The JBL Tour series of products is designed for business professionals seeking functional audio gear with smart technology features. The JBL Tour Pro+ true wireless earbuds comes with a variety of features such as Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), to cater to the every needs of the target consumer. The JBL Tour Pro+ retails for S$299.
Unboxing
In the box, you will receive the following items:
- JBL Tour Pro+
- Charging case
- USB-A to USB-C cable
- Silicon ear tips “flat style” x3 pairs (S, M , L)
- Silicon ear tips “conical style” x2 pairs (M , L)
- User manual
Tech specs
| Driver | 6.8mm Dynamic Driver |
| Battery Life | 8 hours per full charge (6 hours with ANC) Total of 32 hours with charging case |
| Weight | Earbuds: 7.5g each Charging case: 56.8g |
| Bluetooth version | 5.0 |
| Water-resistance | IPX5 |
| Charging port | USB-C Support Qi-wireless charging |
| Smart Assistant | Google Assistant Amazon Alexa |
Build quality and features
The JBL Tour Pro+ has a rather different design language from their earbuds lineup. Both the case and earbuds feature a sleek, sophisticated design that give off a premium feel to it. The charging case is made of high quality plastic and has a modern gunmetal finish to it. The case has a rounded rectangular shape to it. Though it is small, it is quite thick so it may have a noticeable bump in your jeans pocket.
As for the earbuds, they follow the same gunmetal grey finish on its touch surface and feel very well build. Like the case, the earbuds have a substantial size to them. The lower part of the earbuds have a rubberized texture for better grip and hold in your ear. I do find that sometimes the earbuds do not latch on properly to the magnetic pins when I put them back in the case – which can be a little annoying at times. JBL Tour Pro+ is rated at IPX5, so it can definitely handle some light rain or sweat.
Controls
JBL Tour Pro+ utilizes touch controls, with each earbud given a designed set of controls such that you can control media playback and cycle through different noise control modes. Volume controls are not part of the media playback controls. As such, you have to sacrifice one or the other even though the app allows for customisation of controls (to be explained below). The touch controls are responsive, and have a slight haptic feedback and sound when you tap them.
The JBL Headphones app allows you to change the controls if you want to. However, you cannot specify what a single tap and double tap does. Instead, you are only able to choose between a set of controls that is pre-determined by JBL, as seen below:
You can also link the JBL Tour Pro+ to voice assistant such as Google Assistant, and use ‘Hey Google’ commands to perform the controls instead.
JBL Headphones App
The JBL Tour Pro+ is accompanied by the JBL Headphones App which provides you with greater levels of customisation to fine tune settings to your liking. Quality of life settings such as auto-play/pause, best fit check, find my buds are all available.
You can choose a default Ambient Sound Mode of Ambient Aware or TalkThru. Even the connection mode can be selected. I found not much difference terms of video-audio latency in YouTube in Audio Mode vs Video Mode.
Last but not least, there is an EQ function for you to tune the sound signature of the JBL Tour Pro+ if you don’t like the stock sound. You can either use one of the 3 EQ presets, or make your own custom EQ. I found that altering the EQ chart does create a noticeable difference in the overall sound. So if you would like to amp up the bass levels, you can create such an EQ to suit your taste.
Ambient Aware & TalkThru
Ambient Aware is essentially transparency mode which lets external sounds come into the earbuds, as though you are wearing an open-fit pair of earbuds. Ambient Aware on the JBL Tour Pro+ comes across rather natural. Human speech sounds realistic and well-toned. Other than some slight amplification of higher frequencies sounds and wind, nothing sounds overly-processed.
TalkThru on the other hand, does the same of letting external sounds into the earbuds, but at the same time mutes any media that is playing. The main purpose is for you to hear the other party talking clearly without any distractions, which could likely be a commonly used feature for business professionals.
Battery life
JBL Tour Pro+ is expected to last 8 hours on a full charge without ANC. If you use ANC, you can expect 6 hours of use. Together with the charging case, you can get up to a total of 32 hours, which should last you week for at least a week of use.
Charging is done via USB-C at the bottom of the case. JBL Tour Pro+ also supports wireless charging. Fast charging is supported, but you’ll have to do it wired whereby 10 minutes of charging will give you 1 hour of non-ANC play time.
