JBL and The American Audiophiles

[FrantzM]

Hi

I recently came from an audition of a JBL 530. The person is an aspiring audiophile who's traveled the world and bought a pair of these on the recommendation of an audio store in Tokyo, Japan. He bought an entire Accuphase system , integrated, DAC. The accuphase were 90's vintage i-e indistinguishable from current Accuphase . The JBL was new.
The person is relatively inexperienced and through some friends contacted me to help him make the system "better" ... then I saw those strange looking speakers ... .. smallish and was somewhat amused to see the JBL logo ...
System starts playing .. something is weidly right about the reproduction ... bass is lacking ... he can tell and so do I.. Soundstage is non-existent ... music is however reproduced correctly in some innate sense of rightness whatever that means... Voices are clear and dynamics are realistic
We pull the speakers from the walls, use some chairs to make an impromptu stands ,they were on a furniture with the electronics .. push things , move things and ... An incredibly gratifying system ... PErhaps a bit of DSP would help in the bass .. Definitely needs subwoofers (plural) suggesting him a swarm such as those made by Audio Kinesis.. He's not yet ready to plunk more than the speaker to the subs..No yet ... and cringe at the added complexity this would introduce ... Not a tweaker, a listener. A music lover. Afraid of the minutiae of setting up DSP and multiple subs but does feel the need.. His love of music however have him enjoying the system for what it is: A good , honest great sounding audio system.
Rated sensitivity is low 86 dB but with the (also) modestly rated amp (70 wpc @ 8 ohms) there is no sense of strain even when playing loud ... unless it is a bassy track where clearly the smallish woofer is hitting its limits and you can hear port noise ..else a serious sounding speaker with none of the peakiness and honkyness associated with horns but all the dynamics and liveness... and yes it plays loud ... And it plays right . In the sense one feels when confronted to a good speaker.. Please name your favorite brand here but this is a weird feeling of rightness

This speaker is virtually unknown in the US. It is made by an American company ... And it is just one of the many speakers made by the same company that are thoroughly unknown to the American audiophile. It isn't that they're (audiophiles) ignore those; it is they can't even audition them, they're not marketed here. Not at all and ..not the slightest... I would dare anyone to easily find a 4367 while we're at it or a a S4900 or anything from the JBL Synthesis line to which this speaker belongs. So to JBL or any JBL connected person ( Hi Amir )... What is going on here? How can you (JBL) so thoroughly neglect the domestic market? How can you leave so much space to products that are inferior in so many ways to yours. Why not take a page from the Internet consumer-direct people and make a go a this market yearning for better products at sane prices? Why? Oh why this obscure, strange, ineffectual attempts? Why ? oh! JBL why? ... What really is going on?

 

[amirm]

Hi Frantz. Had to look that speaker up as I didn't know about it either: https://www.amazon.com/JBL-Studio-530-5-25-Inch-Bookshelf/dp/B00622STI0

As to your question, I don't have much connections to the JBL side of Harman. For the longest time they ran independently of the rest of the Harman, sticking to their old school way of doing things. They were put in the same division as the Luxury group that produces Revel, Mark Levinson, etc. and finally there was sharing of technology and ideas. In general I am not a fan of old school JBL speakers. They are designed to play loud and be reliable but not have low distortion.

I don't know when this speaker came out and whether it is from the old JBL or new.

In general though what you say is true of my experience of these horn speakers. You hear sounds that delight and just sound different than non-horn speakers.

 

[danadam]

Not sure if anyone here watches Z Reviews, he was more enthusiastic about them than usual

 

[Old Listener]

Hi Frantz. Had to look that speaker up as I didn't know about it either:

As to your question, I don't have much connections to the JBL side of Harman. For the longest time they ran independently of the rest of the Harman, sticking to their old school way of doing things. They were put in the same division as the Luxury group that produces Revel, Mark Levinson, etc. and finally there was sharing of technology and ideas. In general I am not a fan of old school JBL speakers. They are designed to play loud and be reliable but not have low distortion.

I don't know when this speaker came out and whether it is from the old JBL or new.

In general though what you say is true of my experience of these horn speakers. You hear sounds that delight and just sound different than non-horn speakers.

Where does JBL Pro fit into the Harmon corp. structure? Is their design work entirely separate from that of the luxury group? Do they use any of the test and measurement from Toole and Olive's work?

