JBL 4319 Studio Monitor Review

[GXAlan]

I sent these into Amir (this was also a Northridge, CA model) and recently sold these as I moved to active speakers, but I would agree that the sound signature was unique. The treble is a bit hot, but if you look at the Everest DD67000, it has that slight up-tilt as well. I think it gave some air without being bright maybe because it's directivity was what it is.

These were designed for the Japanese market originally where speakers are kept low and sitting on the tatami mat is common. There was occasionally a hyper-real level of detail to it. I've described them a bit like having the detail of Magnepan with true-ribbons but offering superior imaging.

When paired with Dirac or EQ, you can really juice up the bass to preference and the speaker will handle it but without EQ, at least in my room, the bass was far less than you'd expect from the 12" woofer.

If I lived somewhere with more physical space, I definitely would have kept these.

 

[thewatcher101]

I had the 4319 for 5 years and they are my main speaker. The speaker sounds rough, bright and shouty out of the box. But we are audiophiles and spend money to correct whatever we need. They don't sound very refined out of the box but they do sound fun and have this amped sound to them that makes music sound alive. The issue with refined speakers is that they all sound very similar, sometimes restricted, but JBL sticks to its roots and wants to be fun. I spent a lot of money to turn it into a refined speaker, the drives are great and punch well above their weight. If you want to turn out the brightness as previously mentioned with tube gear or tube-sounding solid state gear for power. This will tune out the harshness in the upper frequencies, it will further be dialed back with capacitors that can change a bit of sound profile. I took more of the harshness out with caps and some speaker cables. This speaker handles an incredible amount of detail, so you can throw some nice DACs and sources at it. It doesn't like any toe. A pair or even quad subs are great to add the low low end to complete the range. It is a great speaker for those who are willing to spend the extra time to adjust it to their liking or just looking for a pair of speakers to have fun with. In its refined state, it sounds like a studio monitor, in its stock state they sound like loudspeakers.

 

[C. Cook]

In its refined state, it sounds like a studio monitor, in its stock state they sound like loudspeakers.

There is no inherent derogation to the term "loudspeaker" - it just means engineered speaker or group of speakers and crossovers designed to provide a range of audio transmission functions. You might have mean to say that the 4319 sounds like a PA or public address speaker out of the box (I'd believe it based on what I've seen) and not "loudspeaker" since the latter is exactly what it is, even after your 'tweaks'...