JBL Stage A130 Review (speaker)

[grapengrainmix]

So I guess the takeaway is that JBL used cheaper drivers in the LSR 3 series to end up at a similar price level ($200-400 depending on sales) with the addition of built-in amplification, balanced input, Image Control Waveguide, and DSP EQ.

Makes me curious about the A170.

Stereophile measured them already.
JBL Stage A170 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

 

[ctrl]

To add another data point to the discussion you folks are having, I measured my 308p a few weeks back for distortion. It's 2 speakers at 2 metres, so I think that's equivalent to 1 speaker at 1 metre (which Amir measures at), so mathematically I think you can compare the distortion levels at the same dB rating. Mine aren't quite at at 86dB (although REW labels the responses as 86dB for some reason), under 1% distortion across the whole frequency range pretty much, so perhaps there's unit to unit variation.......

A distortion measurement at a distance of 2m in the listening room measured in "stereo" might not be very reliable.

Room resonances can raise or lower certain frequencies, which has a strong effect on the measured distortion. In addition, there are possible phase shifts due to the room resonances and due to different sound travel lengths from the two loudspeakers to the microphone. Etc. ...

For distortion measurements in the listening room it is recommended to measure one loudspeaker as far away from boundary surfaces as possible, at a distance around 0.3m.
This is quite a good compromise and keeps the influence of room resonances within reasonable limits, even in the low frequency range.

With very large speakers, to be completely sure, you can also take two measurements at different heights to get an overall impression of the distortion.

 

[Robbo99999]

A distortion measurement at a distance of 2m in the listening room measured in "stereo" might not be very reliable.

Room resonances can raise or lower certain frequencies, which has a strong effect on the measured distortion. In addition, there are possible phase shifts due to the room resonances and due to different sound travel lengths from the two loudspeakers to the microphone. Etc. ...

For distortion measurements in the listening room it is recommended to measure one loudspeaker as far away from boundary surfaces as possible, at a distance around 0.3m.
This is quite a good compromise and keeps the influence of room resonances within reasonable limits, even in the low frequency range.

With very large speakers, to be completely sure, you can also take two measurements at different heights to get an overall impression of the distortion.

Thanks, I might redo this tomorrow & I'll repost. I'll have to physically hold the mic though if I measure that close as I have no large extendable mic stand. I'll try to measure for 96dB at 30cm which should equate to 86dB at 1 metre according to this website (http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-distance.htm), which would make it more comparable with Amir's measurement based on 1metre. I'll also probably try some different distances and correspondingly different/calibrated dB value (all equating 86dB at 1metre)....so I can see if there's any effect on distance on measured distortion (all other variables being equal). I could also remeasure at my previous 2 metres that I measured, but holding the mic rather than using the little mic stand.....to see if holding the mic along with the unavoidable "micro movements" of the mic might alter the distortion measured.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Stereophile measured them already.
JBL Stage A170 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

This was mentioned earlier in the thread on page 6, but then someone said:

Unfortunately the bass hump is caused by the measurement method JA uses. He doesn't compensate for it, and that's why every speaker he measures has an (incorrect) bass hump.

So it would be nice to see more accurate measurements.

 

[amirm]

For distortion measurements in the listening room it is recommended to measure one loudspeaker as far away from boundary surfaces as possible, at a distance around 0.3m.

To be clear, this is the measurement distance I use for distortion (really 1/3 of a meter). I then translate it to 1 meter as reported.

There is still a room mode around 100 Hz.

 

[Justin Ayers]

I wouldn't know how much, or how specific, but back in the days, I've seen many studio mixing engineers, covering the tweeters of their NS-10 with a piece of toilet paper. I also read in Interviews Alan Shaw, the designer at Harbeth, stating that his speakers are designed to be listened to (and measured) with grills on. I guess they do at least make some difference.

It seems logical to me that if speakers come with equipment, like grills, they should be designed to operate with that equipment present. Removing them makes them out of spec. If a designer fails to take grills/cloth/whatever fully into account in the design then that's a bad designer. Just my sense of the situation. Maybe it's just unwise to block the sound, period, though.

I would be inclined, based on my assumption, to require a special tool to remove the grills on any speaker I'd release for sale that have them/cloth — to fully make the point.

If you're in your 30's, even with exceptional hearing for your age, you won't hear much in that range. Faint whispers that'll be drowned out by everything below 10kHz if you're lucky. Above 40 you can forget hearing 14kHz.

