JBL Stage A130 Review (speaker)

[Kachda]

@amirm , if I may make a suggestion for the pictures you take.. it would be very useful (especially for speakers and desktop units) to place a reference object next to the DUT before taking the picture to get a quick visual feel for size. Most apt for this group would be a small ruler/tape with a few inches/cms showing. But it could be any "standard" object - a paperback, a smartphone, a pencil - that is easy to calibrate with. Don't know if the panthers are all to scale and placed physically or photoshopped. In any case, their size isn't a well-known "standard"!

You can get a hint by looking at the panther, though Panthera pinkus is not a standardized unit of measure

 

[MZKM]

How about putting a panther to the left of the speaker as a 'before EQ rating', and 2nd panther to the right of the speaker as 'after EQ rating'? Just a thought...

Looks like Amir complied; now what to do with my Amir Rating graph

 

[hex168]

That graph is actually quite useful to figure out the source of the deviations even if it's not perfect. For example, sometimes you find surprising rises due to the port well into the mid-range.

I agree completely. These graphs, in aggregate, are definetly adding to my understanding of port issues.

 

[EJ3]

Also available in a brown finish in some markets.

I would never have the black ones (or any other black ones or any white ones, no matter what speaker it is or how great it) in my home These are absolutely great looking.

 

[The Jniac]

I wonder if the frequency response could be corrected, or at least improved, by adding some filters to the crossover.

 

[tuga]

No EQ = junk.

A 5dB broad hump where the ear is nearing its highest sensitivity? Ouch.

 

[Haint]

I AB'ed the Stage 120 and Arena 120 and significantly preferred the Arena, to the point the Stage 120 actually sounded like a bad speaker by comparison.

 

[flipflop]

now what to do with my Amir Rating graph

3 without EQ = small yellow dot
4 without EQ = big yellow dot
3 with EQ = small blue dot
4 with EQ = big blue dot
yellow + blue = green

Examples:
3 without EQ + 4 with EQ = small yellow dot on top of big blue dot
3 without EQ + 3 with EQ = small green dot
4 without EQ + 4 with EQ = big green dot
4 without EQ + 3 with EQ doesn't happen

 

[More Dynamics Please]

I AB'ed the Stage 120 and Arena 120 and significantly preferred the Arena, to the point the Stage 120 actually sounded like a bad speaker by comparison.

I believe Dr. Floyd Toole has commented in his book and on different audio forums that the Arena 120 has exceptional performance for its price point and when used with a subwoofer could compete with much more expensive speakers.

 

[stunta]

Look at that low distortion, that is really low for any 5" woofer at those volumes (96db chart) and that little tweeter is doing well.

JBL product page says 8" driver. Did they make a copy-paste error?

https://www.jbl.com/home-audio/STAG... A130_color=Black-USA-Current&cgid=home-audio

The JBL Stage is an advanced, home-stereo/home-theater speaker system that offers you the thrill of a live-concert experience, all in your living room. Featuring 1” aluminum dome tweeters with high-definition waveguide sound design and 8” woofers that register deep, signature JBL bass, the JBL Stage captures every note of the audio spectrum from high to low – and combines them into pure listening pleasure.

 

[PeteL]

Technically, it is known as a speaker that easily reveals poor quality in recordings.

I kinda agree, but only partly, I know what you mean tough it's sometime hard to pinpoint why exactly something becomes a standard, Marketing played a rôle at first I guess, but when I did some work in recording studios they where already in their decline so don't quote me as a reference on the history, but the way i remember it, everybody used them, but nobody liked them, but It was not about that, but simply because they where everywhere, and producers where working in different studios, with different engineer, same with musicians, I don't think there was that much more to it, simply familiarity, habit, and yes this perception that if it sounds good on a NS10 it will sound good everywhere, but not so much because of a technical prowess to reveal pour recordings, but more like, it represent the average speaker, that average people have, that was my impression. They where not that great. Now, when Genelec entered the market of near field monitoring with a bang, those considerations magically flew out the window quite fast, engineers realized that working with good speakers has a place. Might not be the "last word", but things changed more than "a bit", Stuff people mix with nowadays are quite hifi by any metric.

