JBL Stage A120 Review By Erin/Hardisj.

[Haint]

Given the A130 is a favorite of ASR I figured this would be of interest to many here. I had commented on this speaker well before Amirm reviewed the A130 and was decidedly not a fan despite being a total novice at evaluation. A useful lesson in not blindly buying the same series/model line expecting them all to be gems.

Thanks to Erin for the full review

 

[abdo123]

It’s kind of disappointing how bad this speaker is with the ports opened.

 

[Ron Texas]

Roller coaster frequency response.

 

[Haint]

It’s kind of disappointing how bad this speaker is with the ports opened.

Yep, the sealed mode would probably respond pretty well to full range EQ from the more sophisticated suites like Dirac or XT32 though.

 

[Jbrunwa]

Dirac Live seems to work just fine with open port A120s that I use for height speakers. At this inexpensive price point, they are low distortion and seem to well match with my Revel bed speakers.

 

[Gatordaddy]

Given the A130 is a favorite of ASR I figured this would be of interest to many here. I had commented on this speaker well before Amirm reviewed the A130 and was decidedly not a fan despite being a total novice at evaluation. A useful lesson in not blindly buying the same series/model line expecting them all to be gems.

Thanks to Erin for the full review

View attachment 162636

It's disappointing how poor the ported configuration is compared to the 130. This was probably an afterthought or just designed to be a sealed "surround" speaker to support the rest of the lineup but marketing got involved. In the sealed configuration it seems much better. I might try and find a cheap pair to wall mount for the purpose of providing adequate sound in my living room/kitchen.

 

[theyellowspecial]

JBL Stage floorstander review any day now!

 

[sweetchaos]

That's definitely disappointing.

I guess it goes to show...if the speaker wasn't on the NFS test bench, you can't judge it's performance.

Stage A120: Preference Score is 3.0 (if score goes to 10) and would be 5.6 with a perfect subwoofer.
Stage A130: Preference Score is 5.1 (if score goes to 10) and would be 7.5 with a perfect subwoofer.

Thanks to the owner who sent this to Erin for review.

 

[Presently42]

I'm extremely pleased to see another of this series reviewed - even if I am rather disappointed by the outcome. That being said, this isn't as bad as it would seem at first glance: there seems to be but one or two resonances, with the rest of the response just being plain old uneven - likely quite easily corrected with broad tonality eq strokes. A shame the engineers couldn't do that themselves - but I'd love to see how the speaker responds to eq!

 

[Chromatischism]

Yep, the sealed mode would probably respond pretty well to full range EQ from the more sophisticated suites like Dirac or XT32 though.

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You can also just EQ with the port open instead of robbing the speaker of efficiency.

 

[Walter]

Disappointing, but it does lend credence to a couple of subjective reviews and comments I've seen here and elsewhere which stated that it sounded much worse than the A130.

 

[Marakk]

Maybe they are really designed to be just surround speakers, since mounting them on wall will mean users not being able to point them towards MLP, hence the elevated treble. Arena 120 deifnitely have superior frequency response though when listening on axis.

 

[abdo123]

The speaker will probably sound neutral mounted on a wall with the port sealed, anything else is a disaster.

 

[bravomail]

JBL Stage floorstander review any day now!

JBL Stage A170 was reviewed and measured, not here though.

 

[theyellowspecial]

JBL Stage A170 was reviewed and measured, not here though.

Yes, but we need colorful graphs, a full spin, and a Maiky EQ.

 

[Richard Berg]

That was me. I also sent an A120 to Amir, as well as an A130 to Erin.

Always thought it was crazy how unevenly-reviewed the Stage series was -- a few models are super popular with reviewers, while others are virtually unknown. Coupled with JBL's, uh..."uneven" sales strategy, it makes things unnecessarily hard on consumers. Will you get the "good" NFS-backed design team, or the one that just slaps other teams' components into a box? Will you pay $100/pr or $300/pr? Who knows?

Anyway, data points >> guesswork. Now that things are finally coming back in stock, we'll find out soon enough.

My use case is on-wall, port sealed, in a 20ch+ Atmos setup. Main thing I'll be listening for personally is how well they handoff to the 708 LCRs / 705 bed layer. Supposedly the same HDI waveguide design across the board, though obviously the Stage series doesn't use compression drivers. I also have several extra 705s on hand to compare specifically for this use case (easy to resell those if they turn out to be overkill).

I have an SDP-75 so EQ won't be an issue.

 

[Richard Berg]

Maybe this is just ownership bias creeping in, but I'm more optimistic about these measurements than I was at first glance. Both DIs are very low and smooth. Distortion at 96dB is incredibly low for a cheap 8.5lb box. Elevated tweeter response will be useful for punching thru fabric (soffit mount). Just need to make sure floor & ceiling are well treated.

Assuming bass extension and out-of-the-box tonality aren't concerning, seems like the only major (unfixable) downside is the nonlinear compression of 100db+ peaks.

Now to just finish the darn build-out so I can hook things up & listen.

 

[BagOfDoughnuts]

I just purchased the A120's along with the A125 center and bought some Klipsch Synergy S-2 surrounds and a REL T3 on ebay for a total of $550. I set them up and they actually sound fantastic for a budget home theater. The JBL's sound great. Voices are clear they don't muddy up on complex parts of home theater. Sometimes the graphs don't tell the whole story. I use them for 90% home theater.

 

[hardisj]

Sometimes the graphs don't tell the whole story.

Or maybe they do. Maybe you just like what the A120’s have to offer. Maybe you like a non-neutral sound; boosted bass and highs. And that’s fine. That’s the purpose of the data: to help you determine what you do like and make decisions based on that. It might also be prudent to try speakers that do measure well, though, to make sure the hypothesis above is correct. Who knows, maybe you’ll find you don’t like the A120’s compared to a more neutral speaker. Or maybe you still will. But, like I said, that is precisely why the data is useful.

Just something to think about.

 

[Walter]

Or maybe they do. Maybe you just like what the A120’s have to offer. Maybe you like a non-neutral sound; boosted bass and highs. And that’s fine. That’s the purpose of the data: to help you determine what you do like and make decisions based on that. It might also be prudent to try speakers that do measure well, though, to make sure the hypothesis above is correct. Who knows, maybe you’ll find you don’t like the A120’s compared to a more neutral speaker. Or maybe you still will. But, like I said, that is precisely why the data is useful.

Just something to think about.

Or, based on the unit to unit variations between the A130 you tested and the one Amir tested, maybe he got a pair that actually measure much better? Either way, as you wrote, if he can test against a pair that are known to measure well, it will help him to know what sound profile he prefers.