JBL 308P MKII Studio Monitor Review

[Vini darko]

Quality preformance for cheap speakers. £179 each in the uk.

 

[Itay]

Personally I have a trio of the older, but rather identical, LSR308, and I've noticed a problem with pretty much ALL of the active monitors in this price range - not a single one includes cabinet bracing or "proper" stuffing (polyfill etc). Seriously, adding some MDF and polyfill won't really mess the profit margin on these...

 

[jtwrace]

@amirm @hardisj you know what would be killer for data presentation? Included in the database is an option to overlay polar plots to other speakers.

 

[tuga]

The Jbl 308 mkII is a budget monitor, maybe one of the best sounding for the money. But everything inside the loudspeaker is on a tight budget.
So, the performance is not close to good monitors costing three times as much.

I guess you are making a good point against buying budget actives with cheap electronics and cheap drivers in cheap cabinets.

A fancy waveguide does not warrant good performance (nor does a pretty-looking Spin for that matter).

 

[maverickronin]

I don't see any info about that anyhwere.

Here's a complete teardown and repair of the MKI from EEVblog.

The heart of the speaker is essentially the STA350 which is a combination DSP, DAC, and amp, all on one chip.

 

[beagleman]

I guess you are making a good point against buying budget actives with cheap electronics and cheap drivers in cheap cabinets.

A fancy waveguide does not warrant good performance (nor does a pretty-looking Spin for that matter).

Every speaker I have either owned or heard, seems to have one or two shortcomings. If it is not related to cheap drivers or construction, it then becomes, they are overly large, or mostly overly priced.

Not sure there is a perfect speaker in all ways. Something always has to give.

 

[Music1969]

Here's a complete teardown and repair of the MKI from EEVblog.

The heart of the speaker is essentially the STA350 which is a combination DSP, DAC, and amp, all on one chip.

Noted but this and the previous teardown picture shown are Mk1, not Mk2

But if I had to guess, then if Mk1 had DSP crossover, then yes I'd bet Mk2 does too.

 

[Jinjuku]

I picked up my 308MKII and a pair of the matching LSR310s on sale which always make them sound better. The 308's were $199 and the LSR310s were $299. For $1K just an amazing value.

Driving it all with a Raspberry Pi3 with Roipeee and JRiver/Jremote to my Behringer UMC204HD.

This is one of the largest bang to buck setups achievable. I love this hobby.

 

[beagleman]

Here's a complete teardown and repair of the MKI from EEVblog.

The heart of the speaker is essentially the STA350 which is a combination DSP, DAC, and amp, all on one chip.

As someone who fixes electronics on occasion, that chip repair will give me nightmares!!

 

[tuga]

Every speaker I have either owned or heard, seems to have one or two shortcomings. If it is not related to cheap drivers or construction, it then becomes, they are overly large, or mostly overly priced.

Not sure there is a perfect speaker in all ways. Something always has to give.

I agree that one's budget does define the performance potential to a point.

All the rest looks a bit like needless apologism.

 

[Robbo99999]

Quality preformance for cheap speakers. £179 each in the uk.

I got my two for just £150 each, on sale at Amazon back in around March I think.

So's, I did my EQ for these based on the Listening Window measurements from Amir's review, and created the filters manually in REW, I've tested them out and it sounds great, only -1.3dB Negative Preamp required, because these speakers are already that close to flat! Here's my EQ, it is with a 45dB vertical axis spread which is just a tad more zoomed in (by 5dB) than is common in reviews here (so a little stricter view in the following pic):

As I said these sound great with this EQ (definitely not too bright, good bass, and good definition through all the ranges), although I haven't measured them in room yet, so no RoomEQ so far.

EDIT: after some more listening, female vocals sound particularly good with this EQ now, based on anechoic measurements rather than my in-room measurements of yesteryear. Makes me wonder if RoomEQ is that important, might be more important instead to just have a flat speaker in room rather than imposing a certain room characteristic on your own room - there might be some pschoacoustic reasons for this based on your brain "knowing/learning" how your own room sounds based on living in it, ideas. I will experiment with roomEQ on top of this though later.

 

[trl]

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. Turning down the gain reduces it a bit but note that this speaker does NOT want to have too much driving it. Setting the gain low and them pumping up the source generates severe distortion. Shame as this would be a good way to reduce the impact.

