Review: JBL’s Live Beam 3 Deliver All You Can Ask for in a Pair of Earbuds

Given that roughly fifty new ones come out every few days, hunting for the best noise-cancelling earbuds keeps us busy. This outrageously crowded market features a lot of rivals that do most things well, but genuine all-rounders? They’re elusive.

You could settle for cheap headphones that do the job. But trust us, you’ll soon tire of subpar sound. Or you could pick the ultra-expensive route. It’s not without its pitfalls too, including chunkier designs and less battery life. You’ll get better audio, but at what cost?

Given these quandaries, it’s no surprise so many of us land at the default convenient option – Apple’s AirPods Pro. But there’s a proper new mid-range contender, and it’s a bit unusual. JBL’s Live 3 series delivers 48 hours of playtime, IP55 water resistance, noise-cancellation and transparency, spatial audio and a hearing test to get them sounding their best. The most innovative bit, though, is the 1.45-inch touchscreen on its charging case. You won’t find that on AirPods.

JBL Live Beam 3

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Pros

• Useful charging case
• Entertaining sound
• Effective noise-cancelling

Cons

• Slightly chunky
• Certain rivals sound better

Weight	5g per bud (81g with charging case)
Battery Life	12 hours (up to 30 hours with charging case) with ANC off
Charging	USB-C and wireless charging
Colour	Black, Purple, Blue, and Silver
Voice Control	Google Assistant, Siri

We were never going to start this review by discussing noise-cancelling or battery life – we’ve got to talk about that case. Firstly, we know that it’s not the first time JBL’s done this. We find this more persuasive than it was on last year’s Tour Pro 2 for two reasons, though. One, it’s more compact and you’re actually going to fit this case in your pocket. Two, it comes at a sensible price. The flagship is firmly in the high-end tier with its £249.99 price tag – this one’s not.

JBL’s case is something you haven’t seen before, but is it useful? Good question. Yes, it’s not a big screen, but don’t judge it on size alone.

The case puts a load of handy functions at your fingertips. Let’s go through a handful: you can access playback controls, volume, ANC, transparency, the equaliser, spatial audio, “Find My Buds”, your wallpaper selection, screen brightness, notifications, see your battery percentage and more.

Swipe over from the wallpaper (JBL preloaded ours with the Esquire logo) and you’ll see individual swipeable panels for these features. We’re always tapping on this thing, even during our short time with the buds so far. That’s mainly because it makes it easier to get to stuff you’d need to dive into the app to get with other pairs.

Heading out the door to listen to a podcast while walking to the station in the morning? We’ll throw on the “vocals” equaliser preset, switch off ANC (that wind noise in the microphones is unavoidable) and get our volume set just right without grabbing our smartphone. Watching movies from your MacBook? There’s no need to open the app. You can change your equaliser and spatial audio from the case. Some may still see this as trivial, but it really is useful for us.

Is there more we want from the case? Sometimes we felt a lag when swiping and tapping, and some touch points were too tiny. It’s also a shame you don’t get the album art or track and artist title on the main screen of the case. Those would carry over to a smartwatch so this feels theoretically doable. And, of course, it is still a little chunky, but slimmer than we’d expect for all the features included.

Beyond the case, these buds have a lovely compact size and look just like the black AirPods Pro we’re always after. Not the colour you want? The Beam 3 also comes in purple, blue, and silver.

We’re happy with the default ear tip size to get the best fit, but thankfully there are four sizes in the box, so you should find the right one for you. And you can check the seal with the in-app ear tip fit test. The overall comfort is decent. We’ve encountered softer ear tips, but these are secure and we find them pleasant to wear for hours at a time.

Does the Beam 3 deliver the best sound money can buy? We wouldn’t go that far, but they’re also 180 quid, so we don’t think that’s what you’d expect.

What you get by default is a slightly bass-boosted take on the “Harman Curve” – essentially, that’s what audio researchers find to be a preferred sound for many listeners. It’s a balanced sound profile suitable for most genres. You’ll hear rumbly bass notes and bright lead vocals in your playlists.

They sound fun for all the music we’ve been playing, including Lorde, St Vincent, Arlo Parks and the Challengers soundtrack. But where things get much more interesting is with the customisations.

You can dive into equaliser presets and set your custom equaliser in the app (that you’ll then be able to select and deselect from the case too), you can turn on a toggle to keep things sounding good at low volumes (we recommend this – don’t destroy your eardrums) and you can take a full-on hearing test that we found made the audio come off fuller and more detailed.

Overall, it’s a sound signature we enjoy. We’ve heard better earphones, but this makes for a pleasant listen for all the genres we often throw on. The bass boost might not be for everyone, but it feels smooth rather than mushy and it’s possible to take some of the edge off it with the EQ settings anyway.

From our perspective, there isn’t much difference between the sound of these and the JBL Tour 2 Pro. Unless you’re a committed audiophile, you’ll find this an entertaining all-rounder.