 

[goldark]

I believe Dr. Floyd Toole has commented in his book and on different audio forums that the Arena 120 has exceptional performance for its price point and when used with a subwoofer could compete with much more expensive speakers.

Yep, he expands on it here: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/ho...-science-shows.3038828/page-147#post-58178406

The Arena 120 is crazy good for its price but has limited power handling and bass extension (JBL specs say it only goes down to 100 Hz). I do wonder why they made the Stage 120 inferior to the Arena 120 though, given JBL proved itself able to make a terrific speaker at that price point.

 

[Ralferator]

So long as you can drive SigmaStudio and have a suitable adapter to do the programming it should work.

Thank you! What do i need to drive SigmaStudio? I see 3eAudio sells the adapter - is a windows pc the only other requirement?

 

[Sancus]

JBL product page says 8" driver. Did they make a copy-paste error?

Probably, the speaker is only 7.5" wide so would be quite impressive if it had an 8" diameter woofer

 

[MZKM]

3 without EQ = small yellow dot
4 without EQ = big yellow dot
3 with EQ = small blue dot
4 with EQ = big blue dot
yellow + blue = green

Examples:
3 without EQ + 4 with EQ = small yellow dot on top of big blue dot
3 without EQ + 3 with EQ = small green dot
4 without EQ + 4 with EQ = big green dot
4 without EQ + 3 with EQ doesn't happen

Thanks, but meant more in regards to past speakers.

 

[infinitesymphony]

To add to the distortion comparisons, it's fascinating to see how much lower the distortion is with the JBL Stage A130 than the JBL LSR308P (I would have compared LSR305P but I don't think we have distortion graphs for it). Is it simply because we're providing our own amp? Presuming from the A130's frequency response that it misses out on the LSR's improved waveguide and internal DSP, the distortion is still night and day different in the A130's favor:

 

[sweetchaos]

JBL Stage A130 than the JBL LSR308P, both with 8" woofers.

JBL Stage A130 has a 5.25" woofer, not 8" woofer.

 

[infinitesymphony]

JBL Stage A130 has a 5.25" woofer, not 8" woofer.

Yeah, I removed that part of my post after doing a bit more digging. I thought that was surprising, and it's an error that's duplicated across merchants too.

 

[witwald]

Starting at the right, the tweeter is clearly peaking at around 15 kHz. Coming down we see the peak around 1.3 kHz which I think is caused by the port resonance (orange). There is another peak around 870 Hz which may be from the woofer itself or combination with the port.

It seems doubtful that the peak at 1.3 kHz in the summed response is caused by the peak in the port resonance, which happens to be at a somewhat lower frequency. Another factor is that the summed response comes in at around 108 dB on the graph, while the peak in the port resonance comes in with energy levels at only 90 dB. That's an 18 dB difference, and means that the contribution of the port to the summed response will be very small. Summing two in-phase signals at those levels produces 20xlog10(10^(108/20)+10^(90/20)) = 109.0 dB, which is a relatively small +1.0 dB boost, which may still be noticeable.

Ideally, it would be better if the port resonance wasn't there, but if it could be made to be at least another 10 dB down in level, its contribution would be reduced to 0.3 dB or so. That turns into nice and simple rule of thumb: if a signal is 30 dB below the main signal, then it will only add about 0.3 dB to the total. If 40 dB down, then it adds approximately 0.1 dB.

 

[witwald]

Ignoring the three prominent peaks, on-axis response is actually quite flat. The cause of those peaks is quite evident if we measure each radiating surface at close distance:

View attachment 98293

It's a bit of a shame that the woofer wasn't disconnected from the circuit when the tweeter measurement was made. The filtered tweeter has a significant "response" level below about 1.5 kHz, which is due to the woofer's output being picked up by the microphone. It just seems odd seeing a filtered "tweeter" measurement with quite extended response down to 100 Hz or so!