Given the below:
- input sensitivity set to -10dBV (0.3V RMS) - max. input level should not exceed 6dBV (2V RMS)
- input sensitivity set to +4dBU (1.23V RMS) - max. input level should not exceed 20.3dBU (8V RMS)
I was wondering what would be the input voltage were you started to hear that these speakers distort, please? Basically, most balanced sources are delivering 4V RMS, so I guess the +4dBU gain setting should be used, right? Thank you!

I'm also quoting Stump909's post too here, because hiss seems to be eliminated if choosing one of the two gains, probably the +4dBU one.

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

 

[daftcombo]

Given the below:
- input sensitivity set to -10dBV (0.3V RMS) - max. input level should not exceed 6dBV (2V RMS)
- input sensitivity set to +4dBU (1.23V RMS) - max. input level should not exceed 20.3dBU (8V RMS)
I was wondering what would be the input voltage were you started to hear that these speakers distort, please? Basically, most balanced sources are delivering 4V RMS, so I guess the +4dBU gain setting should be used, right? Thank you!

I'm also quoting Stump909's post too here, because hiss seems to be eliminated if choosing one of the two gains, probably the +4dBU one.

Amir used -10dBV from the picture I think. Hard to tell.

 

[MZKM]

@amirm , or @MZKM or others - for EQ purposes is it OK for me to use the data in the CEA2034 file, because I notice it is at the higher 110dB level rather than the 85-90dB range seen in the graphs in the review. Do I need to apply a correction to the data, or can I just base my EQ on the data in the CEA2034 file which is at the higher 110dB level? (I'm thinking I can just use it at the current 110dB level, but wanted to be sure).

The SPL is incorrect for active speakers. Meaning it is not being measured at 105dB (also, I read through the 2034 instructions and it wasn’t clear what SPL to use, even if the Klipple accurately read it).

 

[Pearljam5000]

The sound is much better with Genelec 8030C.
I have compared both of them.

Can you describe the difference?

 

[MZKM]

@amirm @hardisj you know what would be killer for data presentation? Included in the database is an option to overlay polar plots to other speakers.

If you mean the heat maps, I’m not even sure how that would be possible without some custom coding, and even then it probably would look very messy (like asking to overly the Spins).
You can try it out yourself, open up Photoshop (Photopea.com for a free web version) and paste two heat maps and play with the opacity %.

EDIT:
JBL 308 H heat map

ADAM T8V H heat map

50% opacity using normal blending

Can't tell anything.
I did use my own heat maps to do it quickly, but results would be the same for anyone else's heat maps.

I would suggest @edechamps' site where you can compare graphs side-by-side.

I did tinker with a sheet that allowed you to compare/overlay the Tonal Balance graph I create, but it was too much work as it would just be a separate graph I need to do (the speaker sensitivity & speaker selector sheets are auto-filled with the data from the preference rating sheet). Can't compare Spins using Sheets, as the y-axis would always be different (in Edechamps' site SPL for Spins is ignored).

 

[thewas]

I guess you are making a good point against buying budget actives with cheap electronics and cheap drivers in cheap cabinets.
A fancy waveguide does not warrant good performance (nor does a pretty-looking Spin for that matter).

On the other side, when being on a budget I would rather chose a loudspeaker with a good directivity/spinorama and some hiss and elevated distortion on higher listening levels vs the opposite but preferences are individual.

 

[beagleman]

On the other side, when being on a budget I would rather chose a loudspeaker with a good directivity/spinorama and some hiss and elevated distortion on higher listening levels vs the opposite but preferences are individual.

My first thought, was how would these JBL compare to the DIY HIVI 3.1 speakers, that have quite lower distortion, Higher output potential, but a bit less smooth tonality.

 

[Tangband]

Can you describe the difference?

Cleaner, and the image illusion is better. Its clearly audible.

The Genelec monitors have better drivers with less distorsion, better amplifiers, and a better loudspeaker box.
The difference with music is bigger than Amirms test data shows.

Remember the high cost of the Genelec. I think both 8030C and 308 mkII is very good- for the money. And the price difference is justified.

 

[renaudrenaud]

Oooh, I remember the same looking JBL monitor, probably the older version yet, it had a lot of hiss noise. I measured that and found -87db(A), so need to love JBL too much to use it at a 1m distance The root cause was awful ST class D chip STA350, really low-end stuff with THD+N 0.5% -3db and noisy. I hope JBL jumped to Ti with the current monitor version.

I think you can have your answer.