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JBL LSR305P MKii and Control 1 Pro Monitors Review

daftcombo

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I
JBL 305P mkII APO EQ October212020-144805 Preamp: -1.6 dB Filter 1: ON PK Fc 160 Hz Gain -1.1 dB Q 2.04 Filter 2: ON PK Fc 567 Hz Gain 1.68 dB Q 0.98 Filter 3: ON PK Fc 822 Hz Gain -1.49 dB Q 5.63 Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1755 Hz Gain -3.32 dB Q 5.3 Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3219 Hz Gain -2.51 dB Q 2.52 Filter 6: ON PK Fc 5007 Hz Gain -2.43 dB Q 4.31 Filter 7: ON PK Fc 6667 Hz Gain -1.82 dB Q 11.3 Filter 8: ON PK Fc 8730 Hz Gain -1.02 dB Q 10.5 Filter 9: ON PK Fc 10251 Hz Gain -1.79 dB Q 3.1 Filter 10: ON PK Fc 16212 Hz Gain -2.27 dB Q 5.01 Filter 11: ON PK Fc 17190 Hz Gain -2.1 dB Q 3
In a few days I'll try to implement those settings in my miniDSP nanoDIGI. I can use 10 PEQ so will get rid of the correction at 8,730Hz.
 

daftcombo

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The miniDSP filters are ready.

1606497690974.png


Now just waiting for the Topping E30 to arrive to test that.

Chain: SONY DVP coaxial out -> miniDSP nanoDIGI -> E30 coaxial in -> JBL 305p Mark II.
 

daftcombo

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Tested today: @Maiky76 's EQ of the JBL 305p MKII at @renaudrenaud 's.

First, thanks a lot for the delicious meal, the informatics lesson and the nice chat!

Second, my impressions of the EQed JBL (via miniDSP nanoDIGI) was very positive, and I think Renaud thought the same. Better treble, more presence, more "clarity", and still a good power handling. Not as good as the ELAC DBR-62 but closer!

DAC + pre-amp were Topping E30 + Topping L30, fed by a Raspberry Pi (or Orange Pi?).

I can't wait to get my Topping E30 to try this at home.

Thanks Maiky!
 

DavidMcRoy

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A note on distortion which has been encountered by some with the JBL 305P MkII: in my experience, the speaker only exhibits excessive distortion when the gain structure of the system comprised of the speaker and the source feeding it is non-optimum. The owner’s manual states:

”Issue: The signal is distorted.
• Verify the speaker's INPUT SENSITIVITY switch is set to +4dBu. If the distortion persists, even with the speaker's VOLUME control set low, inspect the gain stages throughout the system to determine which circuit in the signal path is being overdriven.”

In my system, using a consumer-class source operating with unbalanced outputs and a nominal level of -10dBu, optimum results are obtained by (1) running the source levels relatively high; (2) setting the 305P MkII‘s input level setting to +4dBu, and (3) setting the speaker’s volume control at maximum. This gain structure results in the best noise versus distortion performance in my particular (and very common) situation. I made this determination when I first encountered the first generation JBL LSR305, and the condition persists with the 305P MkII. The much discussed “hiss” issue is a non-issue in my situation in that hiss is only audible within a few inches of the tweeter, and is unaffected by any gain settings anywhere in the system or the speaker itself (except when the speaker is completely muted by setting its volume control to minimum.)
 
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Maiky76

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Tested today: @Maiky76 's EQ of the JBL 305p MKII at @renaudrenaud 's.

First, thanks a lot for the delicious meal, the informatics lesson and the nice chat!

Second, my impressions of the EQed JBL (via miniDSP nanoDIGI) was very positive, and I think Renaud thought the same. Better treble, more presence, more "clarity", and still a good power handling. Not as good as the ELAC DBR-62 but closer!

DAC + pre-amp were Topping E30 + Topping L30, fed by a Raspberry Pi (or Orange Pi?).

I can't wait to get my Topping E30 to try this at home.

Thanks Maiky!

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback on the EQ.
It seems you have maxed out your EQ, how do you do with the LF in-room EQ?
I may be able to reduce the number of biquads of the Score EQ to free some slots for the LF in-room if that helps.

