JBL Live Beam 3

How many features can you pack into a pair of true wireless earbuds ? All of them, if you’re JBL . For earbuds in the mid-level price range, the JBL Live Beam 3 have a bucketload of features with a surprising amount of customisation that we don’t even see in more premium models. They’re a friendly, easy-going pair to live with, too.

That’s not the biggest selling point of these Live Beam 3, however. What stands out most is that smart display case…

Build & comfort

JBL introduced the first smart case – a charging case with an interactive touchscreen display – in last year’s flagship Tour Pro 2 , and it has now brought it to a more affordable price point.

Priced at £150 / $200 / AU$249, the Live Beam 3 buds come with a more streamlined, smaller charging case compared with the one you get with its flagship sibling. While still a chunky case compared with most other rivals on the market, the Beam 3’s case fits more easily in the palm of your hand. It’s easy to carry and chuck into a bag or a (large) pocket, and overall it’s a more appealing design and size.

Type True wireless earbuds

Bluetooth 5.3

Active noise-cancelling? Yes

Spatial Audio? Yes

Battery life 9-10 hours (single charge in earbuds with ANC on), total 48 hours (with charging case)

Finishes x 4 (purple, blue, silver, black)

What’s the point of the smart case? It lets you access volume and playback controls, different sound and active noise cancelling (ANC) modes and various other options more readily than firing up the JBL Headphones app on a smartphone. The 1.45-inch display is crisp and bright with good contrast, you can select some of the shortcuts you want or don’t want to be displayed on the case, and even set your own wallpaper photo for the colourful lock screen.

The smart case still divides opinion in our review team. Some still find it to be a mere gimmick, while others find it to be more useful and a bit of fun. It all depends on what features you use the most and how you use earbuds, but considering the sheer amount of options you get in the JBL app (more on that later), it’s convenient to cut through the noise and be able to quickly access the essential features. We haven’t found ourselves in a situation where the flashlight mode is needed (yet), but being able to see the battery level of the buds and case in one glance is pretty neat. If the case could display the songs being played as well, that would be even neater.

One way we found ourselves using the case most (aside from putting pictures of our beloved pets as the wallpaper) is that while the JBL buds have touch controls that let you switch between noise modes, control playback or change volume, they only allow you to use two of these three main controls on the buds, not all three at once. So one of those options will have to be relegated to the app or your phone – and this is where the case does come in handy, as you can change the volume, skip a track or switch to transparency mode with a quick tap on the case. The case is responsive enough, but swiping to get out of the lock screen can take a second go at times.

Enough about the case, then. What about the buds themselves? The Live Beam 3 have a stem design, come with four sizes of ear tips in the box, and you can get them in four colours: black, silver, purple and our review sample’s blue. They look smart and appealing compared with the sea of plain black or white/grey options on the market. While the housing material feels a little cheap, the build quality is decent for the price and we like the metallic accents on the stems that give a flash of pizzazz.

Most of the review team had no problem with the earbuds’ fit and comfort. These are lightweight buds and the app has an ear fit test that assures a good seal. However, one reviewer found that the earbuds’ main body isn’t quite grippy enough to stay put in their ears. The buds wouldn’t stay snug and secure as readily as other similar designs, and certain actions, such as yawning, would dislodge them too easily. Even after trying various ear tips and adjusting the positioning in the ear, they remained a little precarious. If you do get a snug fit straight away, however, the buds are comfortable, secure and easy to wear for long periods of time.

Features

There are more custom options to fine-tune every aspect of the JBL buds than we know what to do with. There are about five different ways to adjust the sound, four ways to tweak voice quality during calls, and it even gives you a sliding scale for how much of the outside world you want to be let in when using the Ambient Aware (transparency) mode. The sheer scope of adjustments can be overwhelming, and while we applaud JBL for giving customers so much choice, we also find ourselves wondering why it has felt the need to go so granular.

We’ll only talk through the highlights and most useful settings here, but the good news is that they (mostly) work, you can get as involved as you want, or simply turn all the extra options off if you don’t want to deal with them.

Crucially, the essentials are very good. The Live Beam 3 are easy and responsive in daily use. Pairing is swift, the connection remains stable and in the month or so of testing and wearing these buds, we never encountered any hiccups or faults. They’re reliable. They feature Bluetooth multipoint so it’s easy to switch seamlessly between two devices, and an IP55 waterproof and dust rating means they’ll survive a downpour and general household dust ingress. They automatically pause music playback when both buds are removed (and resume playing when placed back in your ears) and can detect when you’re speaking. This activates the TalkThru mode, which cleverly dims down music volume so you can have a conversation.

The battery life is quoted to be around nine to 10 hours with ANC turned on, going up to 12 hours with ANC turned off. We found this to be decent in daily use, but the bigger boost is that you get a whopping great 48 hours in total with the charging case. Even when not in use, the display doesn’t drain the battery – it’s taken nearly a month to get it down to 16 per cent with moderate use. A short USB-C cable for charging is included, and 10 minutes of fast-charge will give you four hours in a pinch.