According to multiple videos I can hear up to 15.8K or so (maybe 15.6). Maybe higher with a quieter room and better equipment than laptop speakers and cheap headphones. I'm 43. I also have tinnitus and have had my hearing subjected to quite a bit of damage/strain during my life, including a rock concert that caused my ears to ring for over a year. My father forced me to shoot guns and those caused my ears to ring even wearing both earplugs and shooting headphones. He forced me to go to drag races. I used to listen to music in music headphones at too high an SPL sometimes. When I did those tests my hearing was still in recovery from using a very loud commercial riding mower so perhaps I can hear higher than that. Despite my hearing issues it was nonetheless obvious when the high tone would appear from nothingness and repeating the test gave me the same result, from more than one video. My recollection is that I could hear to 17k the last time I tried one of those videos a number of years ago (don't recall how many). Since I moved to a new property it has involved a lot of hours on that loud mower and that has been quite bad for my hearing. I have also taken quite a bit of aspirin to manage back pain. To make matters worse, my favorite snack is dark chocolate and cocoa generally is high in lead (which doesn't help my IQ either!).

As far as I know, although age-caused decline can begin as young as 18, age-related hearing decline should be a small factor until someone is in their 60s — in societies that have no industrial pollution, otoxoic medicines, and hearing damage from noise (such as from loud environments and electronics). Damage from artificial noise sources is the overwhelming problem, a problem that is often blamed on aging. Pollutants and medicines can also have a big effect. Aging can make the problem of damage worse, though. The body doesn't bounce back as well from injuries as one gets older. For around 90% of people, genetic predisposition to presbycusis (age-related decline) is not strong enough to be a factor until the late 50s or 60s. This is afaik. I could be wrong about some of the specifics. But, from what I have read, as with health decline from pollutants like heavy metals, people are strongly inclined to blame aging when they're looking at the wrong factors. But, since we age within an environment that has things like loud artificial noise exposure, pollution, and otoxic medicines like aspirin, it's hard to tweeze out the differences.

Go test people in the cloud forest of Papua New Guinea and see how much their hearing has declined due to aging.

 

[beagleman]

It seems logical to me that if speakers come with equipment, like grills, they should be designed to operate with that equipment present. Removing them makes them out of spec. If a designer fails to take grills/cloth/whatever fully into account in the design then that's a bad designer. Just my sense of the situation. Maybe it's just unwise to block the sound, period, though.

I would be inclined, based on my assumption, to require a special tool to remove the grills on any speaker I'd release for sale that have them/cloth — to fully make the point.

According to multiple videos I can hear up to 15.8K or so (maybe 15.6). Maybe higher with a quieter room and better equipment than laptop speakers and cheap headphones. I'm 43. I also have tinnitus and have had my hearing subjected to quite a bit of damage/strain during my life, including a rock concert that caused my ears to ring for over a year. My father forced me to shoot guns and those caused my ears to ring even wearing both earplugs and shooting headphones. He forced me to go to drag races. I used to listen to music in music headphones at too high an SPL sometimes. When I did those tests my hearing was still in recovery from using a very loud commercial riding mower so perhaps I can hear higher than that. Despite my hearing issues it was nonetheless obvious when the high tone would appear from nothingness and repeating the test gave me the same result, from more than one video. My recollection is that I could hear to 17k the last time I tried one of those videos a number of years ago (don't recall how many). Since I moved to a new property it has involved a lot of hours on that loud mower and that has been quite bad for my hearing. I have also taken quite a bit of aspirin to manage back pain. To make matters worse, my favorite snack is dark chocolate and cocoa generally is high in lead (which doesn't help my IQ either!).

As far as I know, although age-caused decline can begin as young as 18, age-related hearing decline should be a small factor until someone is in their 60s — in societies that have no industrial pollution, otoxoic medicines, and hearing damage from noise (such as from loud environments and electronics). Damage from artificial noise sources is the overwhelming problem, a problem that is often blamed on aging. Pollutants and medicines can also have a big effect. Aging can make the problem of damage worse, though. The body doesn't bounce back as well from injuries as one gets older. For around 90% of people, genetic predisposition to presbycusis (age-related decline) is not strong enough to be a factor until the late 50s or 60s. This is afaik. I could be wrong about some of the specifics. But, from what I have read, as with health decline from pollutants like heavy metals, people are strongly inclined to blame aging when they're looking at the wrong factors. But, since we age within an environment that has things like loud artificial noise exposure, pollution, and otoxic medicines like aspirin, it's hard to tweeze out the differences.

Go test people in the cloud forest of Papua New Guinea and see how much their hearing has declined due to aging.

A video, is not the best way to test hearing. In fact even using an audio system is just a mediocre way to tell.

The problem with a LOT of audio systems, is that you are not hearing a pure test tone in isolation, and at a specified level in comparison to 1khz.

