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JBL Stage A130 Review (speaker)

dadregga

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I think so. My opinion is you will get better quality out of Taiwanese factories than mainland China .
The "communist Chinese factories" make things to the designs, specs and tolerances of their non-communist clients, for the price their non-communist clients are willing to pay (naturally, as little as possible, with as little regard for workforce wellbeing as possible to keep the profits high and the costs low, like all good capitalists).


Nice try with the naked racism/nationalism proudly flying in the face of macroeconomic realities tho.
 

Geezerman

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The "communist Chinese factories" make things to the designs, specs and tolerances of their non-communist clients, for the price their non-communist clients are willing to pay.


Nice try with the naked racism/nationalism proudly flying in the face of macroeconomics tho.
racism? I support Taiwan and do not support communist mainland China. Last time I checked, both countries are the same race
 

tw 2022

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I am still not sold on qc issues being the main culprit here...yet. I mean, sure there is probably some, but this is JBL and they have this stuff down, so I would never expect something so drastic. Both of my speakers measured exactly the same. That's pretty good consistency. I know there is another set of measurements showing differences between two speakers, but I don't know if the speakers were measured from the exact same position as mine were. I'd love to see a follow up measurement from the same position. Seeing the slope difference it could even be the case that he has one Amir and one Erin version! That would be the most helpful outcome. But also see how the axis changes the slope similarly in my last measurement above. But we need new measurements to get to the bottom of that.

More, there seem to be measurements on here dating years back that seem similar to Erin's results, so there's a bit of consistency there.

IMHO, we basically have two different speakers and the easiest way to tell is if there is a rise starting at around 4-5kHz. Then it's likely to be an Erin speaker. What I would like to see is a speaker made or bought new during last year that measures like Amir's. (I think I have only seen one third party measurement like his.) That would also really help us out. There's no need for special measurements either as we can tell a lot from 5kHz up and basic measurements are pretty dependable there.


View attachment 200121

I would add that the Erin measurements make more sense. JBL mentions the highs in the marketing and they show it as a literal bookshelf speaker. Plus, would they really want something THAT good out of the box out there for so cheap?
the fact both of your speakers measured equally is a good sign... i would certainly agree that multiple measurements on the speakers in question is needed for any further conclusions.. i came in late on this thread and haven't as yet read it's entirety , but i am familiar with the Amir/ Erin discrepancy anecdotally ,i'll just hang out and see how this plays out ... i'm interested , a good cheap speaker beats an equally good more expensive speaker ten times outta ten, and this is a case where there may be cause to hope this is one of those type speakers...
 

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Almost every single in-room measurement here shows a slightly different tweeter resonance. So yeah I'm very sure that there is a decent amount of unit to unit variation.
I wanted to get back to this because I realized I could be read as dismissing you, which I certainly do not mean to do. I tried recreating the variant measurements in my living room, but it didn't come out like it did in my basement, which is a very problematic space with low ceilings. I may try there tomorrow.

However, in these new measurements there are little differences that I didn't catch before. I tried very hard to get them measured as similarly as possible, but it must be said that these are not gated measurements and are not done in a lab, obviously. I got these differences that I was able to recreate:

Compare 1.jpg


Focusing only on the resonance at 15kHz, yes I could see this as unit to unit variations due to more lax quality control (possibly the boost at around 2k too). I also noticed that one speaker tweeter finish is flush while the other isn't. Maybe this has something to do with it. Maybe not.

PXL_20220415_232545547.MP.jpg


I certainly expect these kinds of differences at this price. $130 shipped from China to the US and then cross country guarantees this. And I also wanted to make sure all understood that even a small mic movement changes the measurements. Here is the mic moving a just a tiny bit up and down.
Angle.jpg


But I do think that these kinds of what I would call small issues do not account for the difference between Amir and Erin's versions, which are tonally very different speakers. It's like Erin's have some high shelf boost. I am a total amateur however, so what the hell do I know.


@tw 2022: For full transparency, these are the measurements from the basement that I called the same. Given everything, I think it's a fair description. I was never going to trust anything below 4kHz. Resonance looks similar enough.

SAME.jpg
 
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Buckster

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Was getting a bit tired trying to EQ out the peak 1-2 k earlier came back to it this evening, bit less toe in and managed to get much more acceptable results (still -5dB at 1khz though)

I still don't seem to be getting any real spikes over 8khz I get quite a fast roll off in fact - odd when compared to some other's results
 

hardisj

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Just to remind you all, when I measured this speaker, I was perplexed at how my results were so different from the ones shown here. So, I took it outside and did a ground plane measurement as well as a gated (off the ground) measurement. Both the GP and gated measurements were performed with a different mic, to boot. Details pulled from my review. In short, I know my data is correct.



