JBL HDI-1600 Speaker Review

[ROOSKIE]

Legend

DBR62 - laid-back
HDI1600 - boom-tizzzz, thin
S530 - bright

Huh? I can say that the 530 is deff not bright, not even close at all. You need to listen dude.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I mean that the Uni-Q driver has the tweeter surrounded by the mid range (which vibrates).

I know hence the "a voicecoil doing it directly".
Most speakers radiate sound from all over the place because they are vibrating.
Try lightly touching around it to get a feel for it.
It has been an obsession of mine (getting rid of it to improve SQ) for 50 years!

 

[tuga]

Huh? I can say that the 530 is deff not bright, not even close at all. You need to listen dude.

Have we met?
And you seem to have missed the joking smiley...mister.

 

[tuga]

Well, people have been through this a few times on this forum, but they don't only test in mono. It seems that for research purposes with wide samples they tend to focus on mono listening, but they certainly don't only listen in mono when designing speakers.

If decades of research tell you you get the same results when ranking speakers in stereo and mono, but mono gets you there more quickly/with more confidence, why wouldn't you do critical listening in mono?

Listening tests show that the best speakers are the least flawed, and its easier to determine flaws in mono, therefore listening in mono makes sense.

Imo it's not that different that picking specific tracks to test a speaker. Even within stereo, some tracks are much more revealing than others of a speaker's flaws.

I agree with all you've written, with the exception that I don't assessing performance (flaws) and tasting are interchangeable.

 

[Thomas savage]

I agree with all you've written, with the exception that I don't assessing performance (flaws) and tasting are interchangeable.

Cool beans but it's got nothing to do with op.

Could we move off topic discussions to another thread

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

While I can't pass judgement on these speakers as I've heard none of them, I will say that in my experience, a "mushy low end" on a speaker capable of decent bass extension and output seems to always be a room bass balance issue

The JBL has a 4dB boost centered at 100hz. At low frequencies that is getting close to double the perceived volume. Perhaps it is a speaker bass balance issue.

 

[Absolute]

In my head it makes sense to have a boost in the midbass in a small speaker for two reasons, the typical SBIR dip in that region and to psychoacoustically fool our stoopid brains into thinking the small doodoo actually has bass. Hey, it works!

However, I'd really really wish Amir could also high pass the speakers at 200-300 hz or so during listening tests just to compare speakers both with and without whatever strange bass capabilities a speaker has that may or may not suit his exact scenario. To me this makes sense because we know that bass quality has a huge impact on preference, but since we already know that bass matters a lot and that bass is room dependent it certainly would be interesting to see if we can establish a pattern for the higher frequencies as well.
@amirm this is my wish and I pray to myself that you find it in yourself to come up with the exact same idea

 

[Absolute]

Any trained listener is worth paying attention to when we try to find patterns in the measurements that correlates to subjective impressions. At least to me. I don't need Amir's listening impressions to tell me if I should buy a speaker or not, but I do need him to figure out if there's a pattern to his measurements and his impressions. (Weird sentence?)
If you don't see the value of that, you're not curious enough.

 

[infinitesymphony]

The JBL has a 4dB boost centered at 100hz. At low frequencies that is getting close to double the perceived volume. Perhaps it is a speaker bass balance issue.

I'm with Amir in that I think the bass response is intentionally designed. Many of the JBLs seem to follow this pattern: slight bass boost > slight dip > flat to elevated midrange and treble.

 

[Absolute]

Unsurprisingly, really. They're all designed to shine in A-B blind tests. I guess you end up with a very particular set of features for that to occur on a regularly basis.

 

[Absolute]

If he listened to the speaker before he measured it I would be closer to your viewpoint. However, I am not complaining about this at all (though I acknowledge why others would), as I think it would be too big a PITA to set up that part of the review properly. To me it's a nice bonus, but in no way shapes my opinion of the speaker. I think the results so far show that it shouldn't.

I don't disagree with you, not in the slightest. I'm just interested in whether or not we can, over time, see if there's more than frequency response alone that explains what Amir reacts to. There's no point in measuring all the other stuff like distortion and CSD if we're not interested enough to find out what they actually mean.

 

[sejarzo]

Thanks for another awesome review!

I think the grey finish looks quite cheap and 'plasticky'. For me, the curved sides and flat top seem to make it worse looking. The gloss black is what I would go for (if I had the dough, haha).