Fit
Whether you get a good fit with the JBL Tour Pro+ largely depends on the ear tips used. Thankfully, JBL supplied 2 different types of ear tips – flat or conical, totalling to 5 different ear tips to choose from. I found the flatter profile of ear tips to provide a better seal.
As the JBL Tour Pro+ has quite a chunky profile, the earbuds will likely stick out of your ears if you have small ears. However, they do not move about easily in my ears once I wear them. Despite the bulky profile of the JBL Tour Pro+, the fit of the JBL Tour Pro+ I got was relaxed and comfortable as the nozzle doesn’t extend too deep into my ear canal. However, these earbuds may be too huge for individuals with smaller ears.
The type of ear tips used will largely determine the type of fit you get. As I was using the flatter style ear tip, the silicon ear tip felt well cushioned when fully extended in my ears. They nestle well in my ears, and I can potentially see myself wearing them for hours without ear fatigue.
The JBL Tour Pro+ comes with ear fins installed. You can remove it and swap it for a fin-less rubber covering. Personally, having the ear fin on or off didn’t make much of a difference in terms of fit and comfort.
Pairing, connectivity, and latency
JBL Tour Pro+ is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0, and pairing with the earbuds is very fast. If you are using an Android device, the JBL Tour Pro+ has Google’s Fast Pair technology to make the initial pairing very swift. It is also very quick on iOS devices as well.
Once you flip open the case, the JBL Tour Pro+ will go into pairing mode or start to pair with your smartphone. Connection was strong and stable, and there was no latency or lag when watching YouTube videos from the YouTube app on my iPhone 11. If you wish to use just one earbud, you can use either the left or right earbud.
Sound quality
The sound signature of the JBL Tour Pro+ is slightly different from the usual JBL sound which is a strong V-shaped sound that emphasizes on bass and treble. The JBL Tour Pro+ still has that energetic punch from bass and treble, but it has a more balanced and neutral tuning.
Bass is punchy and still offers enough rumble and reverb, but they aren’t as expansive as the usual JBL sound. It is more of a neutral warm bass than an immersive one. Midrange presents good levels of detail with the upper-mid frequencies being the emphasis. Vocals and instruments are forward and are delivered with clarity. Treble is clean and offer a bright sound. I did wish the upper treble offered a little more shine but that was easily tweaked in the EQ of the JBL Headphone app.
For those that prefer the more energetic JBL sound can simply use the JBL Headphone app to adjust the EQ – bringing up the bass and highs should do the trick. Sound imaging is accurate, while soundstage is more narrow and boxed in.
ANC performance
Active noise cancellation on the JBL Tour Pro+ is good but it is not in the same performance tier that the AirPods Pro and Sony WF-1000XM3 belong. JBL Tour Pro+‘s ANC is effective at eliminating a great amount of low frequencies noises. When I was commuting on the bus, the ANC was able to remove almost all of the noisy engine heard. Higher frequency noises such as train squeal and traffic can be removed to the point that they sound far away. Overall, the ANC performance is fair of its asking price. The earbuds that offer better ANC are those that are priced above S$299.
Microphone quality
Voice pickup is accurate and presents my voice clear and detailed with enough low end presence for a full sound. It is reliable using in a quiet and controlled environment, so business professionals can definitely rely on the JBL Tour Pro+ for their Zoom calls. In a noisy environment, the JBL Tour Pro+ is able to cancel out majority of the noise, but the voice pickup loses some of its accuracy as some gets cancelled together with the noise. Having said that, it is still useable and not threading the lines of ‘struggling’ yet.
Conclusion
The JBL Tour Pro+ is stacked with many functional features so that its main target consumers of business professionals can get the most out of it. In fact, the JBL Tour Pro+ is a pair of true wireless earbuds that does well in every aspect but does not really have a particular feature that is in flagship tier. It has a comfortable fit, reliable microphone, clear sound quality, and good implementation of ANC and transparency modes. For S$299, if you’re looking a complete all-rounder with a sleek modern design, then JBL Tour Pro+ is the one you’re looking for.