JBL 308P MKII Studio Monitor Review

[turbotuff]

I have the LP6 to still test.....

Woohoo!!

 

[bigjacko]

Although the distortions are pretty high, the directivity is very good. This speaker would be a good one to tell if distortion is audible and whether it makes the music less enjoyable. Seems Amir did not notice the distortion and enjoyed the speaker, would like to know other people's reaction too.

 

[renaudrenaud]

My wife consider the look of these JBL family very aggressive. Searching on the web I found there is a white version "more acceptable" for the 305p :

But I did not find white 308P.


BTW searching for white 308P I realise these puppies are totally inexpensive!

 

[Sal1950]

And oh, yes, there is hiss from the tweeter. It is very audible with your ear at the tweeter level but is gone at about 2/3 of a meter/2 feet or so.

Help me to understand why I hear so much of this with many powered speakers? I can stick my ear completely into the waveguide of my 3600s and not hear a bit of hiss from my 25 yo Adcoms. Why can't they design these cheap plate amps to be quiet?

 

[Stump909]

Did you change the input sensitivity? That basically eliminate the hiss for me.

 

[half_dog]

I have a pair of theses speaker and one of them came with a lot of distortion and a severe dip around 1.7Khz - very audible. BTW I've talked about it in another thread. I had a lot of headache with warranty and today I'm really avoiding Harman group - at least in my country because their terrible after sales service. But I have to agree they are nice speakers... When they work properly.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...y-monitors-first-impressions.7977/post-454318

 

[restorer-john]

Help me to understand why I hear so much of this with many powered speakers?

Cheap amplification with no attention paid to residual noise, and tweeters directly connected to the amplifier instead of sitting behind a passive crossover that has inbuilt attenuation and bandwidth limiting. An unfortunate combination but all too common.

 

[restorer-john]

@amirm Great review.

So if you shelved off the deep bass, peaked up the 1.7KHz dip and pulled back the 18KHz peak, they'd be pretty good except for the hiss at close range, distortion and running out of power/limiting?

As a powered monitor for musos making/mixing/recording music, are they really good enough with all those caveats? Even at USD$500pr?

 

[DuncanTodd]

All they need to do is get some designer to make their speakers less ugly. This bu**hole look seems to be popular with their designs and no grilles to hide it.

 

[Ron Texas]

Another great review. Thank You @amirm. As usual, active speakers suffer from not enough power. I have a pair of 305P speakers. They are impressive and don't dent your finances.

 

[Archaea]

All they need to do is get some designer to make their speakers less ugly. This bu**hole look seems to be popular with their designs

It’s a function over form design. I’m sure that shape isn’t accidental.

 

[Archaea]

@amirm,

I currently own JBL 305(bedroom) and 306 (gaming PC). Not the 308 though. I like the JBLs and have stuck with them. Around Black Friday you can find them half price even most years.

I previously had the Behringer Truth. I personally preferred the Behringer Truth subjectively speaking. For me, they had that melt in your chair smoothness, and chill inducing property, that has proven difficult to define or pin to objective measurement traits. They measured objectively well. If you ever get a chance to listen or compare them to the JBL, I’d be interested in your review and perspective.


——
Though not to the same level as amirm’s capability, my objective measurements and subjective review on the Truths start at post #699 and continue into the next page, for anyone curious about a similar priced market competitor. The reason I did not keep them is I had the 8.75” woofer based Truths and found them too large for my computer desk, and not capable of the SPL levels I desired for my home theater. Though if I wasn’t a stickler for reference capability or had a small HT room, I would have enjoyed 11 Behringer Truths in a full HT setup. The JBL 306 I use now is smaller sized and a better match for my PC desk.
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/ar...me-theater-room.1525397/page-35#post-31976849

 

[amirm]

Help me to understand why I hear so much of this with many powered speakers? I can stick my ear completely into the waveguide of my 3600s and not hear a bit of hiss from my 25 yo Adcoms. Why can't they design these cheap plate amps to be quiet?

These are $20 amps driving a tweeter directly without a lossy crossover in between. Efficiency is higher so noise becomes worse.

 

[Blumlein 88]

These are $20 amps driving a tweeter directly without a lossy crossover in between. Efficiency is higher so noise becomes worse.

Why not building the product to a higher standard.?Monitors that have no hiss up close seems reasonable.

 

[half_dog]

These are $20 amps driving a tweeter directly without a lossy crossover in between. Efficiency is higher so noise becomes worse.

If I'm not mistaken, they use a two channel digial amplifier with some DSP (crossover filters, limiter and gain) for the 30XP MKII series. Each channel controls a driver (woofer and tweeter)...

 

[wwenze]

Those distortions at 96dB are definitely within range of audibility...
And the hiss. I think it might be made more obvious due to how wide the treble dispersion is.

Shame as these can be deal-breakers for otherwise high-end frequency response and directivity. There is definitely a market demand for something with this performance with the flaws removed.

 

[sweetchaos]

Did you change the input sensitivity? That basically eliminate the hiss for me.

I tested my JBL 305P MKII in a 43dB room, measured on my iPhone using C-weighting.
Only power cord was plugged in.
I put my ear against the tweeter, and reached around the back to toggle the input sensitivity back/forth.
Result? No change in hiss level.

What does decrease the hiss, as Amir also noted in this review, is when I turn down the volume control (the gain) on the back of the speaker down from 100%. This will decrease, but won't eliminate the hiss.

 

[MZKM]

Preference Rating
SCORE: 5.6
SCORE w/sub: 7.4

Frequency response: +/-3.2dB 45Hz-20kHz

________
So, that dip on-axis in the upper treble gets filled in off-axis vertically.
Also, looks like Amir was slightly off in measurement position in the horizontal plane:

With how expensive the NFS is, you’d think it could auto-center itself for the on-axis (play 20kHz test tone and have a 6inx6in diameter to position itself in the H/V planes.)
________
EDIT:

Reserved for scoring.

You can copy/paste the score if you want.

 

[DuncanTodd]

It’s a function over form design. I’m sure that shape isn’t accidental.

Sure, I get that. But it should also be a concern when design a speaker. Maybe less so for a monitor, but they have the same offputting design on the 5XX series as well. No one likes an eyesore.

 

[wwenze]

JBL 308P MKI was a bit harsh to my taste in my room. Sold it

Moral of my story, I should have listened to my ears. When I first got this speaker, I thought it sounded amazing. I compared it to my Revels and JTRs in my main room and thought it sounded as good as those speakers did. I took it into my office and thought it sounded wonderful in there, too. I even tested all the treble settings and found that I preferred the default(+0) treble setting. Then...I measured the response in my office, and it was tilted upwards(not downwards like I expected). After that, I started thinking it was too bright, so I flipped the -2 treble switch on the back, but the placebo was too much, and I ended up relegating them to storage. In some sense I'm happy, as it led me to the Genelec 8030c for my office, but my initial impression was correct, these are great speakers

Second moral of my story, don't trust in room measurements.

Sometimes I wonder how much treble dispersion is too much. Because in-room = reflections, and more treble in all directions means more total treble.

I wouldn't dismiss your observations. Because it is still what you hear in your room. The most accurate sound may not be the most subjectively pleasing. What is the most accurate in-room sound anyway? And it would only be valid for one particular speaker in one particular room at one particular angling / position.