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JBL 308P MKII Studio Monitor Review

stevenswall

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Have you bought the JBL or the Adam? I guess the latter - I got the JBL and the idle hiss is quite noticeable (until the standby kicks in, which allegedly only the CE labeled version has). At very close distance (<1,5m) the idle noise would be a bit annoying to me.
Look at this video to see relative hiss.


I also have a video on the Kali hiss which they have since fixed.

My Kali IN-8 v2 set is as quiet as my Genelec 8260.

Until JBL improves something or releases a coaxial, I'd see if the Kali v2 speakers would work for you. Especially if you can stretch and get the IN-5 which would work as a center channel should you expand.
 

Robbo99999

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I just picked up a pair of these from Amazon at $199 each. Mine are dead quiet when idle. I got them 4 days ago. This thread has been very helpful. They were too bright with the HF switch at the stock position. The -2 dB setting is great. I really like them. Currently feeding them via Chromecast Audio analog. Have the SMSL DO100 Dac on the way,
Have you bought the JBL or the Adam? I guess the latter - I got the JBL and the idle hiss is quite noticeable (until the standby kicks in, which allegedly only the CE labeled version has). At very close distance (<1,5m) the idle noise would be a bit annoying to me.
I'm pretty darn sure the hiss is there on all examples (units) of the 308p Mkii, as well as the 306p and 305p. I really don't see why/how it would vary between units with some units being dead silent at idle. My thoughts are that some people can hear the hiss & others don't notice it, but I would think the speakers are all outputting the same hiss.
 

stevenswall

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I'm pretty darn sure the hiss is there on all examples (units) of the 308p Mkii, as well as the 306p and 305p. I really don't see why/how it would vary between units with some units being dead silent at idle. My thoughts are that some people can hear the hiss & others don't notice it, but I would think the speakers are all outputting the same hiss.

I think this is correct.

Most people aren't going to notice a hiss, as their AC is running or their are other noises present.

When I say something has hiss, I mean in an environment closer to B from nearfield distances. I think many people just think back to when they plugged in the speakers and put music on and they weren't listening for hiss.

What is silence?
A: When nobody is home but me. (AC, dishwashers, refrigerators, wind noises.)

B. When I get in my car and sit still and shut the door and the garage is still shut and I'm in a rural area and no animals can be heard and nothing is powered on.

C. An anechoic chamber like at BYU Provo.
 

Robbo99999

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I think this is correct.

Most people aren't going to notice a hiss, as their AC is running or their are other noises present.

When I say something has hiss, I mean in an environment closer to B from nearfield distances. I think many people just think back to when they plugged in the speakers and put music on and they weren't listening for hiss.

What is silence?
A: When nobody is home but me. (AC, dishwashers, refrigerators, wind noises.)

B. When I get in my car and sit still and shut the door and the garage is still shut and I'm in a rural area and no animals can be heard and nothing is powered on.

C. An anechoic chamber like at BYU Provo.
Yeah, you'd only hear the hiss when nothing was playing and close enough to the speakers and in a quiet environment. I've said before though that I wouldn't have these 308p Mkii on a desk close to me hooked up to my computer, I can hear the hiss if nothing is playing on them around 1.5m, so they'd drive me up the wall if I had them at my leisure/work PC desk at 1m distance for instance - totally fine for use in my living room though for TV & music.
 

respice finem

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Yeah, you'd only hear the hiss when nothing was playing and close enough to the speakers and in a quiet environment. I've said before though that I wouldn't have these 308p Mkii on a desk close to me hooked up to my computer, I can hear the hiss if nothing is playing on them around 1.5m, so they'd drive me up the wall if I had them at my leisure/work PC desk at 1m distance for instance - totally fine for use in my living room though for TV & music.
This (hearing the hiss of the 308 up to approx. 1,5m) is exactly my case. No problem for their intended use, which is more or less as TV speakers, with at least 2m distance. For my desktop setup (stereo triangle about 1,5m) the hiss would be too much for me, but for this I got the Neumann KH 310 A - with these, I don't hear any hiss at 0,5m already.
 
