- Adaptive noise cancellation and spatial audio with head tracking
- Wireless transmitter included to stream from almost any source
- $399, on sale April 2025
JBL makes some of the most interesting headphones out there, and the recently announced JBL Tour One M3 has a very interesting component. JBL calls it the SMART Tx and it’s a small wireless transmitter that makes it easy to stream to your headphones from virtually any audio source and also share that audio with other people.
The specifications of the headphones are also quite interesting, with adaptive ANC, high-resolution Bluetooth streaming and lossless audio. Battery life is a promised 70 hours, and you can get five hours of playback from a five-minute quick charge.
JBL Tour One M3: key features and prices
The Tour One M3 headphones are built around newly developed 40mm mica dome drivers, and the sound they produce can be customized through the JBL Headphones app using JBL Personi-Fi 3.0 custom listening profiles. Those profiles include 12-band EQ and separate optimization for the left and right stereo channels. The headphones also feature JBL Spatial Sound with head tracking.
The Tour One M3 comes with version 2.0 of JBL’s adaptive noise cancellation, which uses eight microphones to hear the world around you and also offers customizable Ambient Aware and TalkThru modes to control what audio you want to let in. There is adaptive beamforming through four microphones so you sound clear on calls.
Bluetooth is 5.3 and supports Auracast streaming and receiving, and there’s a built-in DAC to deliver lossless audio over USB-C.
Auracast is one of the two tricks offered by the SMART Tx transmitter. First, the box allows you to connect your headphones to almost any audio source (USB-C or analog) and then stream your audio to your headphones in high-quality audio that also promises to be latency-free. But you can also share audio via Auracast with compatible devices, so you can connect the transmitter to your laptop and stream to as many people as you want. It’s an interesting idea and could potentially be a lot less complicated than constantly pairing devices or trying to find cables to connect.
The JBL Tour One M3 headphones with JBL SMART Tx will go on sale on April 13, 2025, in a choice of black, mocha or blue. The US price will be $399.95, which is roughly equivalent to £322 / AU$640.