JBL Tour One M3 Smart Tx review: Sound thinking

Most premium headphones today follow a familiar playbook: cancel noise, sound good, and last through your commute. The JBL Tour One M3 do all that—but they also try sneaking in a new idea: a matchbox-sized gadget called the Smart Tx that blurs the line between old-school wired and modern wireless.

It’s an ambitious move for a pair already juggling comfort, long battery life, and serious noise canceling.The result? Headphones that feel familiar at first but start revealing its layers once you live with them. Light on the head, heavy on practicality, and packed with more smarts than you’d expect—the Tour One M3 are JBL’s most quietly confident pair yet. And as I found out over weeks of flights, workdays, and long listening sessions, there’s more to them than meets the spec sheet.

Light on its feet, heavy on comfort

Pick up the Tour One M3 and they feel... light. Not in a bad way, but certainly lighter than you'd expect for something approaching forty thousand rupees. The headband is metal, everything else is plastic, and they weigh just 278 grams. Theres isn't the dense, bank-vault heft, and you also won't find the premium materials that make some cans feel like jewellery for your head. But before dismissing them as plasticky, consider this: after wearing them continuously throughout workdays, on two cross-country flights, and during six-to-eight-hour stretches, they never once triggered a headache or that particular ear-crushing fatigue that plagues so many headphones.

That's the bargain JBL has struck. They've prioritised all-day wearability over the psychological comfort of heft. The ear cups are lined with memory foam that moulds painlessly around glasses, and the headband has similar cushioning. The clamping force is judged well—secure enough for walks without creating pressure points. Yes, the ear padding can get warm after a brisk walk, but that's hardly unique to these.There are audible creaks when you twist them, and the headband material feels thin enough that you'll treat it gingerly at first. But after weeks of being stuffed into bags alongside keys and cables, they've held up fine. No tears, no visible damage. The fold-flat design makes them genuinely portable, and the included case is both compact and clever—shaped like a giant guitar pick, with a mesh pouch for cables and a dedicated pocket for the Smart Tx.Controls are split between physical and touch. Volume buttons, ANC toggle, and a proper power slider handle the essentials, while touch gestures on the right ear cup manage playback and calls. The touch surface is overly sensitive—accidental pauses are common when adjusting fit—but the physical buttons feel reassuringly definite. There's an actual power slider instead of a long-press button, which is genuinely appreciated for those paranoid moments when you need to know your headphones are truly off.

Crowd-pleaser, as usual

Straight out of the box, the Tour One M3 deliver exactly what you'd expect from JBL: fun, slightly exuberant sound with plenty of low-end presence. Bass notes have oomph without turning into mush, high frequencies have clarity without sharpness. Put on Daft Punk's "Around the World" and the bass is strong without overwhelming everything else. The opening bars of Phil Collins and Philip Bailey's "Easy Lover" showcase those splashy '80s synths without making you wince—the shine is there, but it doesn't blind.Switch to something with more texture, like Burial's "Phoneglow," and you'll notice the treble could use more bite. Attack cues feel slightly dulled, that initial snap of a drum strike isn't quite as crisp as it should be. There's a pronounced under-emphasis between 3-7kHz that impacts spatial cues and the illusion of detail. But here's the thing: it's easily addressable. A few tweaks in the app's 12-band EQ, or switching to one of the presets like Jazz or Club, and suddenly everything clicks into place.Spend an afternoon with A.R. Rahman's "Jai Ho" and you'll hear why people buy these. Each layer of instrumentation is distinctly audible, the soundstage has enough space to let you roam around and explore different pockets. Play John Mayer's "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" and the guitar sounds crisp without harshness. The emotional depth in Sonu Nigam's "Kal Ho Naa Ho" comes through beautifully, vocals rendered with warmth rather than clinical precision.These are not analytical headphones. If you want surgical precision, Sony’s and Bose will definitely dig deeper into details. But, we need to understand here that the JBL pair aren't trying to dissect music—they're trying to make it enjoyable. For most listeners, the default tuning is perfectly pleasing, and for the rest, there's an app that would let them have a tuning of their preferences.

Silence, nearly perfected

With ANC engaged, setting down a mayo jar becomes silent. The refrigerator hum disappears.