Now for something completely different ;-)
I would be very interested if you could try some EQs on the DBR62.
It is one of the edge cases in which the EQ is quite dramatic and the positive review the speaker got from Amirm makes me think that the EQ might be not needed or not in a way that I generally proceed.
I haven't published it yet for this reason but if you are game I could put it in the DBR-62 thread.
Let me know what you think.
 

daftcombo

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Hi,

Thanks for the feedback on the EQ.
It seems you have maxed out your EQ, how do you do with the LF in-room EQ?
I may be able to reduce the number of biquads of the Score EQ to free some slots for the LF in-room if that helps.

Now for something completely different ;-)
I would be very interested if you could try some EQs on the DBR62.
It is one of the edge cases in which the EQ is quite dramatic and the positive review the speaker got from Amirm makes me think that the EQ might be not needed or not in a way that I generally proceed.
I haven't published it yet for this reason but if you are game I could put it in the DBR-62 thread.
Let me know what you think.
@renaudrenaud has the DBR-62. I'm sure he will agree to test that EQ, via miniDSP or directly by convolution.

As for LF EQ for the JBL, it is true that one or two free slots would allow it. Placement helped last sunday to reduce the impact of one room mode.
 

Pio2001

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Hi,
I can hear the hiss of the JBL 305P mk2 from my listening position when everything is silent in the room.
Comparing it to a white noise measured at 60 dB SPL(A), then attenuated with a digital volume control until it is approximately as loud as the speaker's hiss, I think the JBL's hiss is around 15 dB SPL(A) at 2 meters.

I have noticed that the stereo is off-centered with my JBL 305P mk2 only if I listen to them in a given configuration. If I swap the left and right speakers, the stereo is correct.

So I decided to check if both of them have the same frequency response. I put the measurement microphone 50 cm in front of the speakers and ran a sweep measurement. Then I replaced the speaker with the other one. Everything else in the room was exactly at the same place, including me.
Then I divided the two measurements in order to display the difference in dB. Here it is. I compared them with the Neumann KH-120.

25 Appariement en.png


The frequency response deviations reach 1.5 dB at some frequencies between two copies of the speaker ! Keep that in mind when you equalize them. The ones that you have got have not necessarily the same frequency response as the one measured by Amir. It is even probable that, like me, your left speaker has not the same response as your right speaker.

@MZKM @pierre FYI, my automated consistency checking code has flagged the Early Reflections Directivity Index data in that package to be incorrect - as in, it's inconsistent with the other curves.

See for example the 6,061.52 Hz data point. "Early Reflections DI" in "Directivity Index.txt" says 3.54792 dB, and that's also what we find if we subtract "DI offset" (49.9794 dB) from "Early Reflections DI" (53.5273 dB) in "CEA2034.txt".

Problem is, that 3.54792 dB figure is wrong. Indeed, according to the curves in the dataset itself, Listening Window at this frequency is 83.2517 dB, while Early Reflections is 81.7077 dB. That means the DI is 1.544 dB, not 3.54792 dB.

Aaaah ! That's why the early reflection directivity index is so different from the Neumann KH-120, while their sound power directivity indexes are very close :

159_JBL_Neumann_DI.png


I was wondering why the blue dotted curve at the bottom (JBL) was so higher than the green dotted one (Neumann).
Now I have the explanation : the curve is wrong ! Thanks !
 
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amirm

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Now I have the explanation : the curve is wrong !
Yes, this was a bug in Klippel NFS at the time. I should remeasure these speakers again with the latest and greatest tweaks.
 

infinitesymphony

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The frequency response deviations reach 1.5 dB at some frequencies between two copies of the speaker ! Keep that in mind when you equalize them. The ones that you have got have not necessarily the same frequency response as the one measured by Amir. It is even probable that, like me, your left speaker has not the same response as your right speaker.
1.5 dB max deviation is not bad at all considering these speakers probably are not individually calibrated like Neumann, Genelec, and others. For $200/pair that seems pretty good. Thanks for sharing your measurements.
 

thewas

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The frequency response deviations reach 1.5 dB at some frequencies between two copies of the speaker ! Keep that in mind when you equalize them. The ones that you have got have not necessarily the same frequency response as the one measured by Amir. It is even probable that, like me, your left speaker has not the same response as your right speaker.
Very true, especially at lower cost loudspeakers as you demonstrated nicely.
What makes me a bit wonder though are the high differences of the pairs in the lower bass since you say you placed them at the exact same position, when I do similar tests it isn't as high. Also that the of the deviations of both pairs have the same basic shape above 1kHz (they are just more wide and peaky for the JBLs) can't be really a coincidence but probably be a systematic error.
 