Confirmation of Results​

As I mentioned in the opening of this review, my results do not match those of the results provided on AudioScienceReview on the low end and the high end. This came as a surprise to me and - by nature of being “second” - I knew as soon as I saw the results that people were instantly going to question them so to get ahead of the curve (ha!) I proceeded to perform both ground plane testing (to ensure low frequency results accuracy) and gated quasi-anechoic measurements (to ensure high frequency results accuracy). As you can see below, the ground plane LF response matches the anechoic Klippel results. The same for the gated HF response.

The speakers received plenty of play time at varying volume before they were measured. Both speakers’ impedance results were the same.

I know people are going to ask why there are differences. The truth is, I don’t know. The port tuning seems to be roughly the same at around 64Hz. Additionally, the impedance peaks/frequency are also roughly the same. I’m not sure why, then, there are pretty significant differences in the shape of the response between 80-120Hz. At this point, I’ve done what I needed to in order to verify the legitimacy of my results and I am satisfied with that.

specs
 

USER

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Just to remind you all, when I measured this speaker, I was perplexed at how my results were so different from the ones shown here. So, I took it outside and did a ground plane measurement as well as a gated (off the ground) measurement. Both the GP and gated measurements were performed with a different mic, to boot. Details pulled from my review. In short, I know my data is correct.
I think most everyone here if not everyone is confident in your results. I personally believe they best describe my own set. What is still interesting is that some people also seem to have Amir's version. The tone of each version is pretty easy to distinguish, with one more or less a Harman curve and then your weird one (lol) so I trust people's descriptions of them, though of course measurements and info about purchase date would help us out.

This review seems to show something similar to Amir's version too: https://www.avnirvana.com/threads/jbl-stage-a130-2-way-bookshelf-speakers-–-full-review.9237/

SO IF YOU ARE LISTENING, JBL: WHAT'S THE DEAL?
 

ROOSKIE

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An optimized target curve could be loaded in REW and applied by anyone that's performed a gated measurement at home. The offsets could then be lifted and applied to any external EQ device, or directly exported and applied as EQ in Equalizer APO. Maybe Maiky would be willing to export a target curve based on his EQ.
There is such thing as an optimized target curve.
The in room responce "curve" for the speaker is a natural result of speaker and room and will be different to some degree from room to room and at different listening distances. Also different speakers have different roll off rates that may look different but sound equally good, ie the downward slope due to reduced in room energy might be 0.4db/octave in one speaker and 1db/octave in another and yet both sound balanced and right.
Dispersion and directivity play huge rolls here.
The point is to have flat anechoic responce with even roll off in anechoic off axis.
This will result in some sort of a downward slope in a mmm at the listening position in a far field set-up.
But this slope is NOT the primary target. The anechoic responce described above is.
 
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ROOSKIE

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I wanted to get back to this because I realized I could be read as dismissing you, which I certainly do not mean to do. I tried recreating the variant measurements in my living room, but it didn't come out like it did in my basement, which is a very problematic space with low ceilings. I may try there tomorrow.

However, in these new measurements there are little differences that I didn't catch before. I tried very hard to get them measured as similarly as possible, but it must be said that these are not gated measurements and are not done in a lab, obviously. I got these differences that I was able to recreate:

View attachment 200148

Focusing only on the resonance at 15kHz, yes I could see this as unit to unit variations due to more lax quality control (possibly the boost at around 2k too). I also noticed that one speaker tweeter finish is flush while the other isn't. Maybe this has something to do with it. Maybe not.

View attachment 200149

I certainly expect these kinds of differences at this price. $130 shipped from China to the US and then cross country guarantees this. And I also wanted to make sure all understood that even a small mic movement changes the measurements. Here is the mic moving a just a tiny bit up and down.
View attachment 200151

But I do think that these kinds of what I would call small issues do not account for the difference between Amir and Erin's versions, which are tonally very different speakers. It's like Erin's have some high shelf boost. I am a total amateur however, so what the hell do I know.


@tw 2022: For full transparency, these are the measurements from the basement that I called the same. Given everything, I think it's a fair description. I was never going to trust anything below 4kHz. Resonance looks similar enough.

View attachment 200155
What is your measurement method here?
 

USER

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What is your measurement method here?
Mic five feet away from tweeter, straight out, on axis. Using miniDSP UMIK-1 on tripod, no movement. I placed the speakers on top of a Revel M16 on a stand, so when I switched them, I aligned them flush and centered with the Revel. At the moment only really concerned with FR slope above 4kHz, so not gated. (Basement and living room results show same slope.) Only way to bang these out right now as otherwise I would have to move furniture around.