Often you are hearing artifacts OF the delivery of the tone and other things. From all the things you said you have subjected your ears to, I would find it utterly incredible if you are hearing 15.8 khz anywhere close to the reference tone at 1khz for instance.
My best bet would be far closer to maybe 12-13 khz

 

[Robbo99999]

Maybe when Amir has time remeasure the 305 we can know for sure, but the 308 is pretty unhappy well above the bass.

Not sure how much of that is the top of the woofer vs the bottom of the tweeter or how different the 5" and 8" drivers are. Maybe the 5 is better in the lower mids. I don't have the best place for measuring mine to find out.

Port noise could end up being just as objectionable as the distortion too, but it didn't seem to bother Amir.

The crossover for the JBL 305P is actually set similarly to the 308P (1725 Hz vs 1800 Hz), but the 308P is woofer is being asked to do more. Perhaps someone who knows more about speaker performance can speculate about how that might affect distortion near the crossover range in each model. Looks like no matter which bookshelf speakers you pick it's wise to HPF them and add a subwoofer if you want to avoid bass distortion.

Blows my mind that the 305P and 308P are using 41W and 56W amps respectively. Perhaps they're maxing out somewhere between 86-96 dB where performance seems to go off a cliff. I find it hard to imagine that they used substantially better drivers in the A130 but would love to hear more info.

The 308P woofer is not really being asked to do more. It has a much larger radiating surface, so to produce a given SPL at a given frequency, it in fact needs to do less than the 305P's woofer.

A distortion measurement at a distance of 2m in the listening room measured in "stereo" might not be very reliable.

Room resonances can raise or lower certain frequencies, which has a strong effect on the measured distortion. In addition, there are possible phase shifts due to the room resonances and due to different sound travel lengths from the two loudspeakers to the microphone. Etc. ...

For distortion measurements in the listening room it is recommended to measure one loudspeaker as far away from boundary surfaces as possible, at a distance around 0.3m.
This is quite a good compromise and keeps the influence of room resonances within reasonable limits, even in the low frequency range.

With very large speakers, to be completely sure, you can also take two measurements at different heights to get an overall impression of the distortion.

Hi, I redid my distortion measurements of my 308p in light of what you said @ctrl , and I've quoted each of the previous posts I had responded to previously with my old "less accurate" distortion measurements.....so this is now another data point for your distortion discussions you've been having between speakers, and a point I made in my last post where I said there might be some unit to unit variation in the 308p. Yes, so I redid the measurements at 0.33 metres (each speaker seperately) for an initial target of 96dB at 0.33m which would equate to Amir's graphs of 86dB at 1m (he measures at 0.33m as I have done & then converts)......I was initially targeting this, but fell short by one dB, my 1kHz measurements were at 94dB which translates to 85dB at 1 metre. I did 512K sweeps for greater accuracy than the standard 256K, but I didn't do 1M sweeps because I was holding the mic due to lack of an extendable tripod....(I compared to some results using a little tripod at a greater measuring distance and the distortion results were the same vs me holding the mic, so no influence there). Following are my results, essentially pretty much all of the response is under 2% distortion across the board, and most of it is under 1% distortion. There is one exception to this and that is in the left speaker at 60Hz where it spikes briefly to 10%, but if you look at my raw frequency response you can see that corresponds with a massive null in the frequency response, so that's due to somekind of room mode so I think that 10% peak can be discounted. It doesn't have the distortion peak at the crossover between 1-2kHz that Amir's sample had, and my 308p samples perform better in the bass re distortion, so I think there is some unit to unit variance to account for the difference with Amir's measured sample of the 308p. My distortion measurments are a little worse than the results I showed before when it was all under 1% distortion, but that was measured in a stereo environment at 2 metres, so these results should be more accurate. (Note the first graph in each set is just the frequency response so you can see what kind of dB level I'm running the tests at, and also to notice any anomalies which I've discussed).
Right Speaker:

Left Speaker:

 

[ctrl]

I redid my distortion measurements of my 308p in light of what you said @ctrl

This looks much better, but I will continue being a pain in the ass

Even if not requested, a few remarks about the diagram.
By default, only HD2 to HD5 are displayed - this increases the clarity. To make it even clearer you could change the scaling, 1000% distortions are a bit overkill - 100% to 0.001 should be more than enough.

because I was holding the mic due to lack of an extendable tripod....

A microphone stand would be better, of course, because your body causes reflections that are likely to show up in the measurement.
In normal living rooms, it usually works out that the nearest boundary surface is at least 1.2m away (usually floor or ceiling). If the side walls are then significantly further away, the strength of the room resonances is still within limits with a 0.3m measurement.