Pio2001

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can't be really a coincidence but probably be a systematic error.

The measurement is difficult and there are inaccuracies, but I think that the general trend is correct.

I repeated the measurement two times with near-field sweeps, and two times with mid-field MMM. Here are the differences (since each curve is a difference between two speakers, this is the result from 8 individual measurements) :

25bPairing24.png

We can see a lot of variations on the purple curve, that should be perfectly identical to the blue one. They are caused by acoustic reflections on my body while I was sitting not far from the microphone, not paying attention to be in the exact same position.
The blue curve is cleaner because I was standing still at the exact same position, away from the mic, during the two measurements for this curve.

The comparison between both speakers measured 2 meters away with a moving microphone and a pink noise show a very different pattern. I can't explain this. I expect the sound level to be different between the two speakers, but not the geometry of the sound field !
But the two comparisons (red and green) give the same kind of result.

Same curves with 1/3 octave smoothing :

25aPairingthird.png


And here is the result of B over A vs A over B, calculated with no smoothing, then smoothed 1/24th octave, in order to evaluate the internal calculation accuracy of REW :

25cPairingMirror.png


The Neumann measurement show large variations in low frequencies because the microphone was in an acoustic null of the front bass reflex port, I think, and what we see below 60 Hz is noise, while the back port of the JBL provided some useful signal since 30 Hz where the microphone was located.

EDIT : Each speaker was positioned at the same place within 5 mm. I didn't evaluate the error caused by small variations in the position of the speakers within these 5mm.

EDIT 2 : the 4 curves above are for the JBL 305p, always the same speaker vs the other.
 
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thewas

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The measurement is difficult and there are inaccuracies, but I think that the general trend is correct.
Sure, I am just questioning that the difference has on both such a similar shape:

1606869892147.png


For such measurements I recommend placing both the loudspeakers and mic on stands relatively in the middle of the room and some thick carpets on the floor between both of them, this usually gets you more than 5ms with no significant reflection which you can use for gating in REW to get rid of the room influence.
 
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x-dfo

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I have these speakers and used REW and a calibrated mic to verify "my" in room response because the EQ settings published by others didn't sound quite right to me. Sure enough, huge differences in my measurements on my desk / room which resulted in different EQ settings. Now, love the sound. :)

When you measured with REW (I just got my mic) what's the best way to correct for the room? I'm not familiar with this workflow (I mean I know how to eq musically/mix speaking but I've never eq'd for correction).

I love my 305's, there's no hiss, the imaging is holographic and super stable - I'm honestly terrified that any upgrade, which I know would be dearly expensive, would leave me wanting. Is there a speaker that is like 'This is a much better 305.'?
 

dachiznitt

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When you measured with REW (I just got my mic) what's the best way to correct for the room? I'm not familiar with this workflow (I mean I know how to eq musically/mix speaking but I've never eq'd for correction).

I love my 305's, there's no hiss, the imaging is holographic and super stable - I'm honestly terrified that any upgrade, which I know would be dearly expensive, would leave me wanting. Is there a speaker that is like 'This is a much better 305.'?

Check out this video: Correct your speakers with REW, UMIK-1 and Equalizer APO (Room Correction Tutorial) - YouTube

I also installed PEACE to give me a better UI for managing the APO equalizer. (Peace Equalizer, interface Equalizer APO download | SourceForge.net ).

Hope this helps you as I do recommend measuring the speakers in your own room vs downloading EQ settings that are not suited for your setup.

Enjoy!
 

x-dfo

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Maiky76

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@renaudrenaud has the DBR-62. I'm sure he will agree to test that EQ, via miniDSP or directly by convolution.

As for LF EQ for the JBL, it is true that one or two free slots would allow it. Placement helped last sunday to reduce the impact of one room mode.


Hi,

Here is the Redux version of the EQ from 11BQ to 8BQ.
It should then leave you 2 slots for room EQ.

Is there a way to input a and b Biquad coefficients directly in the XOver section of the NanoDigi instead of off-the-shelf HPF/LPF?
If so, it seems that it would add another 8 Biquads per channel:
4 biquads for the HPF + 4 for the LPF as it is written 8th order HPF/LPF in the plug-in data sheet.

