JBL Tune Buds True Wireless Headphones Review

The JBL Tune Buds have a simple, stemless design, with the JBL logo emblazoned on each bud. They're available in different colors: 'Black,' 'White,' 'Blue,' and 'Purple.'

Once you find the right pair of ear tips, these buds have a comfortable fit. They're light and fit snugly in your ear without putting too much pressure on your ear canal. However, their stemless design protrudes from your ear a little, so they can get snagged if you're lying down or wearing a hat. They must also be inserted correctly to ensure a proper seal: the manufacturer advises you to insert them at a 45-degree angle and then twist them upwards. The buds can somewhat loosen up in your ear if you're eating or speaking.

The control scheme is alright. It's simple and intuitive, with responsive touch controls on the surface of each bud. You can play or pause, toggle the Noise Cancelling, Ambient Aware, and TalkThru modes, skip tracks or return to the previous track, and access the voice assistant, all through inputting taps on either bud. Unfortunately, there's no volume control by default, and you'll have to remove the ANC or playback controls to accommodate them. While there are audio cues to acknowledge that a command has been registered, there's no minimum or maximum warning tone. That said, re-mapping these controls in the companion app is easy. The default controls are as follows:

On the left earbud:

• Single tap: Switches between ANC on and 'Ambient Aware' mode, which lets you hear your surroundings without removing the buds.
• Double tap: Toggles 'TalkThru' mode, which pauses audio and lets in ambient sound. Also answers or hangs up a call.
• Tap and hold: Activates voice assistant.

On the right earbud:

• Single tap: Plays and pauses audio.
• Double tap: Skips to the next track.
• Triple tap: Skips to the previous track.
• Tap and hold: Activates voice assistant. Mute/unmute during a call.

These buds are lightweight, portable, and take up very little space in a bag or pocket. You can also stow them in their carrying case to protect them while they're not in use.

The case is of a good quality. It's lightweight plastic, with LED lights indicating the battery level. While the hinge is snappy, the lid is made of a thinner plastic that feels less solid than the rest of the case.

These earbuds are well-built. Besides the silicone ear tips, both the buds and the case are constructed entirely from plastic. The overall construction is solid but doesn't feel particularly premium. The plastic used for the case lid is also a bit lighter and more susceptible to damage, and the silicone ear tips may rip or become damaged over time. On the upside, these buds are rated IP54 for protection against water splashes and light rain.

These buds have good stability. They'll stay in your ears during light exercise, so you'll have no problem maintaining a good seal while jogging in the park. However, they'll likely fall out of place during more intense workouts, and the fit tends to loosen up while talking or chewing.

• JBL Tune Buds
• 3x pairs of silicone ear tips (S, M, L)
• Carrying case
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Manuals

The JBL Tune Buds have a V-shaped sound profile with an over-emphasized bass response and slightly prominent treble. The bass range has plenty of rumble and boom that fans of genres like EDM and hip-hop will appreciate. The mid-range response is well-balanced and provides a detailed reproduction of vocals and lead instruments. However, the treble range is a little more uneven, with a wide peak across the low and mid-treble resulting in bright, sometimes piercing, sibilant sounds. That said, you can customize the sound to your liking through graphic EQ and presets in the companion app. These headphones sound the same when ANC is on or off. 

These buds have great frequency response consistency. There are some deviations in the treble range, but with the right ear tips, you'll have no trouble achieving a consistent sound delivery between different listening sessions.

The JBL Tune Buds have decent bass compliance. The response is overemphasized across the low and mid-bass, so there's plenty of rumble and boom on tap. The high-bass is more neutral, resulting in a warm sound signature that isn't too boomy.

The mid-range target compliance is superb. The response is flat across the entire range, resulting in detailed and accurate reproduction of vocals and lead instruments. On recordings like Claude Debussy's Arabesque No. 1, the piano's keystrokes sound deft, well-weighted, natural, and clear.

The treble compliance is very good. The lower part of the low-treble is quite balanced, but a wide peak the starts in the higher part of the low-treble crosses over into the mid-treble. This brings vocals to the front of busy mixes but can also render sibilants piercing at times. 

These buds have a disappointing peaks and dips performance, but that's mostly due to their high-treble performance. The bass and mid-ranges are well-controlled, with the headphones following their own sound profile well. The upper part of the mid-treble and the high-treble have some very large peaks and dips, but whether or not those will be noticeable to you will depend on your ear's anatomy and your ability to perceive high-frequency content, which diminishes with age. In general, these headphones control their own sound profile well through most of the audible range. 