Around this price range, you have competition from the likes of Technics EAH-AZ40M2 (£129 / $170 / AU$259) and Cambridge Audio Melomania M100 (£169 / £139 / $219), both very good four-star models with their own USPs. The Technics is the only pair of earbuds to offer three-way Bluetooth multipoint, while the Cambridge Audio offers the best battery life: a total of 52 hours with the case, or 16 with ANC turned off.

If you thought we were done with the JBL’s arguably superfluous features, we’ve got two more. JBL’s own spatial audio mode applies the “immersive” effect to all music, whether it’s in Dolby Atmos or not, but we’re not huge fans of this implementation with songs. It sounds a bit clumsy and artificial and doesn’t truly offer the spatial audio effect we’ve heard when done ‘properly’ in rivals. A Personifi listening test lets you tailor the sound even more, but we’re more than satisfied with the 10-band equaliser for creating your own custom EQ modes – alongside the six preset ones already available.

ANC & call quality

One of the JBL buds’ key features is active noise-cancellation (ANC) and it’s good for this price point. It won’t completely silence the outside world in the way that flagship models can, but it is effective in dimming general traffic noise, rumbling of trains, and office chatter. There are four mics dedicated to the adaptive ANC and they can continually adjust the ANC levels in real-time to respond to the buds’ fit in your ear.

The level of adjustment for ANC here is welcome, with a good blend of customisable options that tailor the ANC experience to your surroundings. As mentioned above, you can turn all these various adjustments and automatic operations off – but the ANC options here all feel useful. In all the noise modes, we find the buds still sound fairly airy and comfortable.

Call quality is decent for this level, but not wholly natural. Voices sound clear and distinct for daily phone and video calls indoors, but it can get a little noisy when outdoors. Sudden car noises zooming past get picked up easily to crackle and muffle our voice. We’d like a bit more solidity and consistency with our voices, but overall the JBL function fine during our tests. In the app, you have scope to adjust the tone of your voice and the caller’s voice, and even optimise the volume level if they sound too quiet. We found the natural modes to sound the best and, unless you’re in extreme weather conditions or the line is truly bad, we didn’t feel the need to tweak any settings.

Sound

If you ignore all the myriad features and don’t care about the snazzy smart case and just want to listen to your music, then we have good news. The Live Beam 3 sound easy-going, smooth and fluid – it’s a presentation that is friendly right from the start.

We easily prefer it to the flagship Tour Pro 2 sibling, which we found to be flat, unengaging and lacking fun. The Live Beam 3 sound far more fun. There’s liveliness and punch, a good helping of detail and a full-bodied approach that’s very appealing to listen to for hours. They time well too, with an eager rhythmic drive that keeps the momentum in songs from Waxahatchee, Massive Attack, Dua Lipa and Run The Jewels going – it never drags.

There’s just enough organisation to keep heavy metal tracks like Slipknot’s Duality in check, while orchestral pieces such as the epic Jurassic Park theme ebb and flow in a way that rings true – even if we know these JBL buds are not the last word in precision and transparency.

While we wish they could reveal more subtleties in detail and greater dynamic punch and contrast, they are a good deal more entertaining than many other rivals at this price. The Cambridge Audio M100 might offer more space and openness, but the JBL Live Beam 3 are better at communicating the tone and feel of a song, no matter the genre.

A thorn in the side of most noise-cancelling wireless earbuds under £200 / $200 is the Award-winning Sony WF-C700 earbuds which, even with discounts below their original £100 / $120 / AU$200 price, offer a greater degree of precision, agility and better, deeper dynamics. They can dig out more subtleties in textures than the Live Beam 3: piano notes sound far more natural and resoundingly solid through the Sony, while the JBL buds can make them sound more like a good keyboard is being played.

That shouldn’t detract from how enjoyable the JBL are. They have a nice balance, with a smoothed top and a bass that is punchy, meaty and, while a tad rich, doesn’t go too boomy or flabby. If you, like us, find the Live Beam 3’s initial default low-end a bit too prominent, you can deploy the Studio EQ mode to calm down that exuberant bass. The other EQ modes – especially Extreme Bass and Vocals – are best left alone.

Verdict

There is a lot going on with these JBL Live Beam 3, and while the smart case may be the headline act, the friendly, punchy, full-bodied sound is what leaves us with a positive lasting impression. They’re not without some flaws, but at this price, these wireless earbuds are easy to recommend if you’re after decent sound, the latest tech and all the customisation you could possibly hope for.

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 4
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Sony WF-C700N

Also consider the Cambridge Audio Melomania M100

Read our Technics EAH-AZ40M2 review

Best wireless earbuds: top pairs tested by our experts