An update on the JBL SRX835P: I spent quite a bit more time with them, but ultimately their music sound quality simply does not match other good home audio speakers in the same price range.
Once equalized properly, for movies and loud club-style music though, they’re excellent. For example, modern electronic/trance/etc. music without too much complexity sounds very good, especially to enjoy the generous bass and midbass power these can put out.
But for more enjoying more complex music, or more delicate subtleties of instruments and voices, they just don’t match any of my other speakers (Focal Aria 926, Genelec 8351B, Revel Salon2) or past speakers (KEF R3, Ascend Sierra RAAL Towers, Neumann KH310, Neumann KH120, etc). For complex pieces, they sound — for lack of a better word — congested. I don’t know how to explain that since they should be extremely low harmonic distortion at normal listening levels, but the best I can describe it is as if you’re hearing moderately noticeable compression artifacts from a low bitrate MP3 where too many overlapping sounds are diminishing the quality of each other, but simpler melodies are still clean. To me, this indicates a intermodulation distortion problem at some frequencies. Or maybe something with the crossovers? I don’t know, but I can say it’s heavily track dependent. Some music sounds quite good while others sound congested with overlapping instruments blended together in ways it’s not on other speakers.
Example track with a very “busy” sound that sounds overly congested on these speakers, but crystal clear clean on headphones or my Genelec or Revel speakers:
The other problem is the tonality of treble. There is occasionally a harshness or sibilance in higher frequencies that leads some female voices to sound less pleasant and certainly less real and natural than on my other speakers.
Here is an example track with vocals that are very hard for speakers to get right:
No matter how I EQ the JBL SRX835P, it can’t get these tracks (and others) to sound right. In contrast, my Genelecs, Neumanns, Revels all nail the tonality and detail perfectly.
Now for some of the good: The JBL SRX835P is probably one of the only speakers in the price range and sound quality (which is still quite good, I should say) that can deliver a truly tactile bass and midbass power. My Revel Salon2’s can of course, but they cost far more. The SRX835P plus just one Rythmik F18 sub (to fill in the deep bass) was so powerful that playing loud music downstairs for a party is enough to rattle all the dishes in the cabinets upstairs.
As a result, I do think they make good home theater speakers for an emphasis on power. But if I wanted ultimate quality, I’d probably look to Neumann or Genelec or Revel, combined with JTR subwoofer(s).