No EQ:
Score: 4.64
Score sub: 6.59

EQ Original (initial):
Score with EQ: 6.78
Score Sub: 8.69

EQ Redux:
Score with EQ: 6.43
Score Sub: 8.38

Code:
JBL 305P mkII Redux APO EQ 96000Hz
December302020-121658

Preamp: -1.5 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 160 Hz Gain -1.19 dB Q 2.54
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 584 Hz Gain 1.68 dB Q 0.98
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 831 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 4.04
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1763 Hz Gain -3.55 dB Q 4.76
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3183 Hz Gain -2.3 dB Q 2.52
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 5025 Hz Gain -2.24 dB Q 2.67
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 9552 Hz Gain -1.6 dB Q 3.5
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 16808 Hz Gain -4.1 dB Q 2.5

JBL 305P mkII Redux EQ Design.png

Spinorama with EQ Redux:
JBL 305P mkII Redux EQ Spinorama.png

Zoom PIR-LW-ON
JBL 305P mkII Redux EQ Zoom PIR-LW-ON.png

Regression - Tonal
Practically identical
JBL 305P mkII Redux EQ Regression - Tonal.png

Radar vs original EQ:
Very small losses and still a massive improvements over the No EQ
JBL 305P mkII Redux EQ Radar.png

I hope this helps, please report any issues.
 

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  • JBL 305P mkII Redux APO EQ 96000Hz.txt
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daftcombo

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Hi,

Here is the Redux version of the EQ from 11BQ to 8BQ.
It should then leave you 2 slots for room EQ.

Is there a way to input a and b Biquad coefficients directly in the XOver section of the NanoDigi instead of off-the-shelf HPF/LPF?
If so, it seems that it would add another 8 Biquads per channel:
4 biquads for the HPF + 4 for the LPF as it is written 8th order HPF/LPF in the plug-in data sheet.

No EQ:
Score: 4.64
Score sub: 6.59

EQ Original (initial):
Score with EQ: 6.78
Score Sub: 8.69

EQ Redux:
Score with EQ: 6.43
Score Sub: 8.38

Code:
JBL 305P mkII Redux APO EQ 96000Hz
December302020-121658

Preamp: -1.5 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 160 Hz Gain -1.19 dB Q 2.54
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 584 Hz Gain 1.68 dB Q 0.98
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 831 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 4.04
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1763 Hz Gain -3.55 dB Q 4.76
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3183 Hz Gain -2.3 dB Q 2.52
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 5025 Hz Gain -2.24 dB Q 2.67
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 9552 Hz Gain -1.6 dB Q 3.5
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 16808 Hz Gain -4.1 dB Q 2.5

View attachment 102364
Spinorama with EQ Redux:
View attachment 102365
Zoom PIR-LW-ON
View attachment 102363
Regression - Tonal
Practically identical
View attachment 102362
Radar vs original EQ:
Very small losses and still a massive improvements over the No EQ
View attachment 102361
I hope this helps, please report any issues.
Thank you.

The nanoDIGI can use biquads but I am not at home these days to try. Will do later.
 

dominikz

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Does anyone know if the LSR305 has some EQ preset somewhere?
Only thing I have found related to his response is this https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T9yLUksyFTu8DwtsaUwacoCIpRfmdIzx6vDRPjzfbCg/mobilebasic

Yes, seems there's not much measurements available for MKI, I was also looking for this recently.
Unfortunately I don't have an EQ preset, but I've measured my pair of JBL LSR305 (so MKI) on-axis response quasi-anechoically (gated far-field HF measurement spliced with nearfield LF measurement) and got the following result:
1610103878375.png

Note: Due to nature of this method of measurement there is some ambiguity on LF response level relative to HF, and some loss of fine details between ~300Hz and ~2kHz.

The black dotted line is digitized from the low-res vendor spinorama you linked to - you can see there is fairly good agreement between it and speaker #1 measurement (red line). However my other speaker (#2 - blue traces) has ~2dB lower tweeter sensitivity, which I'm partly compensating for by using the +2dB HF switch. I'm waiting on a replacement tweeter to try and fix it - I was quite disappointed by JBL QC when I noticed this :confused:

Since qualitative agreement between vendor measurement and my two units seems good (disregarding the presumably faulty, lower sensitivity tweeter in one of my units), I'd say it should be safe to use the JBL spin to work out the EQ coefficients.
 
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