JBL unveiled the “Tour Series” this year with headphones and earbuds to grab its usual consumer base but also pull in some biz pros with its clean design and packed full of features. The JBL Tour One have just about everything in its package but is it still enough to satisfy?
Style
The JBL Tour One come in just one colorway with that being Black. There are accents of silver that go around the upper portion of the earcups where the hinges reside. The headphones themselves are a smooth sleek plastic from top to bottom with a leathery cushioned headband as well as some nice pillowy earcups. Like most JBL headphones these can either be folded up or swiveled out at your leisure.
JBL has gone with a touch sensitive panel on the right earcup that allows for play controls. Tap & Hold will bring up your voice assistant. Also on that side is buttons for volume controls, toggle for power/Bluetooth, and audio jack. On the left side is a Function I have sent for Ambient Sound. Tap & Hold and Function button can be customized to your liking via the JBL app. All the buttons and touches respond accurately without any delay.
JBL Tour One includes USB-C Cable, Carrying Case, Audio Cable, and Flight Adaptor
Features
To take full advantage of these headphones you want to download the JBL Headphones App. It will allow you to toggle options for ANC ranging from True Adaptive NC or Everyday Mode. For the Ambient side there is Ambient Aware and Talk Thru. There is also a mode if you want to lean the headphones more towards Audio, Video, or both. I mostly kept it on “Audio” and found everything to sound the same whether I watched video or listen to music.
Sound
These headphones feature dynamic 40mm drivers and are hi-res audio certified. You get a nice amount of clarity in the vocal department while listening to “Creep” by TLC or “Wake Up Love” by Teyana Taylor. I did find them to be lacking a bit in the bass department and this is fairly noticeable while playing “Jump Out the Face” by Meek Mill & Future. You could go in the EQ and turn on “Bass” I felt it didn’t do much but push the vocals back.
Experience
I used the JBL Tour One for the past couple weeks in various areas ranging from riding on my daily commute to taking a trip across the country from NYC to Las Vegas. Wearing them for long periods of time (4+ hrs.) I didn’t find them to provide any discomfort and stayed synced up all through out. I do have some issue with the ANC on these headphones though.
As mentioned, these feature “True Adaptive Noise Cancelling” but they may adapt a bit too much. It’s supposed to be for if you are going into different environments and they would change which is true… at times. For my flights and train rides there would be times where they would block noise out and at other times let the atmosphere in. Unfortunately, I would have to crank up the audio a bit to try and pass this obstacle. Outside walking the streets though they did fare better with its adapting ANC.
With battery life these are slated to give you 50 hours of playback or 25 hours if using Noise Cancelling. Seeing as I only used these with NC on, they did hold up for the most part. Just make sure to turn them off or activate the “auto-off” feature via the app.
They did sync up perfectly audio/video wise while watching almost a whole season of Black Summer Season 2 on Netflix on my flights. This is the same while watching content on apps such as YouTube too.
JBL Tour One were used a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 and iPhone 12 Pro
Verdict
I like the sleek design went with the JBL Tour One as there isn’t much over laying with previous over-ear iterations. They feel comfortable for long periods of time and have a great battery life. They sound good but could use a bit more bass while the ANC can be hit or miss as it adaptive a bit too much to its environment at times. With the JBL Tour One being $299.99 I’d hoped for a bit more putting up against similar brands in its price range.
