JBL 708P Review (Professional Monitor)

[dfuller]

Really depends on listening distance and definition of "normal". Would the 308p distort at 83dBC reference in the nearfield? Yes, quite horribly on peaks too I suspect. At 75dB @ 3m? Again, yes. At 65dB in nearfield? No, probably not. If you are doing tests in mono, then it's even harder for the 308p.

Exactly right. Some speakers just don't do so hot when you push them up relatively loud. Even my Barefoots (which truly get goofily loud) have a limit - the midrange start to complain if the volume is too high and you hit the right note. But that's way, way beyond normal listening level - it's the kind of level where you can quite easily see the woofers jump on a kick hit and the entire room is shaking.

But it doesn’t end there. There’s dynamic compression, THD, IMD, beam width (horizontal and vertical) ... all of which we know impacts speaker preference to some degree. We know these matter. The question we don’t yet have a definitive answer to is how much they matter vs other factors, but that just means that the science here is not “case closed” (and that CEA2034 is demonstrably insufficient).

Yup, and all of this is tricky to measure at best. CEA2034 I would say tells you ~65% of the story, but certainly not everything.

 

[richard12511]

If someone wants to ship a 708p to me, I’ll put it through a blind test with my 308p . I’ve got this ABX comparator now begging to be used.

 

[milotrain]

Yes, that's right, it would depend on listening distance, 708p would be more suitable for longer listening distances then.

Yeah but in practice the 708 isn't your friend past around 15' (5m).

If someone wants to ship a 708p to me, I’ll put it through a blind test with my 308p . I’ve got this ABX comparator now begging to be used.

Well I've got 708s setup here in Los Angeles, also a pair of 8050Bs. If you are in the area you could bring your 308s and we can try to blind test each other.

 

[Robbo99999]

If someone wants to ship a 708p to me, I’ll put it through a blind test with my 308p . I’ve got this ABX comparator now begging to be used.

Cool, what's your ABX Comparator? Is that a speaker shuffler?!

 

[RobL]

Yeah but in practice the 708 isn't your friend past around 15' (5m).


Well I've got 708s setup here in Los Angeles, also a pair of 8050Bs. If you are in the area you could bring your 308s and we can try to blind test each other.

Any subjective impressions of the 708’s vs the 8050b’s? Do you prefer one over the other?

 

[milotrain]

Any subjective impressions of the 708’s vs the 8050b’s? Do you prefer one over the other?

Yeah, I like the 708 better but only just, and that may be because of how cleanly they translate to JBL cinema 3ways. The 8050B (and before that the 8050A) was my favorite near-field speaker for almost a decade. I specifically remember doing some work with them on a bigger stage and a supervisor who has very good ears had come in and sat down, when we were done with that pass he asked to hear what we had just done on the smalls. "Dude, that was the smalls." His mouth dropped.

Completely subjective and biased take on the 708s is that I had listened these S.A.P. Audio Quartette speakers at a semi famous hifi shop in VA around maybe 2000 or so. I dreamed about those speakers and their crazy deep stereo image for years. Sometime during 2018 I found a pair on ebay and because the company was out of business and no one knew what they were this guy sold them for basically the same as a pair of 708Ps (which I had not heard, we were still using the 8050B). I bought them, and spent a few days poking and prodding to get them to sound good, put a First Watt F7 on them, they were sweet. Then engineering brought in some 708s because my mixer wanted to try them and see how well they would translate to the 3ways, and if he could predub on them. So right after I got those Quartettes setup I did the same setup work on the 708s and F* me the 708s sounded just as good, better on crappy source material, and piles easier to get into the sweet spot. During covid lockdown I had an opportunity to buy some 708s and 705s. Well I haven't listened to those Quartettes nearly since I got the 708s setup four years ago.

You can't go wrong with either, but if passive speakers are of value to you the 708 is clearly a winner. I prefer passives for most setups, even though I was a total active speaker zealot for a long time.

 

[Jaimo]

You can’t go wrong with a pair of LSR308’s either. The choice is really down to budget, listening distance and listening volume levels.

If you can afford the 708p’s go ahead and grab them. If your budget and aesthetic sense allows, go for the 708i’s and splurge on a set of top notch amplifiers and eq. If you want to keep your costs down, the 308’s are just fine as long as you keep your volume levels down.

