JBL Tour Pro 3
MSRP $300.00
“For those who want it all, the JBL Tour Pro 3 have an unbeatable set of features.”
Pros
- Great sound quality
- Tons of features
- Case works as a wireless transmitter
- Improved call quality
- Fully Auracast compatible
Cons
- Options may be overwhelming
- Bulky charging case
It’s not every day that a manufacturer launches a product that addresses every criticism and suggestion that I had leveled at its previous model. And yet, that seems to be the case with the JBL Tour Pro 3.
Better call quality, better spatial audio, the availability of a hi-res codec, and being able to use the case as a transmitter — I asked for all of these improvements in my review of the JBL Tour Pro 2. The $300 Tour Pro 3 have them all and more: dual drivers, Auracast support, and a surprising feature that audiophiles and gamers will love.
It felt like JBL dared me to find a problem with the Tour Pro 3, so I spent two weeks trying. Spoiler alert: I failed.
Here’s what you need to know about JBL’s latest flagship.
Bigger and smaller
- 1.
The JBL Tour Pro 3 (left) and Tour Pro 2 - 2.
The JBL Tour Pro 3 (left) and Tour Pro 2
The Tour Pro 2’s most eye-catching feature was the color touchscreen on the charging case. It returns on the Pro 3, but now it’s 30% bigger, while the case itself is a little smaller. It’s still a bit bulky and heavy when compared to something as svelte as the Apple AirPods Pro. But given what the Tour Pro 3’s case can do, that’s like saying an SUV is bulky and heavy compared to a sports car.
You still get wireless or USB-C charging. But if you look closely at the USB-C port area, you’ll notice a small hole that wasn’t there on the Tour Pro 2. JBL tells me that’s a speaker opening for the as-yet-unreleased Find My locator feature, which is planned for a future firmware update.
- 1.
The JBL Tour Pro 3 (left) and Tour Pro 2 - 2.
The JBL Tour Pro 3 (left) and Tour Pro 2
At first glance, the earbuds appear unchanged. But look a little closer and they’re actually a bit thicker (likely to make room for the new drivers) and now include an additional external mic grille. They’re also more robust, with an IP55 rating for dust and water resistance. JBL recognized that not everyone got a good fit with the Tour Pro 2’s three sizes of eartips, so there are now six sizes, and the largest set is made of memory foam.
Tons of utility
The Tour Pro 3’s case is unprecedented in terms of functionality — it’s like Batman’s utility belt. The list is huge: playback control (play/pause, track skipping), volume control, ANC/transparency modes, control over spatial audio settings, the ability to choose EQ presets, and Find My buds — and those are just six of the 18 features you can control. That’s a vast increase over the features on the Tour Pro 2, so I was relieved to discover that you can reorder them (and turn some of them off) in the JBL Headphones app.
Most of what you can do on the case can be accomplished via your phone, the JBL Headphones app, or the earbuds’ touch controls, which led me to be a bit skeptical of the touchscreen’s value on the Tour Pro 2.
But the Tour Pro 3 are a different beast. When connected to a wired source of audio, the case takes over communication with the earbuds, severing the app’s Bluetooth link. In these scenarios, the smart case becomes the only way to adjust certain settings — unless you use the case’s audio source screen to switch back to the Bluetooth connection.
The future is Auracast
As Bluetooth Auracast becomes more common, using the case to find and listen to Auracasts (or share wired sources via Auracast) will be very handy.
I tried both of these activities using the Tour Pro 3 and a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra (one of the few smartphones that can currently transmit and receive Auracasts) and they worked seamlessly. This is good news for Auracast as a technology — if it’s not easy, no one will want to use it.
The case can receive Auracasts if the broadcast hasn’t been password-protected. Accessing protected streams must be done with the app. However, when transmitting Auracasts from the case, you can do it both ways: free of restrictions or with a four-digit PIN.