This type of measurement has been good enough for me as a quick check in that region in the past.

m16.jpg

Revel M16 Standmount Bookshelf High-end Speaker CEA-20324 Spinorama Early Window Audio Measure...png




I noticed your measurements showed similar slope. Any thoughts on your A130s?
 
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ROOSKIE

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Mic five feet away from tweeter, straight out, on axis. Using miniDSP UMIK-1 on tripod, no movement. I placed the speakers on top of a Revel M16 on a stand, so when I switched them, I aligned them flush and centered with the Revel. At the moment only really concerned with FR slope above 4kHz, so not gated. (Basement and living room results show same slope.) Only way to bang these out right now as otherwise I would have to move furniture around.

I noticed your measurements showed similar slope. Any thoughts on your A130s?
Cool.
My A130 distortion tests, right?
The speakers had much less treble energy at the listening position. The distortion tests are taken at just 13" (which is then translated to 1meter)and are not super accurate beyond the HD testing. 2-3 meters is the more standard minimum distance for on loudspeaker on axis response, unfortunately as we know that distance requires an anechoic chamber or at least a massive open space.
Air attenuation will affect the sound above 8k very much.
Anyway sadly I deleted the listening position data (I still have the HD testing data).
I remember the MMM's I took at the listening position had a distinct downward slope (with the bulge around 1k/1.5k), and very balanced treble energy.
I thought the speakers tracked Amir's data pretty well based on all my testing.
The low distortion of the woofer really stood out to me if high passed. I did not care for the tweeter at high volumes - it sounded stressed compared with some other systems. At other volumes it was very good and broadly dispersed. I love that waveguide. I enjoyed the speaker with about 2/2.5db of cut to midrange bulge.
Mine had no notable cabinet resonances or port turbulence when high passed at 60/65hrz and sounded very clean.
It was a fantastic overall speaker for the low costs.
I deff would prefer the M16 you used as a stand, that is a seriously good speaker for $600-1k. I personally prefer the M16 to the KEF R3.

It would be interesting to see a MMM, moving mic measurement from the listening position. If you are up for it, use a long enough time span and cumulative measurement(forever averaging), use 1minute or two of time /100+ averages.
Use a spatial window sized about 3-4feet wide and 12-18" tall
That is more or less representative of the total sound energy at said listening position. I personally prefer it(MMM) to any other listening position measurement.
Put each speaker in the position it would be in for 2 channel listening. Do L,R and Both using pink noise generated in REW.
 

abdo123

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It would be interesting to see a MMM, moving mic measurement from the listening position. If you are up for it, use a long enough time span and cumulative measurement(forever averaging), use 1minute or two of time /100+ averages.
Use a spatial window sized about 3-4feet wide and 12-18" tall
That is more or less representative of the total sound energy at said listening position. I personally prefer it(MMM) to any other listening position measurement.
Put each speaker in the position it would be in for 2 channel listening. Do L,R and Both using pink noise generated in REW.
My measurements are essentially MMM.
 

Buckster

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Tried some experiments earlier - sticking a 2kg weight on top of speaker seemed to make a measurable difference both to the 1 ish khz area and other resonances

Having foam not just in the port but pushed up nearer to tweeter seemed to make a small difference to 1khz resonance
 

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Tried some experiments earlier - sticking a 2kg weight on top of speaker seemed to make a measurable difference both to the 1 ish khz area and other resonances

Having foam not just in the port but pushed up nearer to tweeter seemed to make a small difference to 1khz resonance
Would you mind posting your measurements? Inspired, I just tried this out but am not seeing any real changes.

I tried a 5 pound dumbbell and even stacking the other speaker on top.

WEIGHTS.jpg


As far as I can tell, everything is with a reasonable margin of error. Perhaps one can say that the stack made a difference but if so that wouldn't necessarily be related to the weight as it could be from a sort of wall reflection created by the doubled height. Or perhaps I nudged the speaker. But also, as I have shown in a previous post, this area between 2-3kHz is particularly susceptible to minor changes.

Angle.jpg

I'd love to hear thoughts on this.
 

