JBL Studio 530 Speaker Review

[ROOSKIE]

i‘ve got a pair of Pioneers that cost me. . Um. . $120? That measure just slightly better?

Oh yeah, they were designed by the same guy who designed the Elacs. Not a fair fight. Never mind.

I have had the pioneers and the towers, these JBL 530's are in a different league. The measurements of the JBL by the way are better so I am not sure what you are looking at. In terms of output and dynamics and realism, no contest at all. None.
Same goes for the ELAC Debut 5.2. Very, very nice sound for inexpensive prices but really not in the same group/league as the 530's.
Every-time I put the JBL's back on the stands I somewhat anticipate being let down or that maybe I was crazy. Nope. Fact is they are seriously great. (as long as your expectations are reasonable, knowing this is a small woofer monitor without high end parts.)

 

[laudio]

I have had the pioneers and the towers, these JBL 530's are in a different league. The measurements of the JBL by the way are better so I am not sure what you are looking at. In terms of output and dynamics and realism, no contest at all. None.
Same goes for the ELAC Debut 5.2. Very, very nice sound for inexpensive prices but really not in the same group/league as the 530's.
Every-time I put the JBL's back on the stands I somewhat anticipate being let down or that maybe I was crazy. Nope. Fact is they are seriously great. (as long as your expectations are reasonable, knowing this is a small woofer monitor without high end parts.)

Kind of my experience - though not with Elacs. Have heard the little Pioneers, owned Monitor Audios Bronze (and also had Gold GX50's) and went back to the 530s. Something about the 530s. I would happily replace with a better speaker, maybe those DBR 6.2s can do it - but I have my doubts.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Looks like you wind those babies up pretty high from the fluff coming out of the left speaker port.

I raise chickens in them when I'm trying to keep my power bill down. (Just kidding, not my photo. I wouldn't know how to get those into my home.)

 

[Putter]

Looking at the response, adding a sub and tweaking the treble control up a notch would turn it into a top notch speaker.

I'm currently listening to JBL E20 which was a thrift store pickup last sold new about 10 years ago. What particularly has impressed me about it is the stability of imaging and its ability to extract detail. It does require a sub, but to me that's a given for virtually any inexpensive stand mount. I'd say the Stage 130 would be equivalent with a waveguide though not quite as polarizing in looks as the 530 and easily hidden behind the grill. I'd love to see a test of that speaker.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

I shared the URL of this review as a comment on a U-Toob thread about this speaker and get this reply from Danny Richie (GR Research)

"Someone needs to teach those guys how to use that pricey gear of theirs."

 

[Shazb0t]

I shared the URL of this review as a comment on a U-Toob thread about this speaker and get this reply from Danny Richie (GR Research)

"Someone needs to teach those guys how to use that pricey gear of theirs."

The sheer amount of references to useless "tube connectors" in that video is painful. We should start a drinking game...

Seriously though, how does Danny Richie expect anyone to take him seriously while he's talking about improving speakers through measurements as he's peddling snake oil bullshit?? The hypocrisy is mind boggling.

 

[laudio]

The sheer amount of references to useless "tube connectors" in that video is painful. We should start a drinking game...

Seriously though, how does Danny Richie expect anyone to take him seriously while he's talking about improving speakers through measurements as he's peddling snake oil bullshit?? The hypocrisy is mind boggling.

I actually watched that video. Gah. Not every thing needs a new crossover design. And if you were going to do it, then an active would be the way to go, might be fun to experiment with. Wasn't Danny Richie with av123.com a long time ago? Now that was a speaker company!

 

[amirm]

I shared the URL of this review as a comment on a U-Toob thread about this speaker and get this reply from Danny Richie (GR Research)

"Someone needs to teach those guys how to use that pricey gear of theirs."

I watched that before posting my review. I cracked up how they thought to fix a tiny rