JBL Tour One M3 review: Big ambition, smart extras and a few quirks

JBL’s Tour One M3 lands in India as a serious challenger to Sony and Sennheiser, priced at ₹26,999, with the optional Smart Tx transmitter adding another ₹6,000 on top. On paper, it is an impressive formula. You get 40 mm drivers, adaptive ANC, LDAC, spatial audio with head tracking, Hi-Res support, and a claimed forty hours of battery life with ANC enabled. The Smart Tx also promises freedom from the phone by giving you app-level controls on a pocket-sized dongle.

After two months of living with the Tour One M3, along with the Smart Tx transmitter, I came away with the sense that JBL has built one of its most feature-heavy headphones yet, but not without a few surprising contradictions.

Comfort and Design: Firm, Plush, and Easy to Wear All Day

The Tour One M3 strikes a nice balance between firmness and comfort. The clamping force is strong enough to hold steady during brisk walks and light jogging, but never crosses into painful territory. A lot of this comfort comes from the generous synthetic leather padding that lines the cups and the headband. It feels soft, distributes pressure evenly, and never made me adjust the headphones in irritation during long sessions.

At 278 grams, the weight is noticeable in the hand but rarely on the head. JBL’s padding and well-balanced frame make them feel lighter in actual use than they look. The large earcups accommodate most ear shapes easily. A few colleagues with different ear sizes tried the headphones and all of them found the fit natural and the enclosure secure.

The blue variant I tested looks stylish with a matte finish that gives the headphones a premium look. My only gripe is the construction of the earcups. For the price, the plastic feels a bit underwhelming. Sony’s XM series and Sennheiser’s Momentum line feel sturdier at similar prices.

The Tour One M3 also folds flat and inward, and the included hard case feels practical rather than bulky. It has a clip-on loop that can hang off a backpack or belt, useful when you are travelling or commuting with limited bag space.

The biggest flaw in the design is the touch panel. It is too sensitive. A slight brush against the right earcup often triggered a pause or track skip when I did not intend it. Sensitivity adjustment inside the app would help, but at the moment this remains an annoyance.

Controls and Usability: A Mix of Buttons, Gestures, and a Surprisingly Capable App

JBL keeps the physical buttons minimal. You get:

    •    A power and pairing button

    •    An ANC and Ambient Aware toggle

    •    A single volume rocker

Everything else is pushed to touch input or the JBL Headphones app.

Inside the app, you get more control than many flagship headphones provide. You can:

    •    Switch between ANC, Ambient Aware, and Talk Thru     •    Set how quickly Talk Thru activates     •    Adjust sound amplification levels     •    Enable or disable auto-play and pause     •    Configure the Smart Tx transmitter wallpaper and brightness     •    Customise touch gestures     •    Toggle LE Audio and LDAC     •    Choose EQ presets or fine-tune your own     •    Enable spatial audio in fixed or head tracking mode     •    Perform a Personi Fi hearing test     •    Balance left and right audio     •    Enable dynamic EQ for low volume listening     •    Activate relaxation soundscapes     •    Set auto power off timers

The feature depth is impressive. You can really tune the headphones to your preferences in ways that go beyond simple EQ sliders.

The only weird limitation is that LDAC and spatial audio cannot be active at the same time. These two technologies do not inherently conflict. Other brands let you enable both, so this feels like a software limitation JBL needs to address.

Audio: Clean, Clear, and Tunable

JBL’s 40 mm drivers deliver a crisp, clear mid and treble performance. Vocals, strings, and percussion sound clean out of the box, but the EQ options inside the app help shape the sound stage in a way that suits your taste. After tuning the high end using the EQ and Enabling Studio mode, I found the Tour One M3 sounding more open and more detailed than expected.

Bass performance is fine but not exceptional. These are not headphones that will delight bass-heavy listeners. The low end is present but lacks the physical impact that Sony’s XM5 series often delivers. If you prefer thump or rumble, you may be left wanting.

LDAC improves clarity noticeably, especially in vocals and acoustic recordings. Spatial audio with head tracking is fun for movies and specific tracks, although I personally preferred using spatial mode more often than LDAC. The fact that you must pick one or the other remains the Tour One M3’s most unfortunate limitation.

Noise Cancellation and Call Quality: Great in Tough Environments

The ANC here is genuinely strong. In an aeroplane, a noisy café, in an office with constant chatter, and even inside a car with loud music playing, the Tour One M3 consistently reduced the external noise to a dull background hum. It is easily among the better ANC experiences under ₹30,000.

Call quality is another area where JBL has delivered. Each earcup has four mics using the company’s True Adaptive Noise Cancelling 2.0 system. Even in the Delhi Metro during rush hour, callers could hear my voice clearly. Traffic noise and wind did slip in, especially during a motorcycle test, but the person on the other end never lost track of my words.

Smart Tx Transmitter: A Surprisingly Handy Accessory

The Smart Tx transmitter was the part I expected to ignore, and instead it became one of my favourite features. It gives you access to controls that are usually buried inside the JBL Headphones app. You can:     •    Switch ANC modes     •    Toggle spatial audio modes     •    Change EQ presets     •    Adjust volume     •    Play or pause tracks     •    Use voice aware features     •    Enable LDAC     •    Trigger Silent Now     •    Control device connections     •    Act as an Auracast transmitter

Auracast itself is still a futuristic idea due to limited compatible devices, so I was not able to test it fully. But the concept of streaming audio to multiple headphones from a single transmitter is exciting.

The biggest benefit of Smart Tx is independence. You do not need to pull out your phone to adjust modes, tweak sound, or switch audio sources. It genuinely changes the way you interact with the headphones.

Battery Life: Strong Endurance, Consistent Charging

JBL claims forty hours with ANC on and seventy hours with ANC off. In practice, I averaged around fifty hours with mixed-mode use. I used the headphones for about four to five hours per day and only had to charge them once every nine or ten days.

Charging from zero to full takes roughly two hours. Fast charging would have been nice, but the long battery life makes the slower speed manageable.

Verdict: Great Noise Cancellation and Comfort

The JBL Tour One M3 gets the fundamentals right. It is comfortable, sounds clean, offers strong ANC, and delivers stellar battery life. The call quality is impressive and the Smart Tx transmitter is a clever piece of tech that genuinely enhances usability.

However, the headphones fall short in a few key areas. The bass response lacks depth for those who want a more dynamic sound, the touch panel feels far too sensitive, and the plastic build does not feel premium enough for the price. The incompatibility between LDAC and spatial audio is the biggest puzzle, especially for a headphone marketed as a feature-rich flagship.

Still, the overall package is compelling for everyday listeners. If you want comfort, customisation, great ANC, and the convenience of Smart Tx, the JBL Tour One M3 delivers. Audiophiles and bass lovers might be better served elsewhere, but for most people, this is a balanced, reliable, and surprisingly clever pair of headphones.