Even closing the garage door barely registers with a podcast playing. These headphones actively cancel outside noise, loudest of it and isolate you excellently.The Tour One M3 come within a hair of Sony’s and Bose’s (okay, they might have be a pinch better). The adaptive mode adjusts automatically to surroundings, though you can manually dial in intensity if preferred. Low rumbles of engines and general chatter are dimmed effectively, though sudden spikes—like a passing motorbike—can still break through.Though, transparency mode is competent rather than spectacular. It lacks the natural tone, with minor muffling present. But it's good enough for quick conversations or checking surroundings without removing the headphones.If you’re someone who takes on call with their headphones, then the microphone array on the M3s does an admirable job reducing background noise. The voices sound a little thinner but words aren't lost.

Traffic, kitchen racket, general chaos: the Tour One M3 handle it all with aplomb.

Smarts that actually help

JBL's companion app is overwhelming in the best and worst ways. There's Personi-fi personalised listening that tests your hearing and adapts audio accordingly. A 12-band custom EQ. Personal sound amplification to make nearby voices easier to hear. Spatial audio with head tracking. Relaxation tracks. Left/right balance adjustment.

Volume limiters. Call quality optimisation that lets you adjust how both you and your caller sound.It's easy to navigate, genuinely helpful, and occasionally too clever for its own good. The automatic EQ adjustment based on a hearing test actually works well—the resulting sound isn't heavy-handed or lopsided, which is more than can be said for most implementations. The six EQ presets cover enough ground that most people should find something they like, and switching between them is convenient whether you're using the app or the Smart Tx.One frustration: enable LDAC Bluetooth and JBL locks off many audio-related settings. Want spatial sound with hi-res wireless? Too bad—step down to SBC codec first. That's an irritating compromise for a premium product.Now, about that Smart Tx transmitter. It looks like a pager from 2000, no bigger than a pack of matches, with smooth edges for sliding in and out of pockets. The touchscreen interface mirrors what JBL built into the Tour Pro 3 earbuds' charging case—you can swap EQ presets, adjust noise cancellation, control playback, check notifications, even use it as a flashlight or timer.

Album art is missing, but ID3 tags show what's playing.It’s essentially JBL’s companion app built into a dedicated hardware of its own. The real magic happens when you plug it into non-wireless sources. Use the included cable to connect to a plane's entertainment system, and there's no discernible latency—just the luxury of being untethered from the seat in front of you. It can act as a pocket DAC for hi-res streaming from wired audio gear. With Auracast transmission, it can share sound with multiple compatible headphones simultaneously, so traveling families or friend groups can all listen to the same movie. It's genuinely clever stuff, the kind of flexibility we lost when the world went wireless. But here's the catch: only a handful of devices support Auracast yet. Back to the smart Tx; For most people, it will live in its pouch within the travel case for safety, another thing to charge (18 hours of battery), another thing to remember, another thing to potentially lose in couch cushions.

One more thing to use, one more thing to lose.While, frequent travellers may somehow find to love it, everyone else may simply forget it exists.

Charge it and forget it

If there's an area where JBL's more-is-more philosophy pays clear dividends, it's battery life. The claimed 40 hours with ANC enabled, extending to 70 hours without, exceeds practical requirements by substantial margins. During three weeks of using these, I charged them twice—once out of habit rather than necessity.This generosity eliminates battery anxiety completely. You don't think about charge levels or carry cables preemptively. The headphones simply work, consistently, without requiring attention or planning. For a portable device, this reliability matters more than any spec sheet suggests.

Practical excellence

The Tour One M3 succeed by understanding their audience without trying to please everyone. They're comfortable headphones with excellent noise canceling and marathon battery life, wrapped in practical rather than premium materials.

The sound signature prioritises enjoyment over analysis, which works for most listening but occasionally needs EQ assistance to truly shine.At Rs 39,999, they're expensive without feeling overpriced. The plastic-heavy build might disappoint those seeking luxury aesthetics, but the comfort and functionality deliver where it matters. Exceptional battery life means charging becomes a weekly rather than daily concern.

Noise canceling rivals the class leaders. The feature set feels comprehensive rather than gimmicky.They're not trying to be the best-sounding headphones or the most luxurious-feeling. But that doesn’t mean they fall short on either — they simply choose balance over bragging rights. These are exceptionally good at specific things that matter: blocking noise effectively, lasting absurdly long on charges, remaining comfortable through marathon listening sessions, and—if your lifestyle demands it—connecting to practically anything that produces audio.Sometimes that's exactly what you need. Sometimes it's more than you'll ever use. Figuring out which camp you're in determines whether these are brilliant or just pretty good.

Our rating: 3.5/5