording sound louder and more forceful than every other part. “Shouty” is not too extreme a description. And when you combine this trait with treble response that doesn’t need any provocation whatsoever, too much volume can result in altogether too much of a good thing.
Noise-cancelling
The noise-cancelling system here is a three-stage affair, although oddly enough with no off position. “Ambient aware” provides a slider that allows you to adjust how much of the sound of the outside world is allowed in. “Talk-thru” pauses music entirely while giving a big boost to external sounds, especially voices.
Finally, there’s “noise-cancelling”, which also comes with a slider, to adjust intensity. This can be overridden by switching on “adaptive ANC”, which automatically adjusts the ANC level based on prevailing conditions. “Auto compensation”, meanwhile, assesses the headphones’ position on your ear and the resultant status of your ear canal in order to adjust ANC on the fly.
There’s a degree of passive isolation offered by the way the Tour ONE M3 fit, of course. JBL is pleased with the improvements it’s made in this respect, and there’s no denying the combination of clamping force and effective seal provided by the earpads makes its own worthwhile contribution.
The active system itself, though, doesn’t really require much passive assistance. It manages to do a very effective job on external sounds. Anything below the level of “very loud and very close by” is handled confidently, and without altering the headphones’ sonic characteristics. No disruption of the noise floor, no sensation of counter-signal, just a very welcome reduction in distractions from outside in all environments short of the economy section of an aircraft.
Should you buy the JBL Tour ONE M3?
There’s plenty to like about the JBL Tour ONE M3. They’re well-specified, well-made, comfortable to wear and they will play for day after day without requiring charging. Their noise-cancelling is very effective, indeed, they sound detailed and dynamic, and in the Smart Tx transmitter they have genuinely interesting and unusual functionality, if you care to pay for it.
They can overplay their sonic hand at volume, though, becoming rather two-dimensional and strident. And when it comes to tactility and the abstract, but nevertheless important, idea of perceived value they’re lacking just a little. And when you consider the quality of the opposition they face, these shortcomings come into clear and sharp relief.
