1. The list in brief
2. Best budget
3. Best mid-range
4. Best premium
5. How to choose
6. How we test
7. Recent updates
JBL might not have quite the same cachet as Sony, Bose or Sennheiser when it comes to headphones, but the American brand makes some of the best value-for-money pairs you can buy. The problem is there are so many different models to choose from, making it tough to know which ones are right for you – and that’s where we come in.
Our team of experts have tested every product on this list, assessing them based on their sound, build and features, before giving them an overall rating and deciding whether they’re good enough to be recommended among the best you can buy. You can learn more about our processes in the 'How we test' section at the bottom of this page.
So whether you’re in the market for a pair of budget buds, or want to splurge on something a little more premium without breaking the bank, JBL has something for everyone – and if it’s on this list you can be sure it’s a product worth parting with your cash for.
You'll find more buying tips below, along with What Hi-Fi?'s definitive list of the best JBL headphones.
Recent updates
January 16th: removed any JBL headphones that are end of life and added JBL Live Beam 3 and JBL Tour Pro 3 as the 'best premium' and 'best mid-range' options respectively
The quick list
They’re the most affordable pair on this list, but the Live Pro 2 are still packed with features and put in a punchy performance.
With similar features to the flagship pair but at a much lower price, there’s a lot to like about the Live Beam 3.
A clever case, extensive codec support, solid sound and effective noise-cancelling make the Tour Pro 3 a very decent premium option.
I’m deputy editor of What Hi-Fi? and in my 20 years as a tech journalist I’ve tried more headphones than most people will use in their lifetime. That includes pocket-money options and high-end wired pairs, but I’m most interested in finding the best pairs that represent unbeatable performance per pound, which is what JBL aims to offer. The US brand’s range can be hard to navigate, with many similar-looking products available, but you’ll only find the ones we recommend on the list below.
The best budget JBL earbuds
It’s possible these days to pick up a pair of true wireless earbuds for the price of a (small) round of drinks in a London pub, but those entry level models usually only offer the bare minimum when it comes to features. JBL’s Live Pro 2 TWS are a tad pricier, but they're also slightly better-specced than the very cheapest options out there.
They look decent for the price, with their mirrored finish elevating them above their similarly-priced peers. They're a comfortable fit – if not quite as secure as some pairs – and have extras that are above what we expect at this level. These include wireless charging, IPX5 water-resistance (most affordable pairs are IPX4), and Bluetooth Multipoint which lets you seamlessly switch between devices without having to reconnect to each. And at 30 hours (including the case), the battery life is up there with pricier pairs.
The noise-cancelling feature is impressive, automatically adjusting to the optimum level depending on your environment. And the sound? There’s no aptX HD or LDAC support but the Live Pro 2 deliver a solid and robust sound that’s also clear and insightful. They’re not what you’d call subtle but for this price they’re absolutely worthy of the five stars we awarded in our review.
Read the full JBL Live Pro 2 TWS review
The best mid-range JBL earbuds
If you like the idea of a charging case with a screen but don’t fancy forking out flagship money for the Tour Pro 3 (below), the Live Beam 3 might be a better bet.
The touchscreen on the Live Beam 3’s case allows you to control volume and playback, adjust the noise-cancelling, and fiddle with various other settings without having to take your phone from your pocket and fire up the app, but unlike the Tour Pro 3 it doesn’t double as a wireless transmitter. The whole package is slightly more compact, though, which is handy when it comes to tucking it into your pocket.
How useful you find the screen will come down to personal preference, but if you like to customise how your buds sound JBL has provided a bunch of different sliders to experiment with, including ones for voice calls and how much of the outside world the noise-cancelling lets in. ANC is effective as long as you’re not expecting flagship-rivalling performance.
At this kind of price you want a pair of earbuds to be sonically welcoming and that’s exactly that you get here. In an ideal world they’d reveal more detail and deliver more dynamic punch, but they’re livelier and more fun to listen to than a lot of similarly priced rivals, with a nice balance between the frequencies.
