JBL Tour Professional 2 Wi-fi Earbuds Evaluate: Recreation-Altering Case, Good Sound, Lengthy Battery Life

JBL’s Tour Professional 2 wi-fi earbuds are an thrilling newcomer to this fiercely aggressive product class. Along with a number of predictable audio efficiency upgrades, the legendary audio maker’s newest premium earphones rock a storage case with an onboard coloration touchscreen.

The colour touchscreen provides a brand new world of options to an in any other case ubiquitous accent. It was among the many the reason why the Tour Professional 2 wi-fi earbuds are one in every of our favourite merchandise of CES 2023.

I’ve been wanting ahead to testing the JBL Tour Professional 2 since their debut for the conversation-worthy case and $249.95 sticker. The latter locations the product in the identical league as big-name rivals with a confirmed file of excellence, such because the Apple AirPods Professional, the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, and the Sony WF-1000XM4. After every week as my go-to set, right here is how JBL’s newest earbuds stack up.

SCORES

Sound: 8/10
Consolation: 8/10
Design: 8/10
Battery Efficiency: 9/10
Total Rating: 8/10

JBL Tour Professional 2 at a Look

• Customizable sound and noise cancellation
• As much as 10 hours of battery life
• IPX5 waterproof

SOUND: 8/10

The Tour Professional 2 earbuds pack 10-millimeter audio drivers, tuned to ship JBL Professional Sound. In actual life, the last-mentioned time period interprets right into a sonic expertise with a noticeable concord between bass, treble, and mid-range. For comparability, the model’s lower-priced true wi-fi earbuds produce a sound with various ranges of enhanced bass.

As anticipated, the earbuds’ sound is customizable by way of a JBL cell app with an easy-to-navigate interface. The accessible instruments embody an elaborate number of equalizer presets and the choice to create your personal. It can save you the customized setting for fast and quick access.

There’s additionally the choice to create a sound profile tailor-made to your listening to by taking a listening to check. Dubbed Personi-fi 2.0, the function will think about your age, gender, and listening expertise. Setting it up takes a couple of minutes in a quiet house.

A buzzworthy new function that’s turning into frequent in wi-fi earbuds no matter their value level, spatial sound is unsurprisingly accessible on the Tour Professional 2 earbuds. The performance is powered by JBL tech, making the sonic expertise extra lifelike and pleasant.

I loved spatial sound whereas listening to dwell jazz and classical music tracks. I additionally favored having easy-to-access modes for music, video, and gameplay.

The earbuds’ noise cancellation is stellar, and given their sticker, I anticipated nothing much less. The Tour Professional 2 swiftly lowered the Midtown Manhattan visitors cacophony beneath my front room window to a barely audible hum. Its customizable Ambient Conscious and TalkThru modes had been additionally dependable for retaining me conscious of my environment and making quick conversations.

Concerning sound high quality and noise cancellation, the Tour Professional 2 earbuds are the very best I’ve skilled from JBL. In an inevitable head-to-head sonic comparability with the equally priced AirPods Professional, the Sony WF-1000XM4, and the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, the JBL Tour Professional 2 held its floor in sure features and left a bit of to be desired in others.

Sony’s earbuds have a critical edge in sound high quality, whereas the Bose product presents superior noise cancellation and conscious mode. Then again, the AirPods Professional earphones have an edge in spatial audio capabilities with out skimping on nice sound and environment friendly noise cancellation.

The decision high quality of the Tour Professional 2 is strong. Every earbud packs three microphones, serving to me sound clear throughout phone and FaceTime calls and digital conferences. Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity allowed the earbuds to take care of a rock-solid hyperlink with an iPhone 14 Professional Max, a Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely, and a MacBook Professional whereas I put them via their paces.

COMFORT: 8/10

The Tour Professional 2 handled me to hours of use with out inflicting fatigue or discomfort. At 6.1 grams every, the earbuds weigh on par with the 6.2-gram Bose QuietComfort II earbuds and fewer than the 7.3-gram Sony WF-1000XM4. Contemplating the Professional 2’s battery life alone, such a low weight is kind of spectacular.