The spatial audio is more hit-and-miss. You get specific modes for movies and music, but we’ve tested it with both and generally prefer the way these sound without the immersive setting turned on – it may end up working well for some video content, but we reckon it’s a little too processed.

These new buds aren’t in the absolute top-tier of noise-cancellers with Bose, Sony and Apple, but they’re more than enough for most of us.

In most situations, including travelling on the London Underground, sitting at a busy cafe and our desks while working, we’ve noticed the background noise is dialled down well enough that we won’t hear it over Hans Zimmer’s Dune soundtrack.

Transparency tends to be an area where other rival buds can’t compete with AirPods Pro but JBL manages to by splitting this out into two modes. “Ambient Aware” (mapped to a tap of the left bud by default) does what you expect. It’s a general-purpose ambient mode to ensure you don’t absent-mindedly walk into traffic.

Need to have a conversation with someone without taking the buds out? For that, you’ll want “TalkThru” – we’ve switched this on from the case (as it can’t be added to touch controls) and used it while ordering our morning coffee. Note that it silences volume rather than pausing, so you may lose your place in your podcast.

With this combination of features for focus and situational awareness, we’re not left feeling like anything’s missing. It’s all we can ask for.

JBL has put together a solid app for control of its earbuds, and it’s the same app we’ve used when testing out other models from the brand. It works well, and for these buds it’s stuffed full of features. We’ve already touched on most of the key ones.

But we can also confirm the “Find My Buds” thing is effective, making the one you lost down the back of the sofa emit a loud chirp, multipoint (for dual connections) works well, we didn’t have any trouble taking the hearing test and the maximum volume limit is a welcome addition too. There are also relaxation sounds and a sleep timer, if that matters to you.

We’ve got a handful of issues with JBL’s touch control system, though, mostly because it’s not customisable enough. You pick only from a set collection of control schemes. So you can have ANC/transparency on the left side, but not at the same time as playback controls on that side. It feels restrictive, and we’d love full control over what tapping away at the buds does.

We know you’re expecting the screen on the case to be a major battery drain, but in our experience so far it isn’t. It only comes on for a couple of seconds at a time when you’re faffing about with some settings on it, and then after that, it’ll disappear again.

The buds give you a healthy 12 hours of playtime on a single charge, and an extra 36 hours of listening with the case. The only numbers we have from JBL on this so far are quoted with ANC off, so we’d expect less if you’re using noise-cancelling. Either way, it’s a competitive battery performance.

They also have a quick charge to give you four hours of battery life from ten minutes at the charger, as well as offering both USB-C and wireless charging when you need to refuel.

As you’ll have guessed from our headline, we’re left feeling like these buds live up to their promise of convenience and functionality, delivering almost every feature we can ask for.

We could quibble that the case is a little chunky or swipes take two tries to register on the screen, but those are such minor things. Other brands don’t have a screen in the first place.

JBL continues to innovate earbuds in ways that should make the competition try harder, and all the case features work well, from noise-cancelling to playback control, mirroring your phone’s notifications and changing EQ presets. They sound great, cancel loads of noise and have a solid battery life. And at this price, these futuristic buds are some of the best mid-range contenders you can find.

JBL Live Beam 3

Find out more

Pros

• Useful charging case
• Entertaining sound
• Effective noise-cancelling

Cons

• Slightly chunky
• Certain rivals sound better

Weight	5g per bud (81g with charging case)
Battery Life	12 hours (up to 30 hours with charging case) with ANC off
Charging	USB-C and wireless charging
Colour	Black, Purple, Blue, and Silver
Voice Control	Google Assistant, Siri

• Weight: 5g per bud (81g with charging case)
• Battery Life: 12 hours (up to 30 hours with charging case)
• Quick Charging: 10 minutes of USB-C charging provides four hours of listening time
• Charging Port: USB-C and wireless charging
• Drivers: 10mm dynamic drivers, material not specified
• Water Resistance: IP55

Still on the hunt for truly wireless buds and these don’t quite tick your boxes? We’ve tried loads of the competition and these are the main pairs we’d consider for those after a similar compact stem-style design:

Apple AirPods Pro for £249

Apple can’t lose with how good the AirPods are, and they’re so popular for good reason. The noise-cancelling and transparency beat almost all rivals, they deliver a great sound, head-tracking spatial audio is incredible, and the integration with iOS is beyond seamless.

Nothing Ear (2024) for £129

This refined version of the Nothing flagship is among our favourites for unique style, delivering loads of attention to detail within the transparent casing. The sound is natural, well-rounded and customisable via the Nothing X app, they’re comfortable to wear and the new ones have a better battery life too.

Creative Aurvana Ace 2 for £164.99

We recently tested these and are impressed by the sound these xMems solid-state drivers can deliver. The audio is terrific, they fit in a pocket-friendly case and are comfortable to wear for a long time.