Tour de Force - the new contender in the premium headphones category

The world of high-end active noise cancellation headphones has all the big names in personal audio – from Sony and Bose to Sennheiser and Sonos - showing off a big game. JBL arrives at the party all-guns-a-blazing with the Tour One M3 and while it gets a lot of the big-ticket items right, its appeal may lie in the smallest of details…and how it affords us a view into the future of headphones.

That small detail is the Smart Tx remote and transmitter, a small 35g pager-sized accessory that would be familiar to anyone who has looked at the Tour Pro 3 TWS earbuds. To begin with, the Smart Tx allows you to control your headphones’ performance and playback, and access some of the advanced features without having to reach into your pocket for the JBL Headphones app.

A closer look at JBL-Tour-One-M3-Smart-Tx

More importantly, if you’re looking to connect to a source that doesn’t support wireless connectivity – ageing in-flight entertainment systems or older analog audio sources are a big use case – you can use the Smart Tx as a transmitter without getting entangled in compatibility issues.

The transmitter allows you to pair multiple Auracast-compatible devices to it simultaneously, allowing a family to watch a movie/show at the same time, provided each of your headphones supports Auracast (JBL is one of the first and most ardent adopters of the new standard). Of course, as with any accessory, the Smart Tx is an extra thing to carry and yet another extra device to charge after its 18-hour battery runs out.

Elsewhere, the JBL Tour One M3 connects to your Bluetooth devices over Bluetooth 5.3, and supports SBC, AAC, LDAC, and LC3 codecs, plus lossless USB-C audio with the onboard digital to analog converter. Coupled with the Smart Tx accessory, that covers pretty much every audio source, and wired input is a big plus for purists. If you’re not carrying the Smart Tx (or choose to buy the variant without it), the headphones have tap controls on the right earcup along with dedicated buttons for ANC and volume. 

Pulling the Tour One M3 out of its compact, stylish case, I was less than enamoured by the initial visual impressions – the design felt a little too plain and conservative on the black variant I tested. However, the blue with gold accents looks decidedly better.

Most importantly, these are among the most comfortable travel headphones I’ve worn in a long while, with the faux-leather ear pads, plastic build, and padded headband providing multiple days of listening without an ounce of fatigue. That’s all the handier since they offer an impressive 40 hours of battery life with active noise cancellation on, and even longer without out, allowing one to use it over entire work weeks without having to recharge it. 

Now, JBL did not scrimp on the feature list, and the Tour One M3 checks all the boxes, and then some – multiband equalizer control, Google Fast Pairing and Find My functionality, and multi-point audio to connect to multiple Bluetooth devices. And then there’s talk-to-pause, personalized listening with a built-in hearing test, a volume limiter and support spatial audio.

The big-ticket items these cans get so right are ANC and audio quality. ANC is exceptional, making the Tour One M3 every bit the contender for the best ANC headphone out there, but the transparency mode leaves a bit to be desired.

Also, while I didn’t exactly jump with joy with the default, somewhat bland sonic signature of the headphones, it was easily remedied via the 12-band EQ to bump up the high frequencies a tad, or you could run the Personi-Fi feature to get a preset tailored to your exacting specifications. Once you settle on an audio profile you like, you’ll be rewarded with clean audio, brilliant instrument separation with an expansive soundstage. Design aside, these cans offer, in my opinion, something for everyone, and ought to be on your list if you’re spending big on a pair of travel headphones. 

Rating: 9/10

Price: Rs. 26,999 / Rs. 32,999 (with Smart Tx)

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