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respice finem

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Regarding power consumption: The matching JBL subwoofer LSR310S does not appear to have auto standby at all, which seems a bit inconsequent considering the 308P MkII (CE) has it. At least there is no mention of it in the manual.
Can anyone confirm, the sub's power LED doesn't start to blink after 20 minutes in idle?
And if so, what is the idle power consumption of the sub+sat combo? I somehow can't find it on the Net...
 

Robbo99999

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What would be a good sub to get to compliment these 308p Mkii? I've been toying with the idea, and have done some simulations in REW to see where might be best to position the sub, etc. So far I've come up with this as the best combo according to the room sim, in terms of minimising troughs:
Central Fireplace on Couch overall.jpg

It seems the best results according to the room sim are if I don't put a crossover to the sub (so having the mains play bass too), or a very high crossover - in terms of minimising dips/troughs - aren't their negatives associated with each of those options though? That also was the best position for the sub according to the room sim and multiple subs didn't really help (and are a bit less practical). Note my 2 speakers are located in a strange non-optimal place due to that's kind of where my TV needs to go. I don't know much about subs, any advice re choosing one to fit my room & speakers appreciated! And open to setup advice, perhaps in relation to the room sim I did, or just advice. (regarding room sim I have no idea if the Surface Absorption values are correct, I used the default values in the program. all walls brick front & back & left & right with window in left wall, not a sealed room, floor wooden, ceiling has many wooden beams laid into it and protruding and the room above has wooden floorboards (so I guess the ceiling is "wood"))
 
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ernestcarl

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What would be a good sub to get to compliment these 308p Mkii? I've been toying with the idea, and have done some simulations in REW to see where might be best to position the sub, etc. So far I've come up with this as the best combo according to the room sim, in terms of minimising troughs:
View attachment 222763
It seems the best results according to the room sim are if I don't put a crossover to the sub (so having the mains play bass too), or a very high crossover - in terms of minimising dips/troughs - aren't their negatives associated with each of those options though? That also was the best position for the sub according to the room sim and multiple subs didn't really help (and are a bit less practical). Note my 2 speakers are located in a strange non-optimal place due to that's kind of where my TV needs to go. I don't know much about subs, any advice re choosing one to fit my room & speakers appreciated! And open to setup advice, perhaps in relation to the room sim I did, or just advice. (regarding room sim I have no idea if the Surface Absorption values are correct, I used the default values in the program. all walls brick front & back & left & right with window in left wall, not a sealed room, floor wooden, ceiling has many wooden beams laid into it and protruding and the room above has wooden floorboards (so I guess the ceiling is "wood"))

REW's room sim software and the reality of what you measure in your room isn't going to exactly match... I don't even use all the available parameters. But you can model how the three subs will interact along with your mains even if you only have one sub right now on-hand -- you just need to measure (with mic at the MLP) the sub in different positions and learn how to correctly sum their responses -- same can be done in multi-sub optimizer software (MSO).

A higher low pass setting on the sub is fine as long as you aren't having localization issues in practice -- this usually means setting the sub(s) close to mid-point between the front speakers (so that there's no left-right imbalance) and/or nearer the main(s) speaker to maintain the 1/4 wavelength rule.

If you have a smaller, lighter sub, it may be easier to play around with the height component in your room using an adjustable speaker stand. For heavier subs, this is difficult unless you have a purpose-built subwoofer stand.
 

Robbo99999

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REW's room sim software and the reality of what you measure in your room isn't going to exactly match... I don't even use all the available parameters. But you can model how the three subs will interact along with your mains even if you only have one sub right now on-hand -- you just need to measure (with mic at the MLP) the sub in different positions and learn how to correctly sum their responses -- same can be done in multi-sub optimizer software (MSO).

A higher low pass setting on the sub is fine as long as you aren't having localization issues in practice -- this usually means setting the sub(s) close to mid-point between the front speakers (so that there's no left-right imbalance) and/or nearer the main(s) speaker to maintain the 1/4 wavelength rule.