The imaging performance is excellent, which indicates the manufacturer's reputation for good quality control and ergonomics. We've tested a lot of JBL headphones, and many of them have well-matched drivers, though it's worth noting that imaging varies between units. Our unit's group delay falls below the audibility threshold across the entire range, resulting in tight bass and transparent highs. The drivers are also well-matched in phase, amplitude, and frequency response. There's a slight bump in the phase response in the mid-mid, but this is difficult to hear in real-life content, like music and podcasts, even if you're listening out for it.

They have a bad passive soundstage, which is to be expected with closed-back earbuds. Their design means that sound doesn't interact with your outer ear the way it does with open-back headphones. Audio seems to be coming from inside your head, as opposed to from speakers placed around you. The resulting soundstage sounds closed off and unnatural.

The JBL Tune Buds have a great weighted harmonic distortion performance. The whole range falls within a good level, and audio reproduction is clean and pure. While there's some distortion present in the high-treble, it's difficult to hear as we lose sensitivity to this range over time.

These are the settings used to test the JBL Tune Buds. Our results are only valid when the earbuds are used in this configuration.

The full-range noise isolation performance is disappointing. The ANC can block out some background noise, but it's only a slight improvement on the passive isolation provided by their in-ear design. Overall, these buds do an alright job of blocking out mid and treble-range noise, like fridge hum and background chit-chat. However, bass-range noises, like engine rumble, will still find their way into your audio, even with the ANC on. There's no way to switch between different ANC modes or strengths, but you can activate Ambient Aware mode to hear your surroundings better or TalkThru mode, which lowers audio volume and lets in external mid-range audio to hear conversations. It should be noted that the high peak in the low-bass range is a byproduct of our testing procedure.

The JBL Tune Buds True Wireless fare just as poorly with real-world sounds. The engine rumble from planes and buses is hardly reduced at all, and while office noises are attenuated a little, you'll still hear them. These aren't the best choice for commuting either, as the sounds of the street will be clearly audible along with you audio. Again, the peak in the low-bass is an artifact of our testing process.

These headphones don't have a wind mode to counter the noise that the ANC mics might pick up while in use, and it shows. Wind noise is clearly audible and distracting, right up into the mid-range. Treble noise is almost entirely removed, but since most sounds occupy the mid-range, that's small consolation for the poor performance here.

They have an excellent leakage performance. The general level of leakage is low and concentrated in the treble range, so escaping audio sounds thin. You can crank your tunes in an office environment without bothering anyone.

The integrated mic has a passable recording quality. You'll be understandable to the person on the other end, but your voice will sound thin and a little muffled.

The mic has an okay noise handling performance. It does a good job of separating your voice when there's a consistent level of background noise, like in a cafe, as the mic takes a few seconds to adjust to the environment. However, there is some static present that reduces speech clarity. Loud and sudden noises, like passing trains, will completely drown out your voice. Fortunately, particularly loud noises are reduced after a second or two to the benefit of whoever's on the other end of your call.

The JBL Tune Buds have a great battery life performance. The manufacturer advertises ten hours of continuous battery life with the ANC on, and we tested just above that. With the ANC off, the manufacturer advises that the battery life can be extended by another two hours. There are also another three charges via the carrying case and an auto-off timer that turns the buds off to save battery after a certain amount of time, which can be set in the app.

The JBL Headphones app is great. You can use it to toggle features like Ambient Aware, TalkThru, and ANC, as well as smart video and audio. The Ambient Aware feature is useful if you want to stay aware of your surroundings while listening to music and the TalkThru function lets in some external mid-range frequencies so you can focus on a real-life conversation without removing your earbuds. Using 'Video Mode' lowers the latency to minimize audio/video sync issues, and 'Audio Mode' lets you stream audio in higher quality. You can adjust the sound with a graphic EQ and presets, remap the controls, change the voice assistant settings, and even track down lost buds with the Find My Buds feature. You can check out a video of the app in use here.

You can't use these earbuds wired. They come with a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging the case.

The JBL Tune Buds have excellent Bluetooth connectivity. They support multi-device pairing, so you can connect them to up to 2 devices without the hassle of disconnecting and repairing. They're also compatible with Google Quick Pair for easy connection to Android devices. While they aren't compatible with high-resolution lossless codecs, like LDAC, you can enable the Smart Audio mode to stream audio at a higher quality, albeit with higher latency. You can achieve a lower latency performance via the default SBC codec when using the Smart Video function, which optimizes the latency for watching video. However, even in this mode, you'll still experience some syncing issues between the audio and video. The manufacturer also advertises that they will be adding the LC3 codec via a firmware update at some point to make the buds compatible with LE audio.

These earbuds are compatible with Bluetooth-enabled PCs but can't connect any other way.

The JBL Tune Buds come with a portable carrying case that can hold up to three extra charges. The case doesn't support wireless charging, so you can only charge it through the USB-C port.