Either way, you will not be dissatisfied.

Many an audiophile buddy of mine has left my listening sessions dazed and confused that my $150 LSR308’s sounded better than their megabuck Audiophool monsters.

 

[richard12511]

Yeah but in practice the 708 isn't your friend past around 15' (5m).


Well I've got 708s setup here in Los Angeles, also a pair of 8050Bs. If you are in the area you could bring your 308s and we can try to blind test each other.

If I ever travel to LA, I may take you up on that. Long ways away, though.

 

[richard12511]

Cool, what's your ABX Comparator? Is that a speaker shuffler?!

Unfortunately I can't show the link anymore, as I literally bought the last model, and it's discontinued now .

Essentially, though, yes, it's a speaker shuffler. It allows me to quickly switch between 3 pairs of speakers. Haven't had a chance to use it yet, though. The blind listening tests I've done in the past have had really slow switch times, so I'm really excited to see how much this improves that.

 

[T.J. McKenna]

I cannot count the number of times that I and others have been attacked (not by you, just to be clear) as nonscientific believers in voodoo magic, when we propose the idea that a speaker with an inferior CEA2034 performance might actually be a better speaker than another one with a better CEA2034 performance.

I cannot count the number of times that members here and on other science forums have attacked me and others whenever we so much as hint at the possibility that His Divine Holiness Dr Floyd Toole might not have conclusively closed the case now and forever on the topic of speaker preference, and that maybe the science still has room to improve. Even around here, notice how whenever an anomaly is seen in CEA2034, some anecdotal comments (not scientifically proven) from Dr Toole’s book are quoted, and everyone gasps a sigh of relief that their deity has spoken on the matter and we once again have clarity with unshakable faith.

I am not here to dismiss the relevance of CEA2034 but merely to draw attention to a common trend to regard it and Floyd Toole’s surrounding commentary to have closed the case on speaker preference. There is clearly more science to be done. Yet quite a lot of people seem to want to believe that Dr Toole’s work has completely conclusively closed the case on speaker preference, and therefore react as if threatened by any claim that there may be major missing factors of sound quality not captured by CEA2034.

I bought Dr Toole's book, "Loudspeakers and Rooms" some years ago and was at first impressed by its refreshingly counter-audiophile conclusions. I had given up on reading audiophile impressions about gear because I was sick of all the raves given to speakers that sounded either mediocre or clearly inadequate to me. So to read that only blind tests with "trained" listeners could offer completely unbiased evaluations of this gear seemed very convincing. Then I started wondering: why did just about every test conclude that virtually every factor in sound reproduction apart from frequency response was close to inaudible in such ostensibly "objective" tests? It seemed to my (obviously) untrained ears that a lot more than just frequency response was going on in sound reproduction. So if the trained listeners couldn't hear things I thought in my ignorance that I could - important things to me at least - then perhaps this "training" might just possibly be inadequate? If you have to be "trained" you have to jettison your naive apprehension of the reproduced sound to focus on the abstractions (frequency response?) in which you have been trained. So if the "unbiased" conclusions mirror the presuppositions with which the training was formulated is it any wonder?

 

[richard12511]

I bought Dr Toole's book, "Loudspeakers and Rooms" some years ago and was at first impressed by its refreshingly counter-audiophile conclusions. I had given up on reading audiophile impressions about gear because I was sick of all the raves given to speakers that sounded either mediocre or clearly inadequate to me. So to read that only blind tests with "trained" listeners could offer completely unbiased evaluations of this gear seemed very convincing. Then I started wondering: why did just about every test conclude that virtually every factor in sound reproduction apart from frequency response was close to inaudible in such ostensibly "objective" tests? It seemed to my (obviously) untrained ears that a lot more than just frequency response was going on in sound reproduction. So if the trained listeners couldn't hear things I thought in my ignorance that I could - important things to me at least - then perhaps this "training" might just possibly be inadequate? If you have to be "trained" you have to jettison your naive apprehension of the reproduced sound to focus on the abstractions (frequency response?) in which you have been trained. So if the "unbiased" conclusions mirror the presuppositions with which the training was formulated is it any wonder?

Frequency response is not the only thing that matters. Directivity is equally - if not more - important.