It doesn't have the distortion peak at the crossover between 1-2kHz that Amir's sample had, and my 308p samples perform better in the bass re distortion, so I think there is some unit to unit variance to account for the difference with Amir's measured sample of the 308p.

How did you make sure that the measurement was really performed at 96dB sound pressure?

Is your measurement system sound pressure calibrated or did you use a separate sound pressure meter?

Was your measurement microphone aimed at the height of the tweeter during the measurement (this is how @amirm does his HD measurements)?

 

[Robbo99999]

This looks much better, but I will continue being a pain in the ass

Even if not requested, a few remarks about the diagram.
By default, only HD2 to HD5 are displayed - this increases the clarity. To make it even clearer you could change the scaling, 1000% distortions are a bit overkill - 100% to 0.001 should be more than enough.



A microphone stand would be better, of course, because your body causes reflections that are likely to show up in the measurement.
In normal living rooms, it usually works out that the nearest boundary surface is at least 1.2m away (usually floor or ceiling). If the side walls are then significantly further away, the strength of the room resonances is still within limits with a 0.3m measurement.



How did you make sure that the measurement was really performed at 96dB sound pressure?

Is your measurement system sound pressure calibrated or did you use a separate sound pressure meter?

Was your measurement microphone aimed at the height of the tweeter during the measurement (this is how @amirm does his HD measurements)?

Hi, well I don't know how much more "accuracy" the in-room measurements of distortions are that are done by Amir, because he said himself that determining speaker playback level was an art rather than a science so he says himself they're off by a few dB here & there - in reference to your calibration remarks. There's a calibration file that comes with UMIK in terms of getting a calibrated response for level and frequency response in terms of what the microphone is measuring & reporting - is my understanding of it's effect.

With regards to body reflections & holding the mic, I did a measurement of using the mini tripod vs holding the mic & no significant difference in distortion measurement, so I think I can rule that point out of yours. (I also kept my body off to the side of the speaker and extended just my arm holding the mic into the sound field.)

I measured with the mic pointing at the spot inbetween the tweeter & the woofer - so 2.5 inches below directly in-line with the tweeter dome (now that I measured the discrepancy). (I'm not gonna remeasure pointed directly at the tweeter).


Here's the same graphs with the different Y-scale, same information, I don't think it reveals anything new in comparison to my previous screenshots....essentially pretty much all of the response is under 2% distortion across the board, and just about most of it is under 1% distortion :
Left Speaker:

Right Speaker:

So you don't think my measurements are valid then?

 

[ctrl]

So you don't think my measurements are valid then?

Of course not! Your measurements are correct under the given conditions.

The difficulty is to create conditions that make distortion measurements at least roughly comparable.

If you compare the curve of HD3 in your and Amir's measurements, they are already quite similar.
The unusual linear scaling of Amir's distortion measurement does not make it easier to compare the plots.

The strong deviation in the curve of the HD2 measurements may be related to the microphone height, but also strongly depends on the sound pressure.

Due to the inaccuracies, you and Amir both have deviations of a few dB when setting the sound pressure, it would not be unusual if 5dB difference in the measurement sound pressure between the two of you would arise.

If you do measurements again, just increase the measured sound pressure by 5dB to see if HD2 in the range 1-3kHz also increases with your speaker.

 

[Robbo99999]

Of course not! Your measurements are correct under the given conditions.

The difficulty is to create conditions that make distortion measurements at least roughly comparable.

If you compare the curve of HD3 in your and Amir's measurements, they are already quite similar.
The unusual linear scaling of Amir's distortion measurement does not make it easier to compare the plots.

The strong deviation in the curve of the HD2 measurements may be related to the microphone height, but also strongly depends on the sound pressure.

Due to the inaccuracies, you and Amir both have deviations of a few dB when setting the sound pressure, it would not be unusual if 5dB difference in the measurement sound pressure between the two of you would arise.

If you do measurements again, just increase the measured sound pressure by 5dB to see if HD2 in the range 1-3kHz also increases with your speaker.

I might redo the measurements at a higher dB another day, but to be honest it's calibrated at 1kHz the same as Amir said he does his, albeit I did say I'm 1dB below his 86dB, I'm at 85dB equivalent 1 metre. I actually don't like running these high volume sweeps on my speakers, it is by far greater factors louder than the loudest music listening I do (so not really applicable), and I feel it stresses the speakers, therefore does not make me happy when I'm running them, lol! (lol, I even wear my closed back HP50 headphones when I'm running these latest sweeps on just the one speaker - it's that much louder than even listening to both my speakers at my max listening levels) I'm only running them out of curiosity and substantiation, but I don't like doing it. Given me & Amir are both calibrating the response at the same 1kHz point then I think that makes my SPL valid vs his measurements....I'm hesitant to rerun at an additional 5dB.....I think my measurements are quite comparable with my latest efforts.