If you have a smaller, lighter sub, it may be easier to play around with the height component in your room using an adjustable speaker stand. For heavier subs, this is difficult unless you have a purpose-built subwoofer stand.
Thanks for the pointers. I don't have any subs though, but your summing idea could be useful when I do get one, if I were to consider more than one at that point. In terms of a higher low pass on the sub, if I were to put in the same place as I have in the sim, then that is inbetween the speakers for the majority of potential listening points in the room (not dead central, but between). Some quick messing around in the sim in REW with the height of the sub seems to give best response when located on the floor. Yeah, I appreciate the sim can give different results to measured, at least to some extent - do you think it's accurate enough to locate a rough best position for a sub? Do you have some thoughts on good sub that would compliment the 308p Mkii well?
 

ernestcarl

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Thanks for the pointers. I don't have any subs though, but your summing idea could be useful when I do get one, if I were to consider more than one at that point. In terms of a higher low pass on the sub, if I were to put in the same place as I have in the sim, then that is inbetween the speakers for the majority of potential listening points in the room (not dead central, but between). Some quick messing around in the sim in REW with the height of the sub seems to give best response when located on the floor. Yeah, I appreciate the sim can give different results to measured, at least to some extent - do you think it's accurate enough to locate a rough best position for a sub? Do you have some thoughts on good sub that would compliment the 308p Mkii well?

Ultimately, I would rather measure the actual response in-room, but also determine the best positioning based on what I actually hear as well. For example, the reason why I positioned my sub slightly off-center to the right and not exactly dead center is because that is the position where listening to a slow sine sweep sounds the most evenly centered to my ears. I can still localize the sub when placed at any corner of the room or side wall making those positions a no-go even though I got the best measured response when located in the front-left corner of my room.

The JBL LSR310S seems fine as a complementary sub to your LSR308, but the LPF only goes high as 120Hz. Whereas, something like the Fluid Audio FC10S can go as high as 200Hz so I guess you could say that the latter may be a bit more flexible in that narrow spec if it proves useful. To be honest, really I dunno... since the sub market is pretty crowded and there's a lot of options out there.
 

Robbo99999

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Ultimately, I would rather measure the actual response in-room, but also determine the best positioning based on what I actually hear as well. For example, the reason why I positioned my sub slightly off-center to the right and not exactly dead center is because that is the position where listening to a slow sine sweep sounds the most evenly centered to my ears. I can still localize the sub when placed at any corner of the room or side wall making those positions a no-go even though I got the best measured response when located in the front-left corner of my room.

The JBL LSR310S seems fine as a complementary sub to your LSR308, but the LPF only goes high as 120Hz. Whereas, something like the Fluid Audio FC10S can go as high as 200Hz so I guess you could say that the latter may be a bit more flexible in that narrow spec if it proves useful. To be honest, really I dunno... since the sub market is pretty crowded and there's a lot of options out there.
I was looking at that FC10S just now over on Thomann, it's not particularly expensive and supposed to go down to 20Hz which is unusual for that price range it seems, but it doesn't say what it's max SPL is:
Do you know of any sites that do proper subwoofer measurements, similar to how ASR do speakers? I'd be interested in frequency response and distortion measurements. I'll need to research this more to narrow it down to a potential one to buy, but really a good quality measurement review site for subwoofers is needed, do you know one (or a few)?
 

ernestcarl

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I was looking at that FC10S just now over on Thomann, it's not particularly expensive and supposed to go down to 20Hz which is unusual for that price range it seems, but it doesn't say what it's max SPL is:
Do you know of any sites that do proper subwoofer measurements, similar to how ASR do speakers? I'd be interested in frequency response and distortion measurements. I'll need to research this more to narrow it down to a potential one to buy, but really a good quality measurement review site for subwoofers is needed, do you know one (or a few)?

Not that I can think of...

Though, Erinsaudiocorner did a recent 10-inch sub shootout:

But he did not include any home studio-type sub (with xlr/trs inputs and outs).

According to this review (no measurements) of the FC10S: "The Fluid Audio FC10S can reproduce everything above around 26 Hz fairly well and transparently, even if it drools slightly and intentionally in punch mode." Seems like an reasonably honest assessment.

I think just about every entry level sub overstates the lower end reach of their frequency response. But, yes, IMO, this is still quite very decent performance.