Buckster

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Thanks for frequency plots I'll retry tomorrow hopefully repeatable !! Like you I've found that range very sensitive and not always getting completely repeatable results

Interesting the left one now with my EQ is fairly flat across problematic range but now has a resonance peak at 750 ish.e

Right and left shown below after very basic EQ (My Denon outside of XT32 only has fixed 9 band Eq). EQ above 2k I think was just -2dB at 16khz

Interesting to see neither of mine seem to have any noticeable frequency uplift after 2k (apart from small resonance 12k ish) looks quite different to the plots above
 

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Buckster

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Need more experimentation currently they sound much duller than my 308 IIs even though are measuring (on axis anyway) similarly bit odd
 

Buckster

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Definitely some.variability depending on exact mic position angle of speaker etc

Did same test as yesterday same (as near could make position) and even flatter results today - left and right speaker

Both now have foam pushed very far into port (and close to back of tweeter)

Basic 9 band EQ, crossover at 90hz

Both plots with 1/6 smoothing

Left speaker
IMG_20220417_235022-01.jpeg

Right speaker

IMG_20220417_234930-01.jpeg
 

Presently42

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I decided to make a very poor Napilopez-style pseudo-quasi-anechoic spinorama of one of the A130 speakers I have. Of note is my having forgotten to remove the high-pass filter enabled on the AVR for subwoofer integration purposes. Here are the horrific results:

JBL A130 Spinorama.jpg
Spinorama

JBL A130 Early Reflections.jpg
Early Reflections

JBL A130 PIR.jpg
PIR

spinorama Directivity (hor).png
Horizontal Directivity

spinorama Directivity (ver).png
Vertical Directivity

I then used this spin, combined with my own technique (I should really make a post about this...) to create filters and performed an mmm measurement over my sofa:

MMM.jpg

The line is what I deem to be a trend line; and shows the deviation from smooth. Ignore everything below Schroeder; furthermore, the peak at around 442 Hz, and the trough at around 750 Hz remain unexplained (in fact, their investigation prompted this whole measuring enterprise. I'm thinking, that the peak is from the end-tables on which the speakers are sat resonating; and the trough, the blankets and pillows on the sofa - but this remains to be seen.). I also forgot to filter the resonance at ~13.5 kHz. All in all, an extremely successful set of filters - despite the terrible quality of the spin! The spinorama also indicated, that the variations seen are indeed QC ones, and not revisions: my data look rather different from others', and in-situ measurements show, that they are fairly correct: compare measurements made using filters derived from Amir's data:

MMM Amir.jpg

Of note, the filters above only touch the resonances around 1 kHz (I also incorrectly filtered the hump around 10 kHz: this might look good in these graphs, but makes everything sound just a bit dead. Remember: only resonances can be removed with eq!): all else is, hypothetically, the same.

Since someone will ask, the new filters are appended.
 

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cbracer

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When listening to my speakers, the response seems to be volume dependent. I am curious what graphs would look like at higher and lower volumes. When I listen to my at higher volumes they sound good but at low volumes it's like someone turned off the "loudness" setting because it's so flat there is much less base then all my other speakers. Most all my other speakers "sound" the same at different volumes, but these A130 have less enjoyment at lower volumes, comparing to my other speakers. This may explain some of the different reviews we are getting for this speaker.

So my question, at 75db if there is a 5db rise at one spot, then at 50db would it still be 5db or would it proportionally decrease....? That's where my thoughts above stem from because this speaker is different at different volumes. I haven't done the resistor mod, but will when I get back to measuring all of my speakers.
 

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When listening to my speakers, the response seems to be volume dependent. I am curious what graphs would look like at higher and lower volumes. When I listen to my at higher volumes they sound good but at low volumes it's like someone turned off the "loudness" setting because it's so flat there is much less base then all my other speakers. Most all my other speakers "sound" the same at different volumes, but these A130 have less enjoyment at lower volumes, comparing to my other speakers. This may explain some of the different reviews we are getting for this speaker.

So my question, at 75db if there is a 5db rise at one spot, then at 50db would it still be 5db or would it proportionally decrease....? That's where my thoughts above stem from because this speaker is different at different volumes. I haven't done the resistor mod, but will when I get back to measuring all of my speakers.
Even though I knew what was going to happen, I did the measurements just to provide verifiable data as to what the speaker does. In the end they do not get to the bottom of the question you are asking. It's a bit more complicated than what the speaker does and is more about your ears.

VOLUME.jpg



As it turns out thresholds for hearing are different at different frequencies and, more interestingly, you don't hear the same frequencies the same at different volumes! At lower volumes, it takes louder low end, proportionally, to sound as consistent as it would at a higher volume. I think that this is something active speakers will be doing better in the future and will distinguish them more from passive speakers. You see the opposite functioning of this in most actives, with filters lowering certain frequencies--highs or lows or both--so that speakers can "play" louder overall without falling apart. It's usually called compression.

equal loudness contours.png
room noise v hearing threshold.png


Nest Audio Compression Baffle compensated.png

Here are Napier Lopez's compression measurements for the Google Nest Audio.


I would say that if you have the Erin version of these speakers, I would not be surprised if their bass sounds lower at lower volumes compared to speakers with a more neutral frequency response as their bass--other than the hump--is already overall behind proportionally to the highs to begin with. EQ should help with this too.
 
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