 

[ctrl]

Given me & Amir are both calibrating the response at the same 1kHz point then I think that makes my SPL valid vs his measurements....I'm hesitant to rerun at an additional 5dB.

You don't have to worry about the speaker with 5dB more sound pressure, according to the specification you still have room for improvement:
Maximum Continuous SPL 102dB
Maximum Peak SPL 112dB

But if you have a bad feeling about it, just don't do it, it's not like the good of the world depends on it

(lol, I even wear my closed back HP50 headphones when I'm running these latest sweeps on just the one speaker

Makes sense! I actually always wear hearing protection when I measure speakers. Otherwise my tinitus goes crazy

 

[CerealKiller]

My secret fantasy for a while has been that someone sends a pair of JBL arena 130 to Amirm for review, and of course that measurement results in a pleasant suprise, well this beeing sort of the replacement model only fuels that fantasy a little more. Thanks Amirm as always for a fantastic work.

 

[boselover61]

My secret fantasy for a while has been that someone sends a pair of JBL arena 130 to Amirm for review, and of course that measurement results in a pleasant suprise, well this beeing sort of the replacement model only fuels that fantasy a little more. Thanks Amirm as always for a fantastic work.

Hard to find one at the moment. I found some on unauthorized dealers sites such as audiojam so i dont want to take a risk

 

[CerealKiller]

Hard to find one at the moment. I found some on unauthorized dealers sites such as audiojam so i dont want to take a risk

I recently bought a pair, new closed box from unoficial importer, haven't got a proper amp for driving them yet so, still in the box. Since I live in Patagonia Argentina shipping even one of them to Amirm will be actually more expensive than what I paid for them so... But it will nice to see them measured for comparision and to check evolutive improvements over generations.

 

[Xyrium]

I have a pair of speakers that have nearly an identical bump in same exact range, and it is NOT objectionable at all, in fact even though not being "Flat", it actually makes a lot of female singers sound a slight bit better. A tad more forward, or like they are "Right there" more so.

It depends on the recording. Some a bit too forward, some just right. So I would not assume it is "that huge" of a negative. I experimented with some eq and A/B ed back and forth, and it was not bad, but more of a preference thing.

Let's remember...objectionable is in the ear of the beholder. That hump will impact individual genres of music quite differently...and if the user prefers to hear more than what's in the recording, then perhaps that hump is a bonus for them.

Technically/objectively, it's not preferred, as indicated by the criticisms of non-flat response. I get where your coming from though!

 

[Deleted member 19122]

Apart from the bluetooth stuff, JBL's pro studio range is also available in the EU. Many of these are on special with Thomann atm, e.g. 308P.

Not interested in powered monitors/pro audio sound,they have many more home speakers that just aren't available

 

[Deleted member 19122]

How are you cooking them? We are still experimenting, roast on 375 seems to be ok so far. I want to try blistering them on the stove top. I also brought back a grill, so that will be a fun spring time experiment.

View attachment 98357

But holly hell, we've gotten a few batches from our local Japanese grocery store and they are SPICY. The last batch we made a few nights ago for dinner and couldn't eat them.

Nice,I've been toying around with getting a Yakiniku grill but I'm done with voltage transformers and none of the EU suspects like Tefal make the right kind of grill plate/combo stuff that the Yakiniku grills come with

 

[Trouble Maker]

Nice,I've been toying around with getting a Yakiniku grill but I'm done with voltage transformers and none of the EU suspects like Tefal make the right kind of grill plate/combo stuff that the Yakiniku grills come with

We just got back from an overseas assignment in Japan, some of the combo hot-pot/griddle/takoyaki electric combos sold there were pretty cool. We meant to get one, but I guess we forgot. To be fair we never fell in love with takoyaki or sukiyaki/suabu-shabu.

I also wanted a really nice rice cooker from there, but I was unsure how well it would work without a voltage converter going from 100V there to 120V in the US. It seemed like an expensive gamble and I also didn't really want to fuss around with voltage converters, one for a rice maker would be largeish.

That yakiniku grill is just charcoal. My main target is yaki-tori and I also got the solid metal bars to 'convert' it. But I need to find a reasonable substitute to binchotan or a price I'm comfortable with, some of it's $20-$30/lb here. I've found some for about $5/lb which I would be OK with trying and seeing how fast I got through it, if the 'cheap' stuff is any good, and using it for special occasions.