The app-customizable contact controls of the Tour Professional 2 are enough, however not the product class’s finest. The contact setup with swipeable quantity controls of the Bose QuietComfort II earbuds is best. Apple’s squeezable stems of the AirPods Professional are the very best on this value vary.

Remarkably, the colour touchscreen-toting case of the newest JBL earbuds presents entry to all controls wearing an intuitive interface you may navigate with swiping gestures. I might customise the sound and the noise cancellation, change between spatial sound modes, alter the amount, and take calls shortly and effortlessly.

The above options are straightforward to faucet into instantly on the earbuds or by opening the JBL Headphones app, so including one other display screen to your every day routine isn’t mandatory. So is the choice to see cellphone notifications on the display screen of your earbuds — a smartwatch is the one secondary system that ought to have this responsibility.

After every week of utilizing the bundled accent and pondering its utility, I discovered it useful whereas utilizing the Tour Professional 2 in a multi-link setup with a MacBook and iPhone. I might change the sound settings whereas streaming music from my laptop computer and take calls on my cellphone from the buds’ case.

DESIGN: 8/10

Design-wise, the JBL Tour Professional 2 is a hybrid between compact and stem earbuds. Accessible in black and champagne colours, the earphones’ quick stems have shiny and matte bits, giving them a definite, undeniably premium look. They’re IPX5 waterproof and appropriate for exercising.

I tip my hat to JBL for making the Tour Professional 2 case touchscreen customizable by way of colourful graphics or a picture of your selection. This offers you a fast and straightforward method to personalize one in every of your mostly used devices.

Equipping the charging case of the earphone with a touchscreen has made the accent bulkier than its rivals. This isn’t a dealbreaker, however in case you like to hold your earbuds’ case within the small pocket of your denims like me, it is a slight inconvience.

BATTERY PERFORMANCE: 9/10

You’ll be able to anticipate as much as 6 hours of use with adaptive noise cancellation from the JBL Tour Professional 2. Switching between adaptive and adjustable noise cancellation will get you two extra hours’ price of audio playback. Disabling noise cancellation will place the earbuds’ battery life within the double-digit realm — to 10 hours between prices.

Total, the battery lifetime of the Tour Professional 2 is superb and longer than the endurance of big-name rivals just like the Bose QuietComfort II earbuds and the AirPods Professional. The sensible case of the earbuds holds three extra full prices. It has a USB-C connector and compatibility with wi-fi charging.

OVERALL: 8/10

I’ve been testing true wi-fi earbuds since these merchandise entered the mainstream in 2017, and the JBL Tour Professional 2 is the primary set outlined by its charging case. The important accent’s onboard touchscreen is useful and quirky in equal measure. After every week of residing with it, I discovered the controls and customizable design of the buds’ case cool and handy however inadequate to make me drop $250 on a pair.

Fortunately, the product’s customizable sound, strong noise cancellation, spatial audio capabilities, and lengthy battery life make a convincing case for splurging on one. The JBL Tour Professional 2 is a superb possibility if you’d like a premium set of earbuds not named Apple, Bose, or Sony.

Think about the JBL Dwell Professional 2 earbuds if you’d like good sound, noise cancellation, and lengthy battery life for much less. The Soundcore Liberty Professional 4 earbuds by Anker are price an extended look if you’d like high quality sound, noise cancellation, and spatial audio on a tighter price range.

Store JBL Tour Professional 2

Senior Expertise Editor

Stefan is the senior know-how editor for , the place he’s been masking the tech business and testing the newest devices since 2015. He has greater than a decade of expertise masking shopper tech merchandise, particularly smartphones, tablets, laptops, and audio gear. He was beforehand the US editor for ; his work may also be discovered on Common Mechanics and different Hearst publications.Within the uncommon moments when he’s not taking part in with a brand new gadget, Stefan likes to look at dwell Premier League video games or hang around along with his cat and rabbit. He’s additionally an espresso snob.