JBL Conceal C62 Invisible Speaker Review

[YSC]

I guess it could work for surround effects, sometimes the effects need hidden from sight to be impressive more than the audio accuracy

 

[lewdish]

I feel like from a performance results perspective this is prob the most difficult speaker to guage the value of. I think the consumer for this really doesnt care how it would perform as long as it was out of site and did its job which is to play some audible level of music, people are going to put drywall compound and paint on top of it, it will never really sound good and will always measure horribly even w/ a high level of EQ, but as long as it makes noise in an audible enough band I doubt anyone will care. I think it is really cool for what it is though.

The bare minimum as an owner would be to just use EQ to correct it but it prob would never matter to most folks using this. I do think the price is wildly over blown for an exciter attached to a piece of plastic but thats architectural components for ya~ You could def just make this using a piece of sheet metal and gluing it to a piece of drywall and buy a $40 exciter to do the same job and save yourself a ton of money.

 

[lewdish]

People are this adverse to seeing speakers in their living room??

Waf factor matters for a lot of folks and sometimes it's an artistic/architectural choice

 

[kemmler3D]

How are people supposed to vote this speaker? It's on false premises as the speaker is not measured as designed; painted inside a wall. I suggest removing the ability to vote on such cases as it makes zero sense to assess something not measured in its intended use case.

Honestly I don't look at the votes very closely most of the time... if you can't judge the measurements for yourself, the crowd can only help you so much.

People are this adverse to seeing speakers in their living room??

There is no upper limit on WAF. And not to blame wives, either... sometimes the look of a space is of overriding importance, and sound quality is not. JBL knows this and has found a way to make money on it.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I voted great on the ability to be *invisible* with 2mm of paint over it.


What is interesting is that Stealth makes an amplifier preprogrammed with EQ for their speakers. It’s described as a 11 band PEQ.

SA2400-MKII | Stealth Acoustics

www.stealthacoustics.com

And in case it wasn’t clear, Harman and Stealth work together

Harman and Stealth Acoustics Partner to Debut New JBL Invisible Loudspeakers at CEDIA Expo 2019

Harman and Stealth Acoustics have partnered to create four new invisible speakers designed to install like a drywall patch.

www.cepro.com

I did too.

 

[Pinkynator]

Would be interesting to see this installed in a European load-bearing brick wall

 

[MAB]

I think a room with these C62 covering every square inch of wall space would be really fun.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Honestly I don't look at the votes very closely most of the time... if you can't judge the measurements for yourself, the crowd can only help you so much.

I don't either but I'm sure it's used to assess "at a glance" from guests Googling reviews. And guests are by large the majority of visitors on ASR.

 

[amirm]

I think a room with these C62 covering every square inch of wall space would be really fun.

We did double up on the center channel in Madrona living room picture I post.

 

[amirm]

People are this adverse to seeing speakers in their living room??

For sure. Certainly in higher end houses. Look at this system we installed:

All speakers are hidden. The surround speakers are in the ceiling and we built a custom sub that is below the fireplace landing. Customer would not accept anything else.

 

[simnick]

I’m the donor here. Without these models, I don’t think I would have been able to get my wife onboard with 7.2 surround. These are the surrounds, with C83s for L/R/C and their subs installed in wall as well.

This will be in a very modern house (with too much glass causing challenging reflections) that I’m in the middle of running all the low voltage wiring myself this exact weekend.

I’m in Seattle, so if someday Amirm wants to visit with his equipment he can check it out mudded and painted.

 

[simnick]

 

[amirm]

I suggest removing the ability to vote on such cases as it makes zero sense to assess something not measured in its intended use case.

Seems like you have lost the plot. I measure all normal speakers anechoically. That isn't in its "intended use." We want room independent data and that is what you have here, with accommodation of it being mounted on a wall.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Seems like you have lost the plot. I measure all normal speakers anechoically. That isn't in its "intended use." We want room independent data and that is what you have here, with accommodation of it being mounted on a wall.

That's not really what I meant and you know it. So if we can lay off with the insults that'd be nice.

This is not the same as your normal speaker. Would you say that we can assess this speaker and compare it to others, while the response will change dramatically when installed as per the manual with layers of paint?

Yes we want room independent data but this is a case of having not completely "assembled" the speaker before measuring.

 

[Dennis_FL]

Seems the world is going to Atmos (or spacial audio as Apple calls it) and even putting speakers in non-traditional spots (eg Dolby Atmos FlexConnect). I had that problem in my typical Florida home with an open floor plan, tile floors and hurricane resistant walls and roof (running wires is difficult) and I tried at last count five different setups in my Family Room --- ending up with the wireless Sonos Arc + sub + Era 300's. The Sonos software can adjust for my room problems quite nicely and it sounded better (a lot better) than my previous attempts ( all with a receiver and wired speakers and sub).

​

 

[amirm]

This is not the same as your normal speaker. Would you say that we can assess this speaker and compare it to others, while the response will change dramatically when installed as per the manual with layers of paint?

No, it will not change dramatically with a few layers of paint. The surface is already painted. A millimeter or two of paint is not going to change much at all.

 

[amirm]

That's not really what I meant and you know it. So if we can lay off with the insults that'd be nice.

No, I don't know what you meant. All I know is that you made the insulting remark regarding usability of my measurements with no knowledge of the issues you are complaining about. Learn the topic. Make specific remarks and we will be good. Don't just complain and expect a smile back.

 

[Jeromeof]

People are this adverse to seeing speakers in their living room??

Yes my wife hates the look of speakers in our main "open plan" living space - it's very asymmetrical anyway with one side opening up to a conservatory and windows, so would be problematic anyway. But she would love these.

Luckily I have 2 other rooms to "play" with where I am "allowed" my own setup and this situation has got me into nice headphones, so when the family are gone to bed I can listen to some nice open back headphones in the main living space.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

No, I don't know what you meant. All I know is that you made the insulting remark regarding usability of my measurements with no knowledge of the issues you are complaining about. Learn the topic. Make specific remarks and we will be good. Don't just complain and expect a smile back.

Insulting? That's on you.

Learn the topic? I'm supposed to accept that up to 2 mm. of paint is not going to do anything to the frequency response.
You can just put a layer of plastic between the driver and no change?
And if it's on the driver, adding mass to it -no change as well?

 

[Matt_Holland]

I worked for Amina for over 15 years. I started there as an engineer before they became the “invisible speaker company”. We were experimenting with NXT flat panel technology and “invisible” was the best use of the technology to grow the company.

I’m familiar with Stealth, Sonance and other invisible speakers. The compromises in their design are enormous, but the biggest factor in the end result is the structure into which they are installed.

We had Amina installations that varied from sounding excellent (with a sub) to downright terrible. Often when ceiling mounted there were mechanical and cavity resonances and distortions that dominated the result.

Invisible speakers are used by most high-end custom installers and they are also specified by AV consultancies for commercial projects. Sound-wise they are obviously compromised, but with the some luck and careful installation can easily equal low to mid-grade in-ceiling speakers. Aminas also give a usefully wide dispersion that really helped fill rooms with sound.

The AV market has matured to accept these as a necessary option in a small niche of projects.

I’ll end by saying that when they go wrong, it’s not much fun dealing with all those in the chain!