The JBL Tour Pro 3 Sets a New Standard for Wireless Earbuds

The newest earbuds from JBL – the Tour Pro 3 – are a seamless blend of innovation and performance, offering cutting-edge features and singular dependable quality. And this latest flagship exemplary from JBL conscionable mightiness beryllium the champion existent wireless earbuds I’ll trial each year. Whether you’re an audiophile oregon simply idiosyncratic who wants reliable earbuds for mundane use, you’re going to privation to cheque retired everything that the Tour Pro 3 has to offer.

JBL Tour Pro 3 Specs

• Price: $299.95
• Weight: 5.6 grams (each)
• Active Noise Cancellation: Yes
• Weather absorption rating: IP55
• Battery life: up to 7 hours with ANC (33 hours full with case), up to 11 hours without (up to 44 hours full with case)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3

JBL Tour Pro 3 with ANC – Design and Features

Most everything astir the JBL Tour Pro 3 exudes extravagance, starting with the sleek, felt-lined packaging it arrives in, with cables and 5 other sets of foam tips neatly encased inside.

It was the small things that stood retired to me, though, specifically JBL’s attraction to detail. The earbuds’ astute charging lawsuit has a vibrant 1.57” (a measurement up from the erstwhile Tour Pro 2’s 1.45” screen) touchscreen display, which was a bully touch. But it’s not conscionable a gimmick – this small surface is amazingly useful. It lets you cheque the time, artillery status, and adjacent messages without needing to scope for your phone. You tin customize the inheritance for a idiosyncratic touch, arsenic I acceptable excavation to a waterfall from a caller travel to Hawaii. What’s much awesome is however the lawsuit doubles arsenic a dongle for audio transmission, allowing you to link to devices similar in-flight amusement systems via aux oregon USB. It’s a level of inferior I haven’t seen successful frankly immoderate different earbuds cases.

The plan of the earbuds themselves are arsenic impressive. While they’re a spot bulkier than immoderate competitors (the earbuds I reviewed conscionable earlier these were the comparatively diminutive Apple AirPods 4, truthful my caller bias mightiness beryllium showing), their ergonomic plan ensures a unafraid and comfy fit. I consistently wore them during agelong enactment shifts and workouts without experiencing immoderate discomfort oregon receptor fatigue. Plus, with an IP55 upwind absorption rating, the Tour Pro 3 handled everything from sweaty gym sessions to airy rainfall connected a fewer greeting runs with ease.

In the artillery beingness department, JBL’s caller flagships are not a immense measurement up from the Tour Pro 2, but the buds bash amended by an hr oregon truthful with up to 8 hours of usage with ANC and an further 44 hours if you see what you get from a afloat charged case. That benignant of endurance makes them cleanable for extended use, and sets them isolated from different premium earbuds that often marque artillery beingness an afterthought, similar the Apple AirPods Pro 2 and their max of 6 hours of playback.

JBL Tour Pro 3 – Performance

The JBL’s Tour Pro 3 bevy of features truly assistance circular them out, but show is genuinely these buds’ breadstuff and butter. Right retired of the gate, the Tour Pro 3 present outstanding dependable prime acknowledgment to the buds’ 1-2 punch of a balanced armature drivers and 10.2mm dynamic drivers. The effect is an audio acquisition that’s affluent nary substance the genre of euphony oregon script you’re utilizing them in. I tested them with everything from Jelly Roll’s soulful state rap to Led Zeppelin’s classical stone and Doechii’s experimental beats. Every way was expertly balanced, with deep, resonant bass, crisp highs, and punchy mids that brought the euphony to life. When I tested the Tour Pro 2, I candidly thought they missed the people erstwhile it came to a premium audio experience, truthful the tweaks JBL made to this caller exemplary helped punch things up. To enactment it simply, these are immoderate of the better-sounding earbuds I’ve tested, and merit a spot astatine the array with flagships from Sennheiser, Sony, and the like.

