JBL Tour One M3

The JBL Tour One M3 has great adaptive ANC, but that's its only real win. Sound quality is disappointing, battery life is one of the worst we've seen, and the mic is bad. Skip this bundle unless you get a massive discount and only care about noise cancelling.

The adaptive noise cancelling is genuinely the star of the show here, ranking in the 77th percentile and doing a solid job of hushing your surroundings. But that's where the good news mostly ends. Sound quality is a disappointing 25th percentile, meaning it gets beaten by the vast majority of over-ears we've tested. The battery life is one of the worst we've seen, landing in the 7th percentile, so you'll be reaching for the charger way more often than you'd like. Connectivity is just okay, and the mic performance for calls is a real letdown at the 20th percentile. It's a lopsided performance profile that leans heavily on its one good trick.

Stacked against the competition, the Tour One M3 really struggles. The Sony ULT WEAR will give you a much more fun and powerful sound signature for similar money. If you're after top-tier sound, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM 4 or Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 are in a completely different league, though they cost more. Even the Technics EAH-A800 offers a far more balanced and competent package. The JBL's one advantage is its solid ANC, but when rivals like the Apple AirPods Max deliver excellent noise cancellation alongside best-in-class build and sound, picking the JBL becomes a tough sell unless you absolutely need that specific bundle of extras.

At $257 for the whole bundle, the price tag might catch your eye, but you're getting a mixed bag. The core product, the Tour One M3 headphones, underperforms in too many critical areas to feel like a good deal. You're essentially paying for a strong ANC feature wrapped in a package with weak battery life, mediocre sound, and a poor mic. The bundled earbuds and software feel like padding to distract from the headphone's shortcomings. Unless you find this on a deep, deep discount, your money is better spent elsewhere.

The JBL Tour One M3 bundle is a bit of an odd duck. You're getting the main headphones, a pair of cheap JBL T110 earbuds, and some fitness software thrown in for around $257. It feels like a package designed to clear out inventory rather than a carefully curated deal. The headphones themselves promise adaptive ANC and JBL's signature sound, but the numbers tell a different story. Our database shows this model struggling in key areas, landing in the bottom 10% for battery life and well below average for sound quality. That's a tough starting point for any pair of cans, let alone ones with 'Tour' in the name.

Comfort and build are also middle-of-the-road at best, and the mic quality is a real weak spot for calls. The ANC is the one bright spot, performing well above average, but that alone can't carry the whole experience. If you're just looking at the spec sheet and the bundle extras, it might seem like a solid value. But once you dig into how these actually perform, the cracks start to show pretty quickly.

If you need all-day battery life or take frequent calls, look elsewhere because these fail hard in both areas. Audiophiles should also steer clear, as the sound quality is a weak spot that gets smoked by similarly priced options from Sony and Sennheiser.

You should only buy this if you find the bundle for a steal and your number one, non-negotiable priority is above-average noise cancelling on a tight budget. For everyone else, the significant trade-offs in sound, battery, and call quality make this a pass.