If I saw that grey without the JBL logo on it, I would think it was a $149 Jamo.

 

[RayDunzl]

And this graph in the specific:

Sometimes, I try to analyze things before paying enough attention to the whole of what is presented.

In this case, I found myself trying to understand this "mono" speaker setup.

Duh.

It's not a speaker setup.

Jump to conclusions, much?

 

[RigorDude]

Of course. It is the recommended practice based on research. See AES paper,
Comparison of Loudspeaker-Room
Equalization Preference for Multichannel,
Stereo, and Mono Reproductions: Are
Listeners More Discriminating in Mono?

Some follow-up questions if I may:
1) How common is this practice among audio reviewers?
2) Assuming there are other reviewers who do this, do they limit their listening observations entirely to the mono set-up?
3) Is there an established or suggested protocol for this kind of critical listening (e.g. native-mono recordings etc.)?

 

[GXAlan]

It's horses for courses.

Listening in mono may prove more adequate to evaluate some aspects of loudspeaker performance but to assess imaging you need two speakers playing simultaneously (one channel each). One on the parameters that afects imaging is pair matching which cannot be evaluated in mono.

Agree that stereo is best but then you add more variables like toe in and positioning. I do think it is essential for exotic designs like the Paragon DD44000, Everest DD55000 and S/2600 and S/3100 to assess in stereo.

Try this trick. Block one ear with one hand and then snap your finger above/below/in front and behind your free ear. We can perceive some spatial information with just one ear. I suspect that speakers with bad stereo imaging will also sound bad in mono. Speakers with spectacular stereo imaging may not be appreciated listening in mono.

 

[Soniclife]

Sometimes, I try to analyze things before paying enough attention to the whole of what is presented.

In this case, I found myself trying to understand this "mono" speaker setup.

Duh.

It's not a speaker setup.

Jump to conclusions, much?

Don't feel too bad, I did exactly the same, I was confused by why the stereo pair were wonky, and I had no idea where the 4th speaker fit in.

 

[amirm]

But just for the sake of putting it out there, I don't think something like this, which is more or less what we have so far, will be useful in the future for such a project.

"The sound from the JBL HDI-1600 in a word is stunning! That extra bass and very good power handling gives full satisfaction. The flat mid-frequencies means all the detail is presented as it should making for a delightful contrast with that bass response."

Mostly because it is clear that the measurements had some sort of impact in his listening.

It didn't in this case. It was justification after the fact! I saw some issues in the response so was not prepared for it to sound so good. It was after that which I concluded what I like is what I explained above.

What I am developing using interactive measurements, EQ and listening is my overall subjective preference correlated with frequency response. Still early in the process despite testing some 30 speakers but I am getting there.

As a deeper dive, I am listening to tracks which sound stunning on my Salon 2. As I listen to music, I collect tracks that sound incredible, jaw-droppingly good. When I play them on different speakers, some speakers present that same feeling with majority of the tracks. Others, do the opposite. This is how I pass my judgement not because I saw a response being this and that, and therefore it must sound good.

My advice is to NOT dismiss the listening tests out of hand, or believe them 100%. There are critical things I am testing like maximum playback level without bottoming out that do not come out of any measurements right now. And bias simply does not get into that equation as the distortion is so easy to spot and dramatic.

 

[amirm]

Sometimes, I try to analyze things before paying enough attention to the whole of what is presented.

In this case, I found myself trying to understand this "mono" speaker setup.

Duh.

It's not a speaker setup.

Jump to conclusions, much?

It is a confusing paper as its main thesis was the value of equalization but as a side-effect, they also found out that differences between mono, stereo and multi-channel was as I reported. So in this context you have to ignore the EQ side and just focus on number of channels.

 

[tuga]

I don't disagree with you, not in the slightest. I'm just interested in whether or not we can, over time, see if there's more than frequency response alone that explains what Amir reacts to. There's no point in measuring all the other stuff like distortion and CSD if we're not interested enough to find out what they actually mean.

It may take days and an assortment of recordings with specific characteristics to identify some shortcomings, not half an hour.

Amir's report may have been useful to determine his preference had it not been biased by prior knowledge of the measured performance.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Have we met?
And you seem to have missed the joking smiley...mister.

Ahh, I see. Okay. Nice. Be well.