 

[watchnerd]

Hi Frantz. Had to look that speaker up as I didn't know about it either: https://www.amazon.com/JBL-Studio-530-5-25-Inch-Bookshelf/dp/B00622STI0

As to your question, I don't have much connections to the JBL side of Harman. For the longest time they ran independently of the rest of the Harman, sticking to their old school way of doing things. They were put in the same division as the Luxury group that produces Revel, Mark Levinson, etc. and finally there was sharing of technology and ideas. In general I am not a fan of old school JBL speakers. They are designed to play loud and be reliable but not have low distortion.

I don't know when this speaker came out and whether it is from the old JBL or new.

In general though what you say is true of my experience of these horn speakers. You hear sounds that delight and just sound different than non-horn speakers.

I considered buying these a few years ago.

They're not very old, and allegedly the last of Timbers designs.

 

[Dynamix]

Those were sold here in norway. There was at least one floorstander in the same series as well, with the same horn and dual 6.5" woofers. And if I remember correctly even a bigger one with dual 8" woofers?

Never heard any of them though.

 

[Dynamix]

I considered buying these a few years ago.

They're not very old, and allegedly the last of Timbers designs.

Yeah, it wasn't long since they disappeared from the norwegian shops. Like 18 months or so, at most.

 

[watchnerd]

Yeah, it wasn't long since they disappeared from the norwegian shops. Like 18 months or so, at most.

You could actually buy them online in the US, too.

Both the JBL website and Amazon carried them.

 

[Dynamix]

You could actually buy them online in the US, too.

Both the JBL website and Amazon carried them.

I see. Discontinued at this point?

 

[watchnerd]

I see. Discontinued at this point?

The little one seems to be out of stock / discontinued.

The bigger models are still available on:

http://www.jbl.com/loudspeakers/

 

[Dynamix]

The little one seems to be out of stock / discontinued.

The bigger models are still available on:

http://www.jbl.com/loudspeakers/

Ah, right. The 580's are the ones with dual 6.5s. I think there were some with dual 8's as well, called 590. Don't take my word for it though, I may be hallucinating.

Either way, they do seem pretty interesting.

 

[watchnerd]

My biggest fear was the quality of compression driver one gets at that budget.

Also, it's not using the newer "Image Control Waveguide", which is based on Toole/Olive work.

 

[Dynamix]

Found them, still on the synthesis page: http://www.jblsynthesis.com/productdetail/studio_590.html

 

[Dynamix]

My biggest fear was the quality of compression driver one gets at that budget.

Also, it's not using the newer "Image Control Waveguide", which is based on Toole/Olive work.

Drivers don't necessarily have to be expensive to be good though. And certainly not when we're talking a corporation the size of Harman.

 

[watchnerd]

Drivers don't necessarily have to be expensive to be good though. And certainly not when we're talking a corporation the size of Harman.

See the compression driver thread.

 

[Dynamix]

See the compression driver thread.

I did. And?

 

[watchnerd]

I did. And?

The consensus among the DIY crowd seems to be its hard to get a decent sounding one on a budget.

Does JBL have enough economies of scale to do differently? Sure. But I think it's interesting that the budget LSR3-series, which uses the new Image Control Waveguide, uses a soft dome tweeter. You have to get up to the 9X more expensive 7-series before you get an Image Control Waveguide paired with a compression driver.

 

[Dynamix]

The consensus among the DIY crowd seems to be its hard to get a decent sounding one on a budget.

Does JBL have enough economies of scale to do differently? Sure. But I think it's interesting that the budget LSR3-series, which uses the new Image Control Waveguide, uses a soft dome tweeter. You have to get up to the 9X more expensive 7-series before you get an Image Control Waveguide paired with a compression driver.

Earl Geddes claims that the B&C DE250 is indistinguishable from costlier drivers in blind tests. Even preffered. No idea idea if he's telling the truth though, after all the man has speakers to sell.

(the DE250 is 103USD from Parts Express)

 

[RayDunzl]

You have to get up to the 9X more expensive 7-series before you get an Image Control Waveguide paired with a compression driver.

This is probably the factory.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.549...jPX2lFHBDnryA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!9m2!1b1!2i38

It's real close to the border.

Here's the view from north. It's the dark rectangle in the middle.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.552...fuqC-mgHC6nSw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!9m2!1b1!2i38

 

[RayDunzl]

Here's the big boi of the series:

https://www.jbl.com/loudspeakers/STUDIO+590.html