JBL One Series 104 Powered Monitor Review

[bennybbbx]

Finally got a measurement mic to the office. These are the results of a Sonarworks SoundID Reference mic shoved into the back of an EVO 4, about 1" from speaker, 0° mic calibration loaded:

what do you mean with 1 " from speaker. you mean 1 inch (2.54 cm) away from speaker ?. it seem so because when i measure 1.5 cm away them i get simular results. but this is ok. at very near distance below 30 cm seem coaxial speakers get crazy sound results because interferences between woofer and tweeter. i get simular results at 1.5 cm measure

but when meaasure at hear distance (in my case around 50 cm) without EQ the large gap at 4.2 khz is not in. here a measure with 1/48 so you can compare

 

[AnalogSteph]

what do you mean with 1 " from speaker. you mean 1 inch (2.54 cm) away from speaker ?. it seem so because when i measure 1.5 cm away them i get simular results. but this is ok. at very near distance below 30 cm seem coaxial speakers get crazy sound results because interferences between woofer and tweeter. i get simular results at 1.5 cm measure

I had never thought about this being possible, but I guess it is (if on a much smaller scale than with discrete drivers as distances involved are substantially reduced).

An average of three measurements of the right JBL 104 in its new home, a.k.a. why desks are evil:

Placed directly on the desk, right next to a 24" monitor. The response in individual measurements is all over the place in the mids and highs as combing varies. General midrange trough, typical coax 10 kHz dip. (Derived EQ is attached.)

You can spot the combing in this left channel measurement:

The new owner of these was absolutely thrilled to receive them either way. They replaced a nigh 20-year-old pair of discount store PC speakers that I guess cost a whopping 29.99€ back in the day and had developed a badly intermittent volume pot that would send loud cracks and pops through the office at random... recently the neighboring desk's Cambridge Soundworks PC Works had already been borrowed as a replacement for this reason. (Opening the problematic speakers to access the pot would require a very long and thin screwdriver that I don't have. At some point you might as well cut your losses and move on.) I still have to measure that old set when I get around to it.

 

[bennybbbx]

My measures are only 1 measure. In your measure the boost at 250 hz can reduce when bring the speakers with a desktop stand to ear height. then sound also much better. I tghink the sound on all speakers is extrem worse when put direct on desktop. Eq does not help. the coax have also the advantage that they are more away from desktop when position is tweeter heigh = ear height

 

[AnalogSteph]

I tghink the sound on all speakers is extrem worse when put direct on desktop.

For sure - in this case soundstaging turned out super diffuse if nothing else. At home I've had speaker stands for the last 15 years... was a nice DIY project with my dad since desktop stands of the required height (~23 cm / 9") were neither common nor very affordable at the time.

 

[remedym]

A lot of people hate on this poor little thing. Yes it's not perfect and I wouldn't use them without my Gennie 7050. But I hate my Genelec 8030's, they are a piece of crap in my ears or eyes or whatever. I can do decent mix on these things (with a little bit of calibration) that translates pretty well to other devices. I just got used to it, yes in the studio at my work we use those giant barefoots, but I hate them too . My ears are bleeding for listening to them throughout the day. So I use my Gennie 8030's in the studio then reference them on the Barefoot speakers and adjust only the sub frequencies most of the time. But Mastering is only done on Barefoot speakers, they are really tactile and responsive and flat. But listening at them all they long at a decent level is just torture to my ears and it's not just me. So for editing and mixing it's perfect. Don't do mastering at home it's not going to be even just decent. Spend some cash on it and let the pros do their job, you will be happier. And a fresh pair of ears will always a good thing.

 

[Bergante]

These speakers are a gem for ham radio equipment, especially HF listening.

For some reason they excel at pulling a narrow band voice signal from a sea of nasty noise.

 

[geomol]

What a great review site this is. I just found a pair at the swap shop (new in the box) and here is the review. Thank uoi so much. You are the best!

 

[Skylinestar]

Does anyone have the EQ filter values for the passive speaker unit?

 

[nabuc]

Bought it for 50€ and it do the work for a small installation with TV. place again wall and on a console , it's increase the bass by default (wall issue), so still better than TV speaker, dispersion ok cos coax. It's not Ik loud , but will never find it for 50€
can EQ it with REW if I want and use APO, just not courageaous to do it for TV setup

 

[music_lover]

I tried both JBL104BT and 305P. It was hard to tell the difference. I was expecting 104 to sound much worse based on the frequency graph here, but they did really well against the 305s. I am new to this hobby, but can someone tell me why I found it hard to tell the difference even though the 104 graph looks worse?