This is a review and detailed measurements of the popular JBL 705P Studio Monitor (powered speaker). It is on kind loan from a member. The 705P costs US $999 each. The 705p has far more style and quality feel than the JBL 305P:
Front panel LED indicates clipping which is nice. Back panel shows the controls:
In my rather cold garage (55 degrees F), the LCD had very slow response time indicating a low quality choice. The interface is crude as is typically the case but manageable. I set the EQ to factory flat as there was no "reset" option.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
All measurements are reference to tweeter axis with the grill left in place (does it come off?). Frequency resolution is 0.7 Hz (yes, less than 1 Hz) and plots are at 20 points/octave. Spatial 3-D resolution is 1 degree.
Over 700 points around the speaker were measured (from 20 to 20 kHz) which resulted in well under 1% error in identification of the sound field up to 20 kHz. Final database of measurements and data is a bit less than one Gigabytes in size.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
That is a pretty flat response (for a speaker) but as noted, we have a sharp dip and a rise after that. The dip also exists in Harman spinorama measurements but not the rise:
More in the rise later but the dip has about 50 to 60 Hertz bandwidth. The discrimination (frequency resolution) of our hearing converted to a rectangular region (ERB) is about 100 Hz. So the audibly the dip is less offensive than it looks.
There is a bit of shelving down lower bass in my measurement as well which I think is more correct than the anechoic chamber measurements as they are not accurate at such low frequencies. It is a small difference though.
Predicted in-room response shows what we already know:
Above says the tonality will be mostly correct and faithful to your recording in a typical listening room.
Distortion Measurements
I did not have time to filter out the room effect so these are gated in-room measurements:
This is the correct SPL (the ones in the spinorama are approximate). We see that same dip and importantly, the same rise as the spinorama. Since this is an ordinary measurement with no fancy signal processing involved, the rise seems to be there in this sample.
Zooming into distortion plot we have:
Interesting that we have a rise in distortion where we also have a rise in frequency response.
Directivity Measurements
Horizontal directivity seems fairly wide:
So you don't have to have your head in a vice. Vertically though, a chin fixture may be recommended:
Waterfall/CSD Speaker Plot
For the fans of this graph, rejoice!
Eye-candy Speaker Measurements
I zoomed in on the cancellation frequency in this balloon plot:
Notice that highest amplitude is at the bottom of the speaker which is where the port is. It is causing cancellation at the woofer due to timing of the wavelength and distance between the two sound sources.
Speaker Listening Tests
I set the JBL 705P to my left on my workstation (elevated about 6 inches and pointed up a few degrees). On the right was the venerable JBL 305P. The 705P instantly made a positive impression on my reference female vocal track, demonstrating smooth, balanced frequency response with plenty of bass.
Speaking of bass, I turned the volume up and up and up. It took a ton of effort to get the red clipping light to flash once and twice. Despite that, distortion was very much under control unlike some other powered speakers I tested. As a way of comparison the JBL 305P compressor kicked in and it would simply not get louder than certain level and fell far behind the 705P.
I went though track after track. Same first impression repeated except the gap wasn't quite as large on some tracks.
Overall, the 705P impression was absolute delight. It made the 305P sound flattish and boring (its vocals would stand out but instruments were behind it unlike the 705p).
Conclusions
The JBL 705P shows very good measurements with a couple of notable flaws. Subjectively, I could not hear the impact of these flaws however. It is the little speaker I like to leave on my desk. Enough said.
OK, one more thing: I definitely recommend the JBL 705P. The chosen panther undervalues how good this speaker is.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
A few days ago, I planted some 50 tomato and pepper seeds indoor (they take the longest to sprout). Alas, got so busy with testing that I forgot to water them and they dried out a bit. I think I caught it in time. To be sure this won't happen, I need to hire someone to water them and that costs money. So please donate NOW using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Front panel LED indicates clipping which is nice. Back panel shows the controls:
In my rather cold garage (55 degrees F), the LCD had very slow response time indicating a low quality choice. The interface is crude as is typically the case but manageable. I set the EQ to factory flat as there was no "reset" option.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
All measurements are reference to tweeter axis with the grill left in place (does it come off?). Frequency resolution is 0.7 Hz (yes, less than 1 Hz) and plots are at 20 points/octave. Spatial 3-D resolution is 1 degree.
Over 700 points around the speaker were measured (from 20 to 20 kHz) which resulted in well under 1% error in identification of the sound field up to 20 kHz. Final database of measurements and data is a bit less than one Gigabytes in size.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
That is a pretty flat response (for a speaker) but as noted, we have a sharp dip and a rise after that. The dip also exists in Harman spinorama measurements but not the rise:
More in the rise later but the dip has about 50 to 60 Hertz bandwidth. The discrimination (frequency resolution) of our hearing converted to a rectangular region (ERB) is about 100 Hz. So the audibly the dip is less offensive than it looks.
There is a bit of shelving down lower bass in my measurement as well which I think is more correct than the anechoic chamber measurements as they are not accurate at such low frequencies. It is a small difference though.
Predicted in-room response shows what we already know:
Above says the tonality will be mostly correct and faithful to your recording in a typical listening room.
Distortion Measurements
I did not have time to filter out the room effect so these are gated in-room measurements:
This is the correct SPL (the ones in the spinorama are approximate). We see that same dip and importantly, the same rise as the spinorama. Since this is an ordinary measurement with no fancy signal processing involved, the rise seems to be there in this sample.
Zooming into distortion plot we have:
Interesting that we have a rise in distortion where we also have a rise in frequency response.
Directivity Measurements
Horizontal directivity seems fairly wide:
So you don't have to have your head in a vice. Vertically though, a chin fixture may be recommended:
Waterfall/CSD Speaker Plot
For the fans of this graph, rejoice!
Eye-candy Speaker Measurements
I zoomed in on the cancellation frequency in this balloon plot:
Notice that highest amplitude is at the bottom of the speaker which is where the port is. It is causing cancellation at the woofer due to timing of the wavelength and distance between the two sound sources.
Speaker Listening Tests
I set the JBL 705P to my left on my workstation (elevated about 6 inches and pointed up a few degrees). On the right was the venerable JBL 305P. The 705P instantly made a positive impression on my reference female vocal track, demonstrating smooth, balanced frequency response with plenty of bass.
Speaking of bass, I turned the volume up and up and up. It took a ton of effort to get the red clipping light to flash once and twice. Despite that, distortion was very much under control unlike some other powered speakers I tested. As a way of comparison the JBL 305P compressor kicked in and it would simply not get louder than certain level and fell far behind the 705P.
I went though track after track. Same first impression repeated except the gap wasn't quite as large on some tracks.
Overall, the 705P impression was absolute delight. It made the 305P sound flattish and boring (its vocals would stand out but instruments were behind it unlike the 705p).
Conclusions
The JBL 705P shows very good measurements with a couple of notable flaws. Subjectively, I could not hear the impact of these flaws however. It is the little speaker I like to leave on my desk. Enough said.
OK, one more thing: I definitely recommend the JBL 705P. The chosen panther undervalues how good this speaker is.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
A few days ago, I planted some 50 tomato and pepper seeds indoor (they take the longest to sprout). Alas, got so busy with testing that I forgot to water them and they dried out a bit. I think I caught it in time. To be sure this won't happen, I need to hire someone to water them and that costs money. So please donate NOW using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