Some might find the number of features here unnecessary, and one member of the What Hi-Fi? team struggled to find a pair of eartips that fit securely, but you won’t find many pairs of mid-range earbuds that offer this much for this money.
Read the full JBL Live Beam 3 review
The best premium JBL earbuds
The Tour Pro 3 are by some distance the most expensive pair of JBL headphones What Hi-Fi? has ever tested – but the price is justified somewhat by the almost never ending list of features on offer.
Most obvious is the small touchscreen on the front of the charging case, which provides an alternative to the JBL Headphones companion app when it comes to tweaking settings or accessing the Find My Buds feature, while the case also doubles as a wireless transmitter if you plug it into a 3.5mm or USB output.
The latter is less gimmicky than the former, and while it's less eye-catching the extensive codec support is arguably even more useful. SBC, AAC and Sony’s LDAC are all supported (providing you have a suitably specced source, of course); there’s a specific mode that prevents lip-syncing issues when watching videos; and Smart Talk allows you to hold a conversation without removing the buds from your ears.
Of course, none of this would mean anything if the audio performance wasn’t up to scratch, and while the Tour Pro 3 lack the sonic finesse of the very best in-ears they still produce a very solid, entertaining and mature sound. Noise-cancelling can’t compete with the best from Bose but it still does a good job of minimising the racket made by public transport.
Add in the comfortable fit offered by the various eartips that come in the box and there’s plenty here to justify that price tag.
Read the full JBL Tour Pro 3 review
How to choose the best JBL headphones for you
Picking the perfect pair of headphones isn’t easy, but there are a couple of big questions you can ask yourself to help narrow down the options significantly.
First you need to settle on a budget and decide whether you want a pair of in-ear or over-ear headphones. If you’re likely to do most of your listening on the go, a pair of buds that you can slip into a pocket when you’re not using them probably makes most sense, while over-ears tend to be more comfortable for longer listening periods. If most of your listening is likely to happen at home, you might even want to look elsewhere for a wired pair, but Bluetooth is very much the king of convenience.
If you’re going to be using them out and about you’ll probably want to pick a pair that has noise-cancelling. This used to be a feature reserved for more premium pairs of headphones but in recent years it has filtered down to the more affordable end of the market, although you’ll still have to pay more for the most effective examples of the tech.
A lot of headphones now come with an IP rating, which indicates how robust they are when encountering water or dirt. If you plan to use yours while exercising it’s worth paying attention to this to make sure they can withstand being soaked in sweat or caught in an unexpected downpour. And if you plan on wearing them during particularly rigorous workouts, some extra help to ensure they stay in your ears might be necessary.
How we test JBL headphones
The way we test JBL headphones is the same as a pair from any other brand: exhaustively, objectively, and through the lens of many decades of experience.
What Hi-Fi? has specially designed testing rooms that provide a controlled environment for evaluating sound quality without external disruptions, but when testing a pair of headphones it’s also important to use them in the way you would: out in the real world.
When testing a pair of headphones we make sure to listen to various genres of music and use them in a variety of situations, including busy places that will expose any weaknesses in the noise-cancelling. Wearing them day-to-day is also the best way to get a feel for how they fit and whether the build quality is up to scratch.
When it comes to testing battery life it’s back to the lab where we can observe exactly how long a single charge will last and compare it to the figures provided by the manufacturer.
Each of our reviews is written by a single expert, but the overall rating is the result of a collaborative process involving the whole team, which creates consistency from one review to the next and stops any personal preferences sneaking into the verdicts. There’s also no input from PR reps or sales execs, so you can be 100% certain that any product that makes it into one of our Best Buy lists is there on its own merits.
For more on how we test products here at What Hi-Fi? click here.
Recent updates
- January 16th: removed any JBL headphones that are end of life and added JBL Live Beam 3 and JBL Tour Pro 3 as the 'best premium' and 'best mid-range' options respectively
MORE:
Our ultimate guide to the best over-ear headphones
On the move? Here are the best earbuds
Expert guide: How to choose the right pair of headphones
