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JBL DS4086 8-channel Car Amp & DSP Review

Rate this amplifier & DSP:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 60 55.0%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 46 42.2%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 2 1.8%

  • Total voters
    109

amirm

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the JBL DS4086 8-channel car audio amplifier with same number of DSP channels. I bought it for US $440.
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune amplifier review.jpg

This is a highly compact unit that is about half the volume of any competing amplifier plus this many channels of DSP. This was a major advantage in me selecting it as I look up upgrading the audio system in our Mercedes Sprinter camper van. Here is the side view and connectivity:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune amplifier wiring connections review.jpg

You can see cost savings in the form of captive RCA cables, no power terminals (comes in a dongle), etc. Despite that, feature set is quite good including full parametric equalization:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune warm up DSP Software.png

You see the indicator saying "Disconnected." No matter what I did, it would not connect. I messed with the included driver from 2014 (!) but problem remained. After an hour of this, installed the same on my laptop (both running Windows 11) and it worked instantly. Installation of the software is mandatory as you need to at least program the matrix mixer to get sound. Note that only filter is a PEQ. No other types which is not a huge limitation but it is there. You do get typical crossovers which is one of my main application as I implement active crossover (and hence the number of channels I needed -- at least 6).

FYI the filter defaults to "graphic" which made me go crazy as I could not figure out why I could not set the Q. As it turns out, JBL's notion of graphic eq is to use the parametric EQ but fix the frequencies and Q as you see. Kind of interesting hack but I wish they would make the PEQ mode default and have more colorful indicator of which is active.

Note that this DSP lacks "OEM integration" meaning it is not easy to take out the EQ/delays out of modern automotive head units. Products with this "de-EQ" feature, have separate tuning/EQ for that mode to flat line the response of the source before applying acoustic EQ. You can do that here but it will be harder. I don't need this feature so doesn't matter to me.

Design is a few years old, making me worried that it will be discontinued and at any rate, the software may get out of date and not supported in the future.

For testing, I hooked up my custom built Lithium battery bank. I kept the voltage between 13.6 to 13.7 volts throughout the testing. As I was trying to fix the software installation issues, I left the amplifier on. I was very surprised to see how hot it got just sitting there:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune heat idle measurements.jpg

You could barely keep your hand on it. This is unacceptable in my book as it is only going to get hotter in a car (my room temp was just 22.8 degrees C as you see). Fortunately it doesn't get much hotter (picture right) after all of my testing.

JBL DS4086 DSP Amplifier Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune Low Input Level 6 dB Gain measurements.png

Noise floor and distortions are high by home audio standards, but slightly below average for all car audio products tested:
best car amplifier dsp review.png

I worry that once you add the noise from the head unit, it will sink to unacceptable levels and produce hiss.

Notice the 21 watts idle power consumption which explains the thing cooking just sitting there.

Gain seems quite low. Max I could get was with setting the gain to 6 dB and having the selector switch set to "LO." Otherwise, the gain dips as low as 10.5 dB as indicated. It is not much of a problem in practice because it doesn't product a lot of watts:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune Low Input Level 6 dB Gain SNR measurements.png

Any head unit should be able to produce that 1.35 volt without distorting much.

Frequency response shows, as expected, class D load dependency:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune frequency response measurements.png

And digitization of input with sampling rate of 44.1/48 kHz.

Channel separation was pretty poor:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune channel separation measurements.png


As were multitone and 19+20 kHz but again, in the category, less so:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune Multitone measurements.png

JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune 19 20 kHz intermodulation distortion measurements.png


Power delivery has a strange kink in distortion showing up both early and jumping before clipping:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune Power 4 ohm measurements.png

While better than a stock head unit, not much power is available as I feared (but hoped otherwise):
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune Max and Peak Power 4 ohm measurements.png

Note again that all of this testing is with 2 channels. You likely get less if you drive more channels. 40 Hz power is about the same which is good:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune Power 4 ohm 40 Hz measurements.png

FTC like sweep shows some variation but nothing too crazy:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune Power 4 ohm FTC measurements.png

I should note that design was robust in that the amp would go into full clipping and keep going which made above tests possible.

Here is 8 ohm power:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune Power 8 ohm measurements.png


Here is the response relative to frequency:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune Power 4 ohm vs frequency vs distortion measureme...png

The last quarter of output power is delivered at quite high distortions which are likely audible. I put the cursor before that happens.

There is potential for audible pop although not extreme:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune power on off noise pop measurements.png


The amp was warmed up before I got a chance to run the warm up test:
JBL DSP4086 8 channel DSP car audio auto tune warm up measurements.png


Conclusions
For the price and amount of functionality, the measurements are not too bad. The main issues then for me is software support/stability and heat generation. On latter, I no longer can stuff it in a hole in the dash like I was planning to do. I can put it under the seat but then I can get a larger unit. I went ahead and ordered an Audison DSP amp. It cost more than twice as much. Hopefully it will do better (it has a key feature which I am hoping will be a major advantage). That review, should be out by end of the week if it arrives on time.

If you can keep the JBL DSP4086 cool and can accept some risk on software functionality/support, you may be fine with this unit.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
 
We want the panther! Also, I can just tell this is the kind of thing you'd want to keep a VM or old laptop around for in case the software doesn't work in 20 years. HORRIBLE!
 
We want the panther!
I realized they were missing when I embedded the picture in the review. Happens sometime as they go hiding/partying elsewhere....
 
I don’t know how much size you need, but the Audiotec Fisher line is pretty good and has great software.


Their premium model is in the 90 dB SINAD range and they probably aren’t using an APx555
1747799031906.png


The budget models:

The other question is stuff like this

Last, if you have separates, Focal makes ultra small car audio amps
 
If you are willing to import, Alpine sells pre programmed DSP amps for the Sprinter.

And they have speaker kits too
 
I don’t know how much size you need, but the Audiotec Fisher line is pretty good and has great software.
Thanks. The Helix stuff is highly recommended but is expensive. The unit in the pdf costs $2,000. We only use the van during summer vacations so don't want to sink a ton of money into it. As it is though, the bill is going higher and higher. :)
 
Hey I was literally looking at buying this this week. (well actually the Infinity variant but it appears to be 100% identical, the reason for that one is the current sale price of $350. Though this JBL is available refurbed @$300 with 2 year Allstate warranty from an Authorized dealer on eBay)

Hmmm, not great power wise, the rest is fine for car audio IMHO. I might need more power though, hard to say. I was hoping for an honest 40 at 4ohms or even that it was underrated with more.
One thing is almost no car audio is 8ohm.
2ohms is the new norm there. I'm sure you already know that but I'm wondering what juice this has at 2ohms.

That said I have used 8ohm stuff occasionally when using certain drivers from Parts Express, Madisound ect.

Not sure if you need speakers/drivers but CDT Audio has a pretty good sale going on and the KEF Q150's are on sale and ready to cannibalized. Madisound has some good car audio driver options on sale as well.

Thank you! Perfect timing for me, I'm going wait on this amp for now just not quite there.
 
Actually it looks like it is close to 50watts at 1% THD, maybe 47.
Is the 8ohm max power exchanged in the comparison for the 4ohm?

I'm fine with 47watts @1%THD in a car, might make 70watt @2ohms 1%THD...

1747809123580.png
 
I wonder if Topping, SMSL, FOSI or similar enter the car audio world, would there be much uptake? From my limited discussions outside of forums, the car audio world appears to select based upon name and going with more expensive = better.
 
I was looking at this but the MATCH is basically graphic EQ with just 1 PEQ available, I personally want multiband parametric, just so much more powerful.

EDIT. hmmm, maybe Crutchfield is wrong and it is actually 30slot PEQ. They have conflicting info. I will to look more...
 
Personally I could forgive most of this performance, (it's pretty noisy in my car anyway) but the heat and power are kind of dealbreakers. Too bad because the basic features seem really appealing.
 
I was looking at this but the MATCH is basically graphic EQ with just 1 PEQ available, I personally want multiband parametric, just so much more powerful.
Talking about JBL automotive and DSP more then 10 years ago I had bought on sale this automatic EQ device which could be installed in seconds to any car or even cheap audio or PA system, wasn't too bad for 50€ I had paid:



 
I strongly recommend having a look at the ESX VE Amps. The VE1300.11SP has 11 channels of (serious!) amplification and 12 channels of DSP and the smaller VE900.7SP has 7 channels of amplification and 8 channels DSP. Plus really good THD+N values and -at least at the dual core DSP of the 1300 - some truly innovative DSP functions. But I don't know if there is any distributor in US.
https://www.esxaudio.de/english/vision-ve-dsp-amplifiers.html
 
Thanks. The Helix stuff is highly recommended but is expensive. The unit in the pdf costs $2,000. We only use the van during summer vacations so don't want to sink a ton of money into it. As it is though, the bill is going higher and higher. :)
You could always go for the Helix M Six DSP. It's a- 6 Ch DSP Amplifier (the DSP is 10CH so 4 rca outputs), it's a lot cheaper, has the power and comes with the same DSP functionality. it's cheaper because while the DSP module is still made in Germany, the amp itself is made in China.
 
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