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JBL Stage A130 Review (speaker)

Xyrium

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Pleasantly surprising in the distortion. I expected it to explode even at 86dB. The midrange hump, ouch....

I agree on the two tone thing, pretty nice looking actually, in this price bracket.
 
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amirm

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How are you cooking them? We are still experimenting, roast on 375 seems to be ok so far.
The first time I cooked Shishito peppers on the charcoal grill. That came out great but I am not always in a mood to fire up the grill for something this quick. The new method I use comes out almost as good and is very convenient. I use a frypan on the gas stove and set it to max. Put some oil either in the pan or mix some oil with the peppers in a bowl. Once the pan is very hot, dump them in there. Leave them in there for a few minutes and one side chars. Then turn them once to cook on another side. Once they are soft they are ready to go. I then take them out and put the lemon juice, soy sauce and pink salt on it and it is ready to eat.
 

DavidMcRoy

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This is great news. Now I don’t have to ‘Frankenstein’ a pair of 305s to make a hot rod with outboard electronics. (Except, that would be cheaper.)
 

BYRTT

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Great thanks Amir this new nice acoustic review, look of speaker is great and mmm.. same for the food there.

Sounds like Stage A130 really shined in listening test session and that is great and a pleasure read, that said in objective land no reason some slam 305P MKII in comparison to A130 ..
A130_verse_305P.png
 
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maverickronin

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Sounds like Stage A130 really shined in listening test session and that is great and a pleasure read, that said in objective land no reason some slam 305P MKII in comparison to A130 ..

Distortion and consequent max clean SPL looks like it should be way better on the Stage 130 though...
 

beagleman

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Pleasantly surprising in the distortion. I expected it to explode even at 86dB. The midrange hump, ouch....

I agree on the two tone thing, pretty nice looking actually, in this price bracket.


I have a pair of speakers that have nearly an identical bump in same exact range, and it is NOT objectionable at all, in fact even though not being "Flat", it actually makes a lot of female singers sound a slight bit better. A tad more forward, or like they are "Right there" more so.

It depends on the recording. Some a bit too forward, some just right. So I would not assume it is "that huge" of a negative. I experimented with some eq and A/B ed back and forth, and it was not bad, but more of a preference thing.
 

maverickronin

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I sometimes do, but less so now, more medium loud is my thing.

I like to listen quite loud, but only for a track or two at a time. I turn it down to something reasonable after that to preserve my hearing.
 

A Surfer

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I like to listen quite loud, but only for a track or two at a time. I turn it down to something reasonable after that to preserve my hearing.
Pretty much the same here. I have found that even well recorded music when played back very loudly really isn't that pleasant. Certainly not as you noted for prolonged exposure. For me I dream of a room filling, immersive sound that is grand in scale but very clean and almost holographic if that makes any sense.
 

infinitesymphony

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Pretty much the same here. I have found that even well recorded music when played back very loudly really isn't that pleasant. Certainly not as you noted for prolonged exposure. For me I dream of a room filling, immersive sound that is grand in scale but very clean and almost holographic if that makes any sense.
That's a hard mastering target to hit because if you don't add some compensation, the music will sound dull and peaky on less than perfect systems, but I definitely agree that some mixes sound like they were designed to dominate at background-noise-quiet volumes (see: pop songs with <6 dB DR and piercing vocals).

What would be cool is a variable mastering curve included with a mix that responds to live metering and modifies the EQ and compression settings based on SPL output: more SPL, less loudness compensation and compression. One can dream. :)
 

andreasmaaan

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What would be cool is a variable mastering curve included with a mix that responds to live metering and modifies the EQ and compression settings based on SPL output: more SPL, less loudness compensation and compression. One can dream. :)

Object-based audio makes this possible. Whether mainstream recordings are ever actually released this way is another question :)
 

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Distortion and consequent max clean SPL looks like it should be way better on the Stage 130 though...
Agree thats right A130 looks good there but one could try high pass filter 305P to same as A130 and win some bits, 305P looks have less visible port noice and smoother HF above crossover region looking into directivity index curve plus vertical lobe is more in phase textbook looking..
A130_verse_305P_c.png

Without directly touching sensible stuff as possible port noice and diffraction it takes not much PEQs to get 305P into for example rough Revel M16 like trim or add two moore high shelves and get rough Harbeth M30 like trim..
EQ_305P_MKII_x1x1x1_2000mS.gif
 

maverickronin

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Agree thats right A130 looks good there but one could try high pass filter 305P to same as A130 and win some bits, 305P looks have less visible port noice and smoother HF above crossover region looking into directivity index curve plus vertical lobe is more in phase textbook looking

Maybe when Amir has time remeasure the 305 we can know for sure, but the 308 is pretty unhappy well above the bass.

index.php


Not sure how much of that is the top of the woofer vs the bottom of the tweeter or how different the 5" and 8" drivers are. Maybe the 5 is better in the lower mids. I don't have the best place for measuring mine to find out.

Port noise could end up being just as objectionable as the distortion too, but it didn't seem to bother Amir.
 

infinitesymphony

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Maybe when Amir has time remeasure the 305 we can know for sure, but the 308 is pretty unhappy well above the bass.

Not sure how much of that is the top of the woofer vs the bottom of the tweeter or how different the 5" and 8" drivers are. Maybe the 5 is better in the lower mids. I don't have the best place for measuring mine to find out.
The crossover for the JBL 305P is actually set similarly to the 308P (1725 Hz vs 1800 Hz), but the 308P is woofer is being asked to do more. Perhaps someone who knows more about speaker performance can speculate about how that might affect distortion near the crossover range in each model. Looks like no matter which bookshelf speakers you pick it's wise to HPF them and add a subwoofer if you want to avoid bass distortion.

Blows my mind that the 305P and 308P are using 41W and 56W amps respectively. Perhaps they're maxing out somewhere between 86-96 dB where performance seems to go off a cliff. I find it hard to imagine that they used substantially better drivers in the A130 but would love to hear more info.
 

andreasmaaan

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The crossover for the JBL 305P is actually set similarly to the 308P (1725 Hz vs 1800 Hz), but the 308P is woofer is being asked to do more. Perhaps someone who knows more about speaker performance can speculate about how that might affect distortion near the crossover range in each model

The 308P woofer is not really being asked to do more. It has a much larger radiating surface, so to produce a given SPL at a given frequency, it in fact needs to do less than the 305P's woofer.
 

infinitesymphony

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The 308P woofer is not really being asked to do more. It has a much larger radiating surface, so to produce a given SPL at a given frequency, it in fact needs to do less than the 305P's woofer.
But by being asked to play lower, does this affect distortion across the rest of the frequency range? I'm thinking about the concept of bass frequencies eating up headroom from a mixing perspective (which may or may not translate to this scenario).

Any idea how much the built-in amplifiers might be influencing distortion performance, or is that not possible to evaluate without measuring the amps by themselves?
 

andreasmaaan

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But by being asked to play lower, does this affect distortion across the rest of the frequency range? I'm thinking about the concept of bass frequencies eating up headroom from a mixing perspective (which may or may not translate to this scenario).

Yes, that's true, all else equal the more bass output a driver is asked to reproduce, the more intermodulation distortion this will cause when music is played back. However, we'd need more detailed measurements of the two woofers to know their IMD performance. Having said that, presumably the additional bass extension of the 308P is balanced with its greater capacity to produce bass.

And it's also worth noting that this won't affect harmonic distortion performance in the slightest, so any impact it has would not be apparent in Amir's measurements of these speakers.

Any idea how much the built-in amplifiers might be influencing distortion performance?

Probably quite negligible in the frequency range in which we see most of the 308P's distortion. Even cheap-as-chips class D amps don't tend to produce more than 0.1% or at worst 0.2% HD except at very high frequencies.
 
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