This is a review and detailed measurements of the JBL Stage A130 bookshelf speaker. I purchases these online but can't find the receipt. They normally cost US $300/pair but the place I bought them from has them for $209 right now.
The A130 looks plain until you take off the grill and then looks handsome:
View attachment 98289
I like the rounded corners which are easier on the hands and reduce diffraction:
View attachment 98290
On the other hand, I did not like the binding posts that were too close to each other and to the back of the cup:
View attachment 98291
Fortunately you only deal with them once.
I did not show the grill but it has metal pins and took fair amount of energy to pull it off. So someone was thinking of longevity given that the budget did not allow magnetic mount.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the
Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise.
Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate mostly below 1%.
Temperature was 64 degrees F. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
The grill was off and measurements were referenced to tweeter center.
JBL Stage A130 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
View attachment 98292
Ignoring the three prominent peaks, on-axis response is actually quite flat. The cause of those peaks is quite evident if we measure each radiating surface at close distance:
View attachment 98293
Starting at the right, the tweeter is clearly peaking at around 15 kHz. Coming down we see the peak around 1.3 kHz which I think is caused by the port resonance (orange). There is another peak around 870 Hz which may be from the woofer itself or combination with the port.
Early window reflections show quite a similarity (for good or bad) with the direct on-axis sound:
View attachment 98294
Putting the two together gives us a predicted response that is slightly smoothed over version of on-axis:
View attachment 98295
From experience I know that the peaking from 900 to 2 kHz can actually be pleasant and far better than dips in that area. The final resonance likely is not very audible due its very high frequency and narrowness.
Here is our impedance plot which shows the resonances as well:
View attachment 98296
The fancy trademark JBL waveguide does it job well in controlling directivity:
View attachment 98297
View attachment 98298
These are active, professional monitor class directivity and not something we often see in bargain speakers.
I was pleased that we had more wiggle room vertically, making the height of the speaker less critical:
View attachment 98299
Most impressive was the low amount of distortion:
View attachment 98300
If those resonances were not there around 1 kHz and at 15 kHz, this would look even cleaner.
View attachment 98301
We can see our 50 dB reference line is barely exceeded until we get very low in frequency. Did not expect this.
JBL A130 Listening Tests
I started to listen to the A130 as is and as I suspect, the sound was pretty pleasant. Yes, the upper mid had the accentuation that I expected. This actually makes female vocals sound more detailed and more airy. But it was a bit much so I reached in my EQ tool and knocked those two resonances down plus the one at 15 kHz:
View attachment 98302
Not only did the first two notches clean up the response but it made the sound of the speaker super clean and effortless. There was a level of fidelity that was giving me goosebumps! I can only envision the cause being reduced distortion to go alone with the better response. The third filter made a very subtle difference but was still worthwhile.
Once there, I started to crank up the volume and this little speaker can play and play loud! Despite me using a single speaker, it had no trouble playing as loud as I wanted. My speaker killer track with deep bass and zero effect on it. Bass played as if it is no big deal producing a level of fidelity that I rarely see, err hear, in speakers let alone a budget one.
Conclusions
Out of the box the JBL A130 gets a lot of things right but leaves us with basically two resonances that are issues. Fortunately the peaking there is not as bad as it seems to the eye. As it was the A130 was more than listenable. Dial in the simple EQ as I did and this speaker outperforms many speakers. It has a fluid, effort-free sound with excellent neutrality that was a joy to listen to across all kinds of music. It simply did not care what I threw at it -- it performed.
I can recommend the A130 even if you don't have an EQ.
If you can apply EQ, then the JBL Stage A130 gets one of my highest recommendations. It is a great example of how we can fix one or two minor flaws in a speaker with EQ and create a hybrid solution that is nearly untouchable in its price range or even higher.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Had stored the last batch of Japanese shishito peppers saved up and figured I make a snack out of them:
View attachment 98303
With a touch of lemon juice, soy sauce and salt they were wonderful as always. Normally you only see them in green but I left them on the plants for too long and tehy turned red/orange and a bit sweeter. Yum!!!
Any
donations are much appreciated using
: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
