JBL may be best known in India for its wireless speakers and car audio systems, but the company’s headphones and earphones are also popular. With a huge range of products below Rs. 1,000 and going up to Rs. 25,000, covering various functions and form factors, JBL has something for buyers with any budget and requirement. Today, I’m reviewing the flagship product in JBL’s personal audio lineup, the Tour One Over-Ear Wireless Headphones with Active Noise Cancellation.
24,999, priced at Rs. JBL Tour One Nice design, offers a lot including useful features like active noise cancellation, touch controls and app support. It promises good sound quality and battery life. Is JBL Tour One a capable challenger for the defending champions in the region? Sony WH-1000XM4, Find out in this review.
At its price, the JBL Tour One goes up against competition from brands like Sony and Bose
Physical buttons and touch controls on the JBL Tour One
Premium over-ear headphones are typically large enough to completely cover the wearer’s ears and create a snug fit with proper noise isolation. However, it helps the headphones not to be unnecessarily bulky, so that wearing them is comfortable and convenient for long periods of time. The JBL Tour One manages that balance with a much sleeker form factor than the company’s previous flagships club one Headphones.
Available only in black, the JBL Tour One looks and feels very sophisticated. The ear cups and headband are mostly matte black, with reflective black strips accenting the sides of the ear cups and the area just below the headband. The JBL and ‘Tour One’ logo can be seen in different places on the headphones, and the underside of the leatherette headband is padded for comfort. The headset is lightweight and was very comfortable to wear over long listening sessions, but I needed to adjust my glasses to maintain the noise-isolating seal.
Power and pairing functions are controlled with a sliding switch on the JBL Tour One’s right earcup; Flicking it in the middle turns the headphones on, and holding it in the lowest position for a few seconds puts it into pairing mode. There are also dedicated buttons for adjusting the volume on the right earcup and customizable buttons on the left. There’s a 2.5mm socket for connecting the included stereo cable for wired listening, and a USB Type-C port for charging.
The JBL Tour One uses a four-microphone system for voice pickup and active noise cancellation, with two facing forward, the third to one side and the fourth one inside the ear cup. The outer part of the right ear is sensitive to touch. You can tap it to control playback and answer or disconnect calls.
I found the touch controls a bit sly. They were easy to trigger accidentally, and sometimes didn’t register a double or triple tap. It also has wear detection that automatically pauses or resumes your music when the Tour One headphones are turned off or on, and that worked well for me.
The JBL Tour One works with the JBL Headphones app, which is available for iOS And Android, This app displays the headphones’ estimated battery level and lets you customize and adjust various functions and settings, such as active noise cancellation, ambient sound mode, and talk-through mode. There’s also a ‘Smart Audio Mode’ for audio quality, stability and latency improvements, equalizer settings, touch controls, customizable button controls, and voice assistant settings, among other things.
The programmable buttons on the JBL Tour One can be used to control ANC and transparency modes, or to invoke the voice assistant on your smartphone.
The programmable buttons on the JBL Tour One can be set to either cycle between ANC and ambient sound modes, or invoke the voice assistant on your smartphone via a long press. Besides Siri on iOS and Google Assistant on Android, it also supports Amazon Alexa. A long press can also be set on the touch-sensitive zone to control ANC and transparency modes or to activate the talk-through function that quickly turns down the audio volume and allows you to hold a conversation.
It’s a very functional app, which allows you to set up the JBL Tour One exactly as you want, and update its firmware as needed. Worth noting is the ability to quickly set active noise cancellation and transparency modes according to the environment, and I also often tweaked the equalizer to find the right settings for the particular style of music I was listening to. .
The JBL Tour One has 40mm dynamic drivers, and uses Bluetooth 5 for connectivity, along with support for the SBC and AAC Bluetooth codecs. The lack of support for advanced Bluetooth codecs is a bit disappointing at this price. The frequency response range is 10-40,000 Hz (when used in passive mode with a stereo cable) and 10-22,000 Hz when used with Bluetooth. The sale package includes a hard carry case, a stereo cable for wired connectivity, an airplane adapter, and a charging cable.