Two new codecs
With the addition of Sony’s LDAC hi-res codec, the Tour Pro 3 can stream high-quality audio from compatible Android devices. The iPhone, meanwhile, doesn’t support LDAC or any hi-res audio codecs. The difference can be quite noticeable. AAC, the default codec for iPhones, tends to emphasize lows and highs at the expense of midrange detail. With LDAC, the Tour Pro 3 sound more relaxed and balanced. Increasing the volume lets you hear more detail without increasing harshness.
LDAC isn’t the only hi-res codec that JBL has integrated. The Tour Pro 3 are also LC3plus-compatible. That’s the newest Bluetooth codec on the block and (on paper at least), it offers all of the benefits of LDAC, with lower latency and better error correction.
On its own, LC3plus isn’t very useful. Very few phones currently support it. However, the Tour Pro 3’s case uses LC3plus when communicating with the earbuds. And that means if you plug the case into a computer or phone, you automatically get the benefits of LC3plus. This even works on older Lightning-equipped iPhones, but you’ll need to buy your own OTG Lightning-to-USB-C cable.
Supercharged calling
The Tour Pro 3 are much improved over the second-gen when it comes to calls. Your voice will still wobble a bit when the earbuds attempt to squelch sounds around you, but it’s no longer a deal-breaker. Thanks to improvements in JBL’s VoiceAware (also known as sidetone) you can now hear your own voice as clearly as your callers can.
The big upside to calls on the Tour Pro 3 once again is driven by the case. Plugging it into a USB-C source like a laptop lets the buds communicate using the case’s ultra-low-latency wireless link. Along with LC3plus’ high-quality audio, this makes the Tour Pro 3 superb for things like Microsoft Teams calls. In fact, they’re also Zoom-certified when used with the case. The only drawback is that the wireless range can be quite short. In my testing, I could only get about 10 to 15 feet away from the case before my voice dropped out entirely.
Better ANC
I had no complaints about noise cancellation on the Tour Pro 2, and the third generation offers subtle, but noticeable improvements. They effortlessly killed a variety of distractions, from lumbering trucks to the sound of our vacuum cleaner. The real improvement, as I alluded to in the calling section, is the transparency portion. Being able to hear your own voice more clearly makes a feature like TalkThru (which dips the volume of your audio when you enter transparency mode) more enjoyable.
JBL has also added Smart Talk, which switches into transparency mode and pauses your audio automatically when you start talking — it’s one of my favorite new features. I’m also a fan of how fast you can switch between ANC and transparency modes. It’s almost instant, while other earbuds can take 2 seconds or more.
Transparency still isn’t as good as on the Apple AirPods Pro 2, which is a bit frustrating at this price. Still, in my experience, only the Sony WF-1000XM5 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds come close to Apple on transparency.
Personal Sound Amplification (a hearing enhancer for busy environments) returns on the Tour Pro 3, and it also benefits from improved transparency performance.
Silky sound
Switching to a dual-driver arrangement in the Tour Pro 3 has given these earbuds better performance than their predecessors. But like many audio refinements in flagship products, this is all about subtleties and details. If you’re on public transit or working out at a gym, it’s unlikely you’ll notice much difference.
The point of using a dynamic driver for mid and low frequencies and a balanced armature for the highs is to give each frequency range its own optimized signal path. In the case of the Tour Pro 3, this involves the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and the amplifier — there are two in each earbud.
In a quiet location, you may hear the additional clarity this architecture allows. It was most noticeable on tracks that combine deep bass hits with vocals, like Billie Eilish’s bad guy. I could hear Elish’s whispery lyrics float above the throbbing bass line, instead of getting smeared by it.
Out of the box, with the equalizer turned off, the Tour Pro 3 have a slightly bass-forward sound signature that is otherwise quite neutral. If that doesn’t suit you, the available EQ presets and the 10-band equalizer give you tons of control to get the balance dialed into your preferences. There’s also JBL’s Personi-Fi custom tuning tool, which attempts to adjust EQ based on a hearing test. I didn’t like the results (it created a kind of hollow sound), but the test is only a few minutes long, so it’s worth trying.
I like that the app lets you save your own EQ formulas, but unfortunately, these aren’t uploaded to the smart case, so you can’t access them when connected to a wired source.