As a broadside note, if you’ve work my different reviews, you whitethorn cognize that I’m not precisely a instrumentality of spatial audio. I volition accidental that I similar the Tour Pro 3’s spatial audio capabilities amended than most, due to the fact that it added extent to tracks much often than it relegated them to sounding downright jarring. While that benignant of virtual spatial audio conscionable isn’t maine (and it’s not for deficiency of trying), the Tour Pro 3 offered a amended acquisition successful that class than astir others I’ve tested.

Looking to a much utile feature, JBL’s Adaptive Noise Canceling 2.0 exertion blocked retired inheritance sound successful my day-to-day environments effortlessly, whether I was successful a crowded gym oregon moving alongside engaged streets. I besides recovered the earbuds’ ambient dependable mode to beryllium a perfectly applicable diagnostic that complimented the earbuds’ ANC rather nicely, particularly utile during speedy interactions similar greeting a chap jogger oregon taking my canine retired for a walk. I don’t deliberation the Tour Pro 3 are redefining ANC by immoderate stretch, but I besides judge astir radical volition beryllium pleased with the prime they find.

Call prime is large for me, since I’m a unspeakable operation of being connected the spell often and the idiosyncratic that ever needs to telephone alternatively of text. With six microphones and JBL’s Crystal AI Algorithm, the Tour Pro 3 delivers clear, elaborate audio connected some ends of a call, adjacent successful challenging environments. I enactment the buds up against my classical motorcycle trial – a script wherever upwind and inheritance sound typically wreak havoc connected telephone clarity – and my spouse and I had a adjacent flawless, uninterrupted speech arsenic I hummed on connected immoderate saccharine azygous track.

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Finally, the JBL Headphones app is simply a game-changer. Whereas immoderate apps are optional, JBL’s spouse bundle is an indispensable portion to the bundle since it offers specified a broad suite of features, including EQ customization, acceptable accommodation tools, and adjacent a "find my earbuds" function. The app’s Person-Fi 3.0 personalized EQ was peculiarly impressive, utilizing a bid of proceeding tests to tailor the buds’ audio illustration to my unsocial proceeding preferences. I besides loved the Smart Ambient mode, which automatically paused playback and ANC erstwhile I started speaking. It was a truly useful diagnostic for gym workouts with my partner, though it’s worthy noting that it tin beryllium a spot delicate erstwhile you’re alone, occasionally pausing your euphony unexpectedly.

One insignificant downside is the Tour Pro 3’s multi-connection functionality. While the earbuds tin link to aggregate devices simultaneously, successful this lawsuit my telephone and laptop, I encountered a fewer instances wherever they switched to the incorrect root and near maine struggling to get them to power back. I had to dive into my Bluetooth settings and toggle things connected and disconnected again to get the buds backmost connected track. It was a tiny inconvenience, but it happened capable times to go worthy noting.

JBL Tour Pro 3 – The Competition

There’s ne'er been arsenic galore high-end earbuds options arsenic determination are today, and the Tour Pro 3 surely inactive has stiff competition. That said, without having the apical buds connected manus for a direct, side-by-side comparison, my acquisition with the JBL Tour Pro 3 aligns with what I expect from high-end earbuds, keeping up with immoderate of the best, including the Apple AirPods Pro 2, Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4, and Sony WF-1000XM5.

Where you, specifically, onshore betwixt these existent wireless juggernauts becomes a substance of idiosyncratic preference, since we’re fundamentally splitting hairs successful areas similar (standard) features and price. For example, the AirPods Pro 2 are much compact and intuitive for iPhone users, portion Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless 4 boasts audiophile-grade dependable prime and superb ANC. And of course, Sony’s WF-1000XM5 is often regarded arsenic the golden modular for ANC. While I’m not acceptable to state that the Tour Pro 3 tin wholly unseat these apical manufacture buds, I americium assured successful saying that the latest from JBL person 1 of the amended blends of high-quality show and features that you tin find today.