*But you might want to consider this as well:
 

Robbo99999

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Not that I can think of...

Though, Erinsaudiocorner did a recent 10-inch sub shootout:

But he did not include any home studio-type sub (with xlr/trs inputs and outs).

According to this review (no measurements) of the FC10S: "The Fluid Audio FC10S can reproduce everything above around 26 Hz fairly well and transparently, even if it drools slightly and intentionally in punch mode." Seems like an reasonably honest assessment.

I think just about every entry level sub overstates the lower end reach of their frequency response. But, yes, IMO, this is still quite very decent performance.

*But you might want to consider this as well:
Thanks, I'll take a look. This one seems good: https://www.svsound.com/products/sb-1000-pro-subwoofer#techanchor
Erin reviewed the 2000 Pro, but this 1000 should have enough power & low end reach for me. Ok, we'd better not have too many more posts on subwoofers in this thread (my fault) as it's not about the 308p reviewed speaker.....just I was curious on a good sub that would compliment the 308p Mkii particularly.
 

Sal1950

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Robbo99999

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I can't recomended SVS highly enough. Their subs mostly offer the best bang for the $ at just about every level.
I'm terrible, I just bought one! I often make these intuitive and slightly informed decisions at the drop of a hat, it was close to the lowest price it's ever been on amazon, so yep I've got the SVS SB-1000 Pro incoming, it cost more than both my speakers together! :facepalm: (Albeit, I did get an excellent deal of £150 each on the JBL 308p Mkii.)
 

Sal1950

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I'm terrible, I just bought one! I often make these intuitive and slightly informed decisions at the drop of a hat, it was close to the lowest price it's ever been on amazon, so yep I've got the SVS SB-1000 Pro incoming, it cost more than both my speakers together! :facepalm: (Albeit, I did get an excellent deal of £150 each on the JBL 308p Mkii.)
That's cool, I know you won't be disappointed. And it is a 12" woofer to boot. ;)
 

ernestcarl

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I'm terrible, I just bought one! I often make these intuitive and slightly informed decisions at the drop of a hat, it was close to the lowest price it's ever been on amazon, so yep I've got the SVS SB-1000 Pro incoming, it cost more than both my speakers together! :facepalm: (Albeit, I did get an excellent deal of £150 each on the JBL 308p Mkii.)

Well, not a bad choice at all. It’s going to take some time to figure out the best positioning and xo EQ settings, but can always create a new thread or use one of the old existing sub integration threads if questions arise.
 

posvibes

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Yes, you're right, flipping the -2dB HF Switch will fix it quite well. It's what I did before I had access to Amir's anechoic measurement. JBL 308p is about 2dB hot in the treble as seen in the spinorama, so it's really a pretty good solution flipping that -2dB HF Switch.
Beginner's question, is the 2dB trim of the HF Switch a straight cut so to speak or an incremental decrease over a length of frequency as a slope? Like I said beginner's question and I apologize in advance.:facepalm:
 

Robbo99999

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Beginner's question, is the 2dB trim of the HF Switch a straight cut so to speak or an incremental decrease over a length of frequency as a slope? Like I said beginner's question and I apologize in advance.:facepalm:
Hi, no worries, it acts in the same way as High Shelf filter (it is a high shelf filter), so it has a gradual slope of increase or decrease depending on whether you set a positive or negative dB on that Trim Switch. I worked out what the effect of the Trim Switch was at the following post:
It's a 6dB per octave slope High Shelf Filter at 3000Hz for -2.0dB when you set HF Switch to -2dB.
 

posvibes

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Hi, no worries, it acts in the same way as High Shelf filter (it is a high shelf filter), so it has a gradual slope of increase or decrease depending on whether you set a positive or negative dB on that Trim Switch. I worked out what the effect of the Trim Switch was at the following post:
It's a 6dB per octave slope High Shelf Filter at 3000Hz for -2.0dB when you set HF Switch to -2dB.
Excellent, really excellent. I have used the HF Trim as off on the LSR305p mkii's on top of a EQ setting by @Maiky76 and it is a dream result for me. Great read again thanks.
 
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