Speaking of wired sources, the case’s low-latency connection is great for watching videos — I didn’t notice any lip-sync delay at all. I didn’t try it with any video games, but LC3plus has a lower latency than AAC, LDAC, or even aptX Low Latency, so it should be great for gaming too.
Quality-wise, using USB-C easily outperformed using the analog connection, which isn’t surprising. Analog sources must be converted to digital before being compressed for wireless streaming — a step the case doesn’t need to take with digital sources.
New spatial audio
On the Tour Pro 2, I noted that JBL’s spatial audio setting didn’t impress me as much as listening to a true Dolby Atmos Music mix from a service like Apple Music. Perhaps it’s the new driver setup, but I’ve changed my mind on the Tour Pro 3.
Enabling spatial audio using the Music mode (as opposed to Movie or Game) creates a greatly expanded soundstage. On some tracks, like Charlie Mingus’ Things Ain’t What They Used to Be, it gives the performance more space, while simultaneously boosting the low end a bit, adding greater resonance to Mingus’ bass work. But it can be unpredictable. I would have expected Dave Brubeck’s Take Five, another bass-rich jazz standard, to benefit from spatial in the same way, however, it robbed that track of much of its soft textures. In other words, your mileage may vary.
Head tracking (new on the Pro 3) does exactly what you would expect, keeping major song elements fixed in space as you turn your head left and right. It also works well when watching video content, as it keeps voices anchored to the screen’s location instead of moving with your head.
This can be a lot of fun when using the case to transmit a source like your TV’s headphone output, except for one annoyance: the case’s spatial controls are disabled when connected to wired sources. If you want spatial sound, you need to enable it when in Bluetooth mode and then switch to your wired source (and vice versa).
Sadly, spatial audio, whether fixed or head-tracked, isn’t compatible with the LDAC codec.
Controls
I have complained loudly about JBL’s odd control settings in the past. But the company remains steadfast. You can control ANC, volume, and playback, but only two can be active at the same time. Want to control volume and playback? You’ll lose ANC. Like ANC and playback? No volume control for you.
Given how many companies have figured out how to give customers control over everything (plus the freedom to assign gestures as they see fit), I’m not sure what’s holding JBL back.
Still, the earbuds are very responsive to taps, and the wear sensors do a great job of auto-pausing your tunes when you remove one.
Battery life
That big charging case gives the Tour Pro 3 excellent stamina, with three full recharges for the earbuds. When using ANC, JBL says you’ll get up to 8 hours of playtime, which goes up to 11 hours when ANC is off. That means a total time of between 32 and 44 hours, which should be plenty, even for the longest flights.
JBL doesn’t give separate numbers for battery life when using the case as a transmitter, but it may end up being a wash: the earbuds will likely consume less battery life because the LC3plus codec is very power efficient, and yet the case may consume more since it’s being asked to send and receive audio signals, a task that is usually handled by the phone.
What I can tell you is that LDAC always reduces battery life, sometimes by as much as 2 to 3 hours, because it’s very power-hungry when compared to other codecs.
Even more …
Yes, there’s even more I could say about the Tour Pro 3, but in the interest of space (and your attention span), I’ll just list a few of the extras I haven’t touched on:
- Google Fast Pair
- Microsoft Swift Pair
- Bluetooth Multipoint
- Find My Earbuds
- Silent Now (for ANC operation without Bluetooth)
- Customizable smart case wallpaper
Sure, $300 is certainly on the higher end of the wireless earbuds price spectrum, but the JBL Tour Pro 3 offer so many features that they’re an excellent value. They hit all of the important areas like sound quality, noise canceling, call quality, and battery life, and then they go even further with a slew of useful features like the case’s wired source connection, plus Auracast support.
If there’s a downside to the Tour Pro 3, it’s that they’ve got too much going on. The app (and the smart case) have a dizzying number of settings and features, which might simply put some people off. In many ways, the Tour Pro 3 are the antithesis of the Apple AirPods Pro, favoring a kitchen sink approach over Apple’s much more limited set of capabilities.
They aren’t for everyone, but if you like what they offer, they’re unbeatable.