The battery life of the JBL Tour One was excellent. It lasted about 30 hours on a single charge with active noise cancellation and volume at a moderate level, but this will vary slightly depending on your usage. Charging was also fairly quick, with the headset fully charged in about two hours when using the included cable and 10W power adapter.
Clean, balanced sound on JBL Tour One
High-end headphones come with good sound quality expected, and the JBL Tour One pretty much delivers a refreshingly neutral and adaptable sound on it. That said, the lack of support for advanced Bluetooth codecs held these headphones a bit behind for detail and definition in sound depending on the source device.
I’ve used JBL Tour One for music, calls and video content iphone 13 as my primary source, but I paired these headphones with an Android smartphone and a MacBook Air for reference. Using the app it’s possible to customize the sound for specific tasks like listening to music or watching videos, and it seems to help improve each use case a little bit.
My initial impressions of the JBL Tour One’s sound quality were fairly neutral, but over time, and listening to music in a wide range of genres, I came to quite prefer its balanced sound. Listening to Where You Go by Avalanche, I enjoyed the headphones’ ability to adapt to its different speeds. The slow vocal-based buildup of this track sounded gentle and refined, and the headphones were still almost seamlessly optimized for their fast, rhythmic sections.
The clean and balanced sound is refreshing and enjoyable, but the lack of an advanced Bluetooth codec holds the JBL Tour One a bit behind
The lows seemed comfortable, yet there wasn’t enough attack and drive to lose in the more capable mid-range and highs. This adaptable and flexible approach to sound was also evident in fast tracks such as Yeke Yeke by Stylo and Space Motion, allowing fast beats to be heard alongside catchy traditional African vocals from Guinea singer Mori Kante.
It certainly helps to keep the active noise cancellation turned on, and the volume at a high level—about 80 percentage points—to get the best nuance and character out of these headphones.
The level of detail on offer, and the lack of all-out drive and attack hold the JBL Tour One slightly behind, when compared to similarly priced competition such as Sony WH-1000XM4, Tour One tries hard to bring some fun to the table, and listeners looking for balance and a lack of ‘adulteration’ in sound will appreciate the JBL Tour One’s sonic signature, but the top is missing just a bit.
Active noise cancellation on the JBL Tour One was good, as you should expect from a high-end headset. It’s geared more for typical outside noise, and doesn’t perform as impressively indoors. That said, there was still a significant reduction in typical household noises such as the rumble of a ceiling fan, but the Tour One didn’t silence these sounds as effectively as some competing products can. Voices and sounds of activity were a soft signal.
Outside, especially when driving on the road, the JBL Tour One did a good job of reducing noise, ensuring I could hear music and audiobooks clearly. I was able to have a fair conversation over phone calls as well. Ambient sound and talk-through modes allow you to hear your surroundings without taking the headphones off, but the sound felt a bit artificial and unnecessarily amplified in noisy environments. Bluetooth connectivity on the headset was steady for me at distances of up to 4 meters.
Decision
The premium wireless headphone segment is dominated by a handful of brands such as Sony, Apple and Bose. As an established name in the headphone industry, JBL has so far lacked a capable alternative in this price segment. The JBL Tour One is, in my opinion, a capable pair of wireless active noise-canceling headphones for Rs. 25,000. It offers a clean, balanced sound signature, good active noise cancellation, excellent battery life, and plenty of cool features including an excellent and detailed companion app that lets you customize the headphones to your liking.
It’s also a pretty good-looking and comfortable pair of headphones, but held back in a few notable ways, including a lack of support for advanced Bluetooth codecs, a bit of control, and a definite lack of detail and attack in the sound. Is. Active noise cancellation, while decent, isn’t quite class-leading on these headphones. It is officially priced around Rs. 5,000 less than the Sony WH-1000XM4, and even with that difference in prices, it might still be worth considering the JBL Tour One.
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