The JBL Tuner 3 is a portable DAB/DAB+/FM radio with Bluetooth. The follow up to JBL’s Tuner 2 takes on an all-new design which brings it inline with the brands’ other Bluetooth speakers, with a fabric material outer and rubberised controls. A carry loop is found on the right side.
At half a kilo and carrying an IP68 waterproof and dustproof rating the Tuner 3 is a portable radio with Bluetooth that’s meant to be used on the go. Benefitting from ‘JBL Pro Sound’ it’s good to see a portable radio which prioritises sound quality but isn’t cased in faux leather or wood veneer.
In this review we’ll try out the JBL Tuner 3 for radio and Bluetooth listening.
Features and setup
In the box is the JBL Tuner 3 itself, a quick start guide and some warranty and safety information.
Setting up the radio is simple. When powered on for the first time there’s an option to set the language. Then in the DAB mode the radio can scan for all the available stations, or for Bluetooth hold down the button to start pairing.
Reception of DAB/DAB+ radio stations is very good. In an area with good reception of digital stations we didn’t even need to fold out and extend the antenna.
In the FM mode we were able to tune into all the FM stations we would expect to find. Pressing the ‘scan’ button also stopped on all of the BBC and commercial radio stations that should be available here.
In common with many new radios there’s no power adapter in the box, and JBL does not include a USB-C lead either.
The quick start guide included in the box shows what the buttons do, lists specifications and has a QR code to scan to download the JBL Portable app. The same guide is downloadable from the JBL website but there isn’t a more detailed manual on the JBL Tuner 3 support page.
A one year warranty is provided by JBL. We needed to try the warranty process when the orange USB-C connector in the Tuner 3 fractured on the first use, meaning it wasn’t possible to plug in a USB-C lead. We contacted JBL as directed through the website to initiate a return.
JBL’s customer support quickly provided a return label and documents. As the radio is returned to the Netherlands we were asked to print customs invoices and attach one of them to the outside of the box. The process was a little long-winded but the refund was processed promptly once the radio was delivered by courier. We’re not sure how the process would work if you don’t have a printer for the labels and documents.
JBL lists two other speakers with DAB/DAB+/FM in its range. The JBL Tuner XL has been around for a little longer with a design more in common with the older JBL Tuner 2, while the Horizon 3 is a clock radio speaker with a sunrise effect alarm. The company produces many Bluetooth speakers, starting with the £40 JBL Go 4, if a built-in radio tuner is not a priority.
The speaker weighs in at 0.5 kgs (1.10 lbs) and measures 17.5 x 7.3 x 7.1 cm (6.9 x 2.9 x 2.8 in). The IP68 waterproof and dustproof rating is an upgrade on the older JBL Tuner 2 which only had an IPX7 waterproof rating.
Sound quality
There’s definitely a sense that the JBL Tuner 3 comes from a brand that specialises in speakers. Infact JBL say it’s their most powerful radio yet with an output power of 7 W RMS. While we’ve tried bigger and more expensive digital radios, the Tuner 3 does stand out for its bass and presence. At the lowest volume setting with the device on a desk the sound is just about right for working with Absolute 00s on in the background.
Going up to the next volume step and the device works well for listening to sport commentaries while doing other things at home. When continuing to turn up the volume for music listening the small Tuner 3 is quite capable of filling a small room with sound.
The radio feels most at home with the bass-rich music on stations like KISSTORY, Absolute 10s, Heart 00s and BBC Radio 1 Anthems. Even Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads sounds pretty good on Radio X Classic Rock. In other genres of music where more clarity and delicacy is desirable over worktop-vibrating bass the device begins to struggle a little.
The JBL Tuner 3 does a good job with the UK’s low bitrates for music radio stations. It’s often not noticable that a DAB+ station is only using 32 kbps. Switching over to BBC Radio 2 on FM or DAB we’d have expected it to sound even better, but the midrange actually seems a bit vague and washy. Returning to BBC Radio 1 Anthems on DAB and with Harry Styles’ Adore You the JBL sounds much more like what we would expect from a radio at this price.
Bluetooth pairing works quickly and as expected.
A multi-speaker setup is possible with Auracast, which JBL says allows two Tuner 3 speakers to be paired for stereo sound. The company also says on its website that multiple Auracast-enabled JBL speakers can be connected, but we didn’t have a suitable device to test this out. There’s no headphone output.
User interface
Above the JBL logo are three big, individual buttons for volume down, play/pause and volume up. The other buttons for the six presets, multi-speaker connection, power, Bluetooth, auto scan, DAB/FM and tuning up and down form part of the rubberised top section on the Tuner 3.
There isn’t a menu to speak of on the radio with the functions are accessed through the buttons. We also didn’t see a way to change the information on the display, which shows a single line of text and a battery level indicator. Anyone looking for the sort of information found on other digital radios, like signal strength and multiplex details, might be disappointed.
Another quirk of the display is that the station name is displayed with a hyphen to separate it from the scrolling text, and both move across the display. In the FM mode the frequency is shown, followed by the station name, followed by the RDS Radiotext.
The display switches off completely when the buttons haven’t been pressed for a period of time. The timeout duration does allow for the scrolling text to be read at least a few times.
Tuning is quick on DAB digital radio with presses of the tuning up and down buttons selecting those stations and tuning in immediately. In this sense it’s more like the programme up and down buttons on a television remote, rather than radios which expect you to select a station from a list by pressing a button.
On battery power we were able to achieve 14 hours of listening to DAB+ radio stations with the volume set to a comfortable volume in a small office. This compares to a maximum music playing time from the battery of 12 hours according to the specs. Charge time for the 9.0 Wh Lithium-ion battery is given as three and a half hours. JBL caution that some radio stations “might have noise interference” when listening to the radio while charging.
JBL says an extra three hours of listening is possible with the Playtime Boost feature.
Some additional sound settings are surfaced in the smartphone app.
There are sounds which play when the radio is powered on or off, and these feel louder than the music at lower volume levels.
Verdict
It’s great to see JBL committed to some new DAB+/FM products in 2025, the Tuner 3 arriving last year with the Horizon 3 clock radio. The Tuner 3 design is more inline with the current Grip, Xtreme and Charge devices, with a large JBL logo and chunky volume and play buttons.
On JBL’s website the Tuner 3 is listed with a £119.99 RRP, which feels a little high, but we’ve often found the device to be available for under £100. There isn’t much to compare the Tuner 3 to in this price bracket, although Pure offers the Woodland speaker with DAB/DAB+/FM and Bluetooth with an IP67 rating.
Impressive sound from DAB/DAB+ radio stations and an overall premium look and feel make the JBL Tuner 3 a device worth considering.