I review headphones for a living, and I’d buy these over Sony, Bose, or Apple any day
I’ve been reviewing headphones for a few years now, and every year, the same three names always dominate the conversation: Sony, Bose, and Apple. They’re good. I won’t pretend otherwise. But “good” and “the best value for your money” can be two very different things, and after spending time with a personal pair of the JBL Tour One M3, I’m convinced the headphone space has a new answer for anyone who actually wants more from their $400. There’s a reason they made our best list, after all.
The battery difference is embarrassing
The JBL Tour One M3 delivers a whopping 55 hours and 37 minutes of playback with ANC on. That’s not a typo: that’s what we measured in our standardized testing.
For comparison, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra lasted 27 hours and 37 minutes in our testing. The AirPods Max lasted just over 20 hours. Sony’s WH-1000XM6 lasted 37 hours, which is respectable — but it’s still 18 hours behind.
If you travel internationally, commute daily, or simply hate being tethered to a charger, the leeway here makes a noticeable difference.
It connects to literally everything
Much more than a remote, the SMART Tx allows you to transmit audio to any Auracast-compatible headset.
Another area where the Tour One M3 pulls ahead of the competition is in connectivity. The headphones support wired USB-C lossless audio, analog 3.5mm, Bluetooth with SBC/AAC/LDAC/LC3, and Auracast. Sony’s WH-1000XM6, which costs $50 more, doesn’t support USB-C audio at all. The AirPods Max is essentially a paperweight if you’re not in Apple’s ecosystem.
The JBL SMART Tx accessory takes this further. It’s a small, remote transmitter that lets you plug any wired source — a turntable, an in-flight entertainment system, a game console — and broadcast the audio wirelessly to headphones via Auracast. You can even share that broadcast with multiple listeners at once, if they have Auracast-compatible devices.
The ANC and sound quality are right there with the best of them
Sony, Apple, and Bose have spent years owning the ANC conversation, but I have to say, the Tour One M3 matches them, and our objective testing shows it.
How much noise does the JBl Tour One M3 attenuate?
[sg_audio_chart product_id=”6297″ measurement_set=”RETEST DEFAULT SBC Nominal” chart_type=”isolation” target_id=”1″ limit=”false” /]
The JBL headphones attenuate outside noise by an average of 87%, just one percentile behind the original AirPods Max, and on par with the new Sony WH-1000XM6. It actively cancels around 30dB of noise below 1kHz, and the deep earcups provide strong passive isolation for higher frequencies.
The ear cups have angled drivers, are relatively deep, and have ample padding.
Now, I have to admit, the default sound wasn’t the best to begin with. There was a pronounced dip between 3–7kHz that made everything feel a little flat and dull. I opted to use the Jazz EQ preset, which helped a lot. Bass and treble both opened up, and the sense of spatial width and depth improved.
How would most people rate the sound quality of the JBL Tour One M3 out of 5?
Recently, however, JBL pushed a firmware update that refined the default tuning with a 3–5 dB boost in the 4–8 kHz range for added clarity, and a roughly 2 dB cleanup in the low-mids for more natural sound. JBL listened to the feedback and rolled out those tuning improvements to users at no extra cost.
The Tour One M3 sounds better today than the day it launched
That’s worth applauding, because not every brand uses firmware updates to give you more. For example, earlier this year, Bose pushed an update to the QuietComfort Ultra 2 that removed the battery level voice announcement, eliminated two Bluetooth shortcut controls, and offered no rollback option. So it’s nice to see that JBL went the other direction. The Tour One M3 is now a better-sounding product out of the box than it was at launch.
I also want to highlight the personal sound amplification (PSAP) mode. By turning up the transparency mode into something more like a hearing assistive device, JBL is doing something the big three haven’t prioritized at this price. Apple has done something adjacent with the AirPods Pro’s Hearing Aid feature, but it’s locked to their ecosystem. Here, it works regardless of what phone you’re carrying.
Are these the most underrated headphones?
The JBL Tour One M3 is an inventive set of ANC headphones that keep getting better.
At $399.95, the JBL Tour One M3 costs less than the Sony XM6 ($449.99) and significantly less than the AirPods Max ($549). For that price, you get best-in-class battery life, more connectivity options than any competitor, matched ANC performance, and a sound that rewards minimal EQ effort.
Sony still wins on mic performance, and its out-of-the-box sound quality. Apple still wins if you’re deep in its ecosystem. But for everyone else, anyone who values flexibility, better longevity, and getting more features for their money, the Tour One M3 is an easy recommendation.
