A familiar taste of quality sound

Audio brand JBL launched the Tour One headphones — a premium over-the-ear headphone — in India recently. The JBL Tour One headphones are priced at Rs 24,999. We got our hands on the headphones and here is what we think of the product.

JBL Tour One headphones: Design

The JBL Tour One are over-the-ear headphones that feel slightly heavy on the head initially but the fit is quite comfortable and the earcups enclose and settle around the ears nicely. The left earcup comes with a USB Type-C charging port and a button for the ANC. The right earcup comes with a Bluetooth toggle, the volume buttons and a port for the wired connection. The product does offer a wired connection too which you can use as per your choice.

The earcups of the JBL Tour One are connected with a metallic band which is enclosed by a cushiony covering at the top for resting comfortably on the head. The outside of the earcups and the outer body, owing to a matte-finish, registers fingerprints very faintly, so if you keep your headphones inside the protective cover after using them, you’ll not have to worry too much about their cleanliness aspect.

The inside of the earcups come with markings of ‘L’ and ‘R’ to help you identify the right way to wear the headphones. Two thin glossy metallic bands are also there on the earcups, one on each, to signify which one is the left/right earcup. Overall, the headphones have a premium, sober finish in a dark colour scheme.

JBL Tour One headphones: Performance

With high-bitrate music files, we had a mostly pleasant experience with the JBL Tour One. If you use a music streaming service which provides you songs with 320kbps bitrate and above, then you’ll have a good time with the JBL Tour One, with clear reproduction of vocals, optimum bass levels and clear treble output. The bass came out mostly balanced with Rock and instrument-heavy music and very balanced with Electronic House music. A few tracks that we listened to on the JBL Tour One were ‘I Hate Everything About You’ by Three Days Grace, ‘Familiar Taste of Poison’ and ‘Loves Bites (So Do I)’ by Halestorm, ‘Love Me Again’ by John Newman, ‘Are You With Me’ by Lost Frequencies and ‘Sugar’ (ft. Francesco Yates) by Robin Schulz.

Besides electronic music junkies, rock music fans also have something to look forward to with the Tour One, provided they use high-bitrate files. If you happen to be an EDM nut, the Tour One sounds excellent. Electronic music comes out rich and full, with crisp vocals and deep, heavy-hitting bass in case of a few songs that expressly need it. When it comes to Metal music, it could be a hit or miss with these headphones depending on the track.

We felt the sound comes off quite well in the 60-70% volume range when using a smartphone.

If you are going to use YouTube to listen (which we wouldn’t want you to but just in case) ramping up the volume levels to 80-90% will make it work for some of you; those who can listen at that loud volume for some tracks. If you are okay with jacking up the volume levels on YouTube, some genres like electronic and other soft music will sound just about well with these headphones. Otherwise, we wouldn’t recommend the JBL Tour One for a YouTube music video. And actually, it is not the fault of the headphone in this case as higher bit rate files on YouTube are few compared to the deluge of low-bit rate media there.

After listening to about an hour at volume levels 60-70, we could feel the ears warming up and after another song or two, it became necessary to lift the earcups up as it was getting uncomfortable. So after using it for more than an hour at a stretch, you might want to lift up the earcups as they can get warm.

With the Ambient Aware on, the background faint sounds that are there will be let in. Like suppose you are sitting on your balcony listening to music. With the Ambient Aware on, the very faint sounds in the air, like someone’s loud voice from a nearby house, the light sound of a breeze etc. can be clearly felt or if you are in office, the surrounding chatter will trickle in. Of course, shutting off Ambient Aware does not mean that loud noises will also be kept out but it does prevent the surrounding faint sounds from entering in.

We actually had a bit of a hard time pairing the headphones with a laptop over Bluetooth initially but with a smartphone, the pairing happened within seconds.

The JBL Tour One takes more than two hours to charge to full via a laptop. After a full charge, the JBL Tour One can go on for about 4-5 days if you use it for about an hour or so on average.

As for the Bluetooth range, it is close to a solid 10-12 meters so you can leave your phone in your room or cabin and move to the adjacent one wearing the headphones without any kind of connection issues. We found the connectivity to be quite strong in the range, with the walls and doors not affecting it.

Verdict

Sound-wise, the JBL Tour One headphones are great for listening to electronic music and good enough for some rock tracks too. The build is premium, the headphones are lightweight and have a very strong Bluetooth connectivity with a good range. If you listen mostly to electronic and soft music and sometimes rock, and want a premium option under Rs 30,000, the JBL Tour One is quite capable of bringing a smile to your face while listening.

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