 

[Robbo99999]

Unfortunately I can't show the link anymore, as I literally bought the last model, and it's discontinued now .

Essentially, though, yes, it's a speaker shuffler. It allows me to quickly switch between 3 pairs of speakers. Haven't had a chance to use it yet, though. The blind listening tests I've done in the past have had really slow switch times, so I'm really excited to see how much this improves that.

That will certainly be an advantage to aid in more accurate comparisons, although it doesn't solve the different speaker placement variable, unless someone physically moves the speakers between each sample you listen to, although you could probably get around that by doing a set of tests with the 2 models of speakers in their different positions, and then you'd swap the position of the 2 models of speakers and run the tests again to see if position influenced your preference.

 

[T.J. McKenna]

Frequency response is not the only thing that matters. Directivity is equally - if not more - important.

Isn't directivity just frequency response off-axis?

 

[richard12511]

Isn't directivity just frequency response off-axis?

Depending on your definition, maybe.

I see directivity not as the off axis response but the relation of difference between on and off axis frequency response. In my mind, it's possible to have good off axis response and poor directivity, if for example the off axis is rising when the on axis is falling and falling when the on axis is rising.

My general view is that FR + Directivity is ~90%, with distortion and timing being the last 10.

 

[richard12511]

That will certainly be an advantage to aid in more accurate comparisons, although it doesn't solve the different speaker placement variable, unless someone physically moves the speakers between each sample you listen to, although you could probably get around that by doing a set of tests with the 2 models of speakers in their different positions, and then you'd swap the position of the 2 models of speakers and run the tests again to see if position influenced your preference.

In the past, we've had dedicated movers that move the speakers out of the way and into place when the switch is started, with colored tape marking the ground and speaker to show where to go. This adds to the switch time, though. This time I'm thinking I'm gonna try what you suggest in your last sentence. That (along with the new machine) should really reduce the switch time.

 

[Jim Matthews]

I have had a pair of 708p running (happily) at home for 18 months.

They're atop a set of TubaHT subs designed by Bill Fitz Maurice.

What I did not see in the previous discussion is a subtle advantage these have - AES/EBU datalink. With a pair of MiniDSP plate amps, my audio can remain entirely in the digital realm until final amplification.

This has been stable and satisfying.

(Full disclosure, I'm well over 50 and can't hear a thing above 12 kHz)

 

[Richard Berg]

Yeah, looking back at the JBL LSR308P MkII review, it's clear that JBL might be eating its own lunch with that model at an 85% discount versus the 708P. The 308P MkII has smoother in-room response and better directivity, and the only sacrifice appears to be a bit more distortion.

After skimming most of the 21 intervening pages, I'm surprised nobody is comparing to the 705p review instead? Similar dynamic range, lower tweeter distortion, slightly wider beamwidth, all for a little over half price.

The 3-series is an incredible value, don't get me wrong, but I don't think there's much overlap in target market: either you need the extra grunt or you don't.

 

[T.J. McKenna]

After skimming most of the 21 intervening pages, I'm surprised nobody is comparing to the 705p review instead? Similar dynamic range, lower tweeter distortion, slightly wider beamwidth, all for a little over half price.

The 3-series is an incredible value, don't get me wrong, but I don't think there's much overlap in target market: either you need the extra grunt or you don't.

Well, we don't listen to reviews - or measurements, for that matter. I've had hundreds of speakers of widely differing shapes and sizes at home and I'd say that the bigger they are - up to a point - the more I enjoy them over the entire gamut of the musical spectrum. Small speakers (5 inch woofers) have certain technical advantages, advantages that show up in measurements, but they sound like a toy version of the real thing.

 

[Richard Berg]

I'd buy that reasoning if the 8-inchers were full range, but they're not -- both need a sub. I have a hard time believing that crossover at 55Hz instead of 45Hz makes it sound like a toy.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Well, we don't listen to reviews - or measurements, for that matter. I've had hundreds of speakers of widely differing shapes and sizes at home and I'd say that the bigger they are - up to a point - the more I enjoy them over the entire gamut of the musical spectrum. Small speakers (5 inch woofers) have certain technical advantages, advantages that show up in measurements, but they sound like a toy version of the real thing.

3 way with dual 8 inch woofers preferred with or without sub. I prefer to turn sub volume down after calibration.