JBL HDI-1600 Speaker Review

[MZKM]

With 1000 watts on tap and just a single speaker playing, I finally managed to get it to cry uncle and bottom out but that was quite loud.

Do you play any movie scenes during your listening sessions? For most all my music, I regularly have movies at at least 10x the wattage (~ -10dB usually for movies and ~ -20dB or lower for music).

 

[Spocko]

Another great review!

 

[amirm]

Do you play any movie scenes during your listening sessions? For most all my music, I regularly have movies at at least 10x the wattage (~ -10dB usually for movies and ~ -20dB or lower for music).

No, I use them with music only as determining fidelity with movies is hard. But yes, movies demand far more dynamics.

 

[richard12511]

I consider them roughly on par. They are both roughly flattish where it most matters. Based on my own listening of the R3's and my own measurements of them, they are a little recessed around the mids(this shows in amir's, but a little less intensely). Moreover, the JBL has noticeably wider horizontal directivity, which is good if you prefer that type of sound. But overall the KEF seems like the flatter speaker.

I think it's a toss up in terms of frequency response and directivity. I'd probably say go for the JBL if you want a bit of a wider more but diffuse soundstage, the KEF if you want a sharper but narrower one.

I must be reading the graphs wrong. I'm mostly going by the directivity index, as the dispersion plot seems messed up here. Looking from around 100hz or a little below to 20khz, the Kef seems to rise about 8db, whereas the Jbl seems to rise about 9db. Am I reading that wrong? It's definitely close, but the Kef seems to have slightly lower DI.

 

[Jon AA]

The DI mixes in vertical and horizontal. I like to look at those separately (the normalized charts by MZKM are fantastic for this). The HDI has noticeably wider horizontal dispersion, but they're similar vertically with the Kef being much smoother.

 

[MZKM]

No, I use them with music only as determining fidelity with movies is hard. But yes, movies demand far more dynamics.

Maybe a song within a movie? I would imagine that would be mastered to work along the movie dynamics (similar -dBFS as the dialogue).

 

[ROOSKIE]

Well, the distorsion measurement tells us another story. One of the points of more than two ways is power handling.

I would say you are jumping to some unwarranted conclusions about speaker designs. 3 way speakers do not necessarily have higher power handling nor higher output levels. There are many factors that influence output levels and power handling, one could easily have a 2 way with significantly higher output levels and cleaner sound vs a 3 way with a different design philosophy.
Do not make the assumption you are making about 3 ways.
I would also reconsider the assumption about the distortion measurements. I will say the KEF looks very clean above the bass regions for a speaker being driven to 105db (which was what was used for the days test) Never the less, speaker distortion is not well understood. There seems to be very little research and documentation out there of what amount is an issue. What I have found is that much higher levels of distortion in a speaker are required for people to begin to notice effects. Additionally, generally the 2nd order that you see on the JBL is considered a fairly mute point at these levels.
Someone is going to have to do a lot of investigation and perhaps pioneer the testing required to make conclusions about speaker distortion levels.

 

[typericey]

Which current model Revel bookshelf have the same price as this JBL? M106? Because the only question really is whether to go Revel or JBL.

 

[napilopez]

I must be reading the graphs wrong. I'm mostly going by the directivity index, as the dispersion plot seems messed up here. Looking from around 100hz or a little below to 20khz, the Kef seems to rise about 8db, whereas the Jbl seems to rise about 9db. Am I reading that wrong? It's definitely close, but the Kef seems to have slightly lower DI.

What @Jon AA said - the DI curves are useful for checking timbral trends, EQ-ability, and to some extent soundstage cohesion, bit they are not totally reliable for soundstage width.

For this I prefer looking at the regular horizontal SPL plots, or at least the polar maps/contour plots. You can see that the JBL is:

1) radiating significantly more energy to the sides at high frequencies. At 70 degrees and 6kHz, The R3 is down about 15dB, compared to 10dB for the JBL. That means reflections at this angle and frequency are nearly twice as loud on the JBL. Overall the JBL maintains significantly more energy out to 10kHz.

2) The JBL is also more timbrally 'flat' off axis, where the KED tilts down. Two sides of the same coin but I view this as the off axis being more timbrally similar to the on-axis

3) I think the JBL is also just smoother off-axis overall, though I guess the preference score disagrees?

But of course KEF has the advantage in the vertical department.

I'm not saying the KEF isnt as good as the JBL mind you - I love the R3s and they're my go to recommendation in the price range. Just that to my eye, the JBLs are roughly on par, especially if you gravitate to wide horizontal directivity, and I'd assume I'd have to listen to tell which I like more.

 

[richard12511]

What @Jon AA said - the DI curves are useful for checking timbral trends, EQ-ability, and to some extent soundstage cohesion, bit they are not totally reliable for soundstage width.

For this I prefer looking at the regular horizontal SPL plots, or at least the polar maps/contour plots. You can see that the JBL is:

1) radiating significantly more energy to the sides at high frequencies. At 70 degrees and 6kHz, The R3 is down about 15dB, compared to 10dB for the JBL. That means reflections at this angle and frequency are nearly twice as loud on the JBL. Overall the JBL maintains significantly more energy out to 10kHz.

2) The JBL is also more timbrally 'flat' off axis, where the KED tilts down. Two sides of the same coin but I view this as the off axis being more timbrally similar to the on-axis

3) I think the JBL is also just smoother off-axis overall, though I guess the preference score disagrees?

But of course KEF has the advantage in the vertical department.

I'm not saying the KEF isnt as good as the JBL mind you - I love the R3s and they're my go to recommendation in the price range. Just that to my eye, the JBLs are roughly on par, especially if you gravitate to wide horizontal directivity, and I'd assume I'd have to listen to tell which I like more.

Thanks, you and Jon helped me to gain a better understanding of these graphs.

 

[napilopez]

Thanks, you and Jon helped me to gain a better understanding of these graphs.

No problem. This aspect of the DI curves is my biggest pet peeve with spinoramas.

 

[BYRTT]

..More red instead of just orange/yellow. Its dificult to spot the +- 70 deg...

Reds recovered below ...

...No mention about On-Axis being weak at midbass from 200Hz to 700Hz

On a Klippel tonality paper its kind of distortion and probably among one reason HDI-1600 is listed lower on paper (Preference ratings) than 8341/R3/DBR62, it did very well in Amir's listening test so that is probably reason the no mention but also think we should notice that live in room responses in that frequency range can be some problematic stuff

 

[BYRTT]

Some technical curves for HDI-1600:

Modeled baffle diffraction using a 1 inch radius roundover on axis at 2 meter for positions of 15/134mm pistons, black curve is anechoic on axis, yellow tweeter, blue woofer, not that slope data is listed for speaker other than @1900Hz but the dotted 4th order LR slopes below should give a feel for tech interested:

Spin plus system impedance:

 

[richard12511]

Why does the dispersion plot in this review look so different than the others? Much more orange and yellow instead of red and orange.

 

[infinitesymphony]

IMHO, we are getting to a level of quality where it’s DBT time. Otherwise, which among this higher-performing tier of speakers is more generally preferable involves an awful lot of conjecture and perhaps overly speculative interpretation of wiggly lines, numbers, and colorful diagrams.

Now that we are starting to see quality competitors within the same price range, just pick the one you think looks prettiest and EQ to taste.

Which current model Revel bookshelf have the same price as this JBL? M106? Because the only question really is whether to go Revel or JBL.

Revel M16. Don't forget about the ELAC DBR-62, similar performance for around $600/pair.

(Edit: Revel M16 are $900/pair. If the JBL HDI-1600s are $900 per speaker, you're looking at the $1,800/pair range. Not sure what lives there from Revel and JBL.)

Check MKZM's Master Preference Ratings for Loudspeakers doc for the best quick 'n' dirty rundown of cost to performance.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Why does the dispersion plot in this review look so different than the others? Much more orange and yellow instead of red and orange.

As someone said earlier, it's weighted toward the highest point(s) of the graph, which for this speaker is in the 20 KHz range. That has been uncommon so far.

 

[wwenze]

There is some style to the HDI-1600 but overuse of plastic degrades the image of having bought anything expensive

Well considering the waveguides are probably molded in a weird shape, a bamboo laminate is probably hard to attach.

Full black would have looked better.

 

[suttondesign]

I think I'd get the KEF R3 or a Revel M106 for about the same money. The KEF is particularly nice looking for a living room installation.

 

[617]

Why does the dispersion plot in this review look so different than the others? Much more orange and yellow instead of red and orange.

The huge spike in the response in the top octave screwed up the graph scale I think. I'm not sure if that's measurement error, perhaps it's been discussed. I agree that the graph is misleading - I prefer it when these graphs are normalized to 0db on axis, so you see only the spatial effects.

I have to say this is a cheap looking speaker. From a design perspective, that fake pickled oak veneer is really ugly and will appear dated quickly. The black one somehow isn't much better. For that reason alone I would lean towards Revel or KEF.

Amir, thanks for this review. I was frustrated at the number of cheap garbage speakers we were seeing, but we're now getting some market segments nicely filled in - high value bookshelves, a sprinkling of more high end options, some inexpensive center channels.

Has anyone sent you any recent Dynaudio designs? I've heard good things about some of their active home units.

 

[amirm]

Has anyone sent you any recent Dynaudio designs?

Not yet. A local member has one so maybe once this pandemic dies down, I can ask him to bring it over to measure.