JBL Endurance Peak 3 True Wireless Headphones Review

The JBL Endurance Peak 3 look similar to their predecessor, the JBL Endurance Peak II True Wireless. They have a distinct, chunky ear hook design, which is good if you're looking for a stable in-ear fit. The manufacturer's logo is embossed on the side of the buds, and they come in two color variants: 'Black' and 'White'.

These buds have a fairly comfortable fit. They don't have a deep in-ear fit and come with three different pairs of ear tips to help you get the best fit possible. Their ear hooks have a 'TwistLock' design, which helps keep them stable. However, the hooks can put pressure on the back of your ears, especially if you wear glasses. If you have smaller ears, you can accidentally turn the buds off if you're trying to tighten their fit, which is annoying. If you're looking for more comfortable ear hook headphones, try the Beats Powerbeats Pro Truly Wireless or Skullcandy Push Active True Wireless instead.

These buds have mediocre controls. They have a touch-sensitive surface on each bud, and unlike their predecessor, their controls are split between the L/R buds. The controls are responsive, and there's feedback given when registering commands. There's even voice feedback when turning the ambient sound mode on and off.

On the left earbud:

• Single tap: Enables 'Ambient Aware', which allows you to stay aware of your surroundings without taking off the earbuds.
• Double tap: Enables 'TalkThru', which lowers the volume of your audio so that you can have a conversation without removing your earbuds. Also answers and ends calls.
• Tap and hold: Activates voice assistant. If you're on a call, this command mutes and unmutes your mic.

On the right earbud:

• Single tap: Plays and pauses audio.
• Double tap: Skips the track forward. Also answers and ends calls.
• Triple tap: Skips to the previous track.
• Tap and hold: Activates voice assistant. If you're on a call, this command mutes and unmutes your mic.

These buds are pretty portable. Although they're bigger than most conventional truly wireless buds, they're still pretty portable and can easily fit into most bags or pockets without an issue. They also come with a carrying case to help protect them when you're on the go.

The carrying case is decent. It's mostly made of plastic and is a bit larger than that of more traditionally designed in-ears. There's a strip of four LED lights in the front of the case to indicate battery life.

The JBL Endurance Peak 3's build quality is great. Although they're made of a similar plastic and silicone material as their predecessor, they feel a step up from the JBL Endurance Peak II True Wireless. Their IP rating has gone from IPX7 to IP68 to indicate they're dust-tight and can survive submersion in water. While the silicone ear tips feel like they can rip over time, they're still sturdy enough to survive tough workouts or accidental impacts without taking damage.

The stability of these buds is great. Thanks to their 'TwistLock' design, the ear hooks hold the earbuds stable during even the toughest of workouts. The ear tips can feel like they're popping out, and you may need to readjust them to ensure their fit.

• JBL Endurance Peak 3 headphones
• 3x earbud tips
• USB-A USB-C charging cable
• Charging case
• Manual

The JBL Endurance Peak 3 have a very bass-heavy sound profile. If you enjoy genres like electronica and hip-hop, their intense thump, rumble, and boom can help keep you pumped up at the gym. Surprisingly, the rest of the response is fairly flat, although the extra bass still overwhelms vocals and instruments. If you prefer a different sound, their companion app offers a graphic EQ and presets to help you get the most out of your buds.

These buds have outstanding frequency response consistency. Once you achieve a good fit using the included ear tips, you'll get consistent bass and treble delivery each time you use them.

The bass accuracy is disappointing, although you still may enjoy this if you're a basshead. These buds deliver massive bass, from visceral thump and rumble to intense punch and boom. It's great if you love songs with a heavy-handed bassline, like Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, but it also muddies the rest of the mix.

The mid accuracy is excellent. The response is fairly flat. Vocals and instruments are detailed and clear, but a dip in the mid-mid nudges them to the back of the mix. In isolation, the mid-range is quite suitable for vocal-centric content. However, the extra bass muddies the entire mix, including the mid-range.

The treble accuracy is also excellent. Vocals and instruments are adequately detailed, while sibilants like S and T sounds are bright and present. If you're listening to bass-heavy tracks, the treble has some trouble cutting through the boom. For example, hi-hats in the song Satisfaction by Benny Benassi are meant to emphasize the lead and bassline but feel weak compared to the extra rumble and boom.

The peaks and dips performance is very good. There's a small bump in the low-treble, which adds extra thump and rumble into mixes. A dip starting in the low-mids extends into the mid-mid thins out vocals and instruments and pushes them to the back of the mix. Small peaks in the low-treble accentuate the details of vocals and instruments, but the sharp spike in the mid-treble makes sibilants like cymbals piercing.

The JBL Endurance Peak 3's imaging performance is excellent. Many of JBL's headphones have good imaging performances, although there have been mismatch issues with their other products in the past, like the JBL Tune 130NC TWS Truly Wireless, which can be indicative of JBL's larger quality control and ergonomics. That said, our unit's L/R drivers are well-matched. The group delay falls below the audibility threshold, resulting in tight bass and transparent treble reproduction. The L/R drivers of our unit are well-matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response, which ensures the accurate placement of objects like voices within the stereo image. Imaging varies between units, though.

The passive soundstage performance is bad. However, this is normal from in-ear headphones, which bypass your outer ear by design. This soundstage is perceived as small and as if coming from the inside of your head rather than from out in front of you. Since they also have a closed-back design, their soundstage doesn't feel very spacious or open, either.

These headphones have a great weighted harmonic distortion performance. Although there's a small peak in between the low to mid-treble, it's very minor. As a result, all frequencies fall within acceptable limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid when used in this configuration.

The noise isolation performance is satisfactory. They don't have a noise cancelling (ANC) system, so they don't block out much of the low rumble of bus and plane engines. That said, they can passively reduce mid to high-pitched sounds like ambient chatter and A/C units quite well.

The leakage performance is outstanding. Leakage is mostly concentrated in the bass and treble range. However, the leakage is low, so even if you're listening to audio at high volumes, others around you won't hear it.

The recording quality of the integrated mic is poor. Recorded speech sounds dark, unnatural, and lacking depth.

The noise handling performance is good. The mic can separate your voice from moderate noise fairly well, although your voice can get temporarily drowned out by very loud sounds like a train pulling up to the station. However, if you're taking a call from a consistently noisy place like a busy street, you'll have no problems being understood clearly.

The JBL Endurance Peak 3's battery performance is great. The manufacturer advertises them to last 10 hours continuously, and we measured a similar amount. Battery life varies depending on use, though. Luckily, their carrying case holds three extra charges. They also have a quick charge feature, and for 10 minutes of charging, you can get up to one hour of playback time. The buds also have an auto-off timer to help conserve battery life if you forget to turn them off.

Unlike the JBL Endurance Peak II True Wireless, these buds are compatible with the JBL Headphones, which is a good app. You can see a video of how it works here. You don't need an account to use the app. You can access a 10-band EQ as well as presets, turn on/off or cycle between ambient mode controls, and remap controls. You can also adjust the voice assistant and voice prompts as well as access dedicated audio and video modes to help improve audio quality and lower audio lag, respectively.

These buds have fair Bluetooth connectivity. On one side, they don't support multi-device pairing and have high latency across all devices, which isn't great for streaming video. However, on the flip side, they have a smart video mode in their companion app, which the manufacturer advertises to help lower latency. This mode lowers latency on iOS devices to good levels. The Android latency is higher and falls just out of good levels, and the PC latency is still high. Some devices compensate for latency, though.

These headphones have a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging the carrying case. However, you can't use these buds wired.

These buds can connect to Bluetooth-enabled PCs with full audio and mic support. However, this is the only way to connect these headphones to your PC.

The JBL Endurance Peak 3 come with a carrying case that has a USB-C port. It holds three additional charges but doesn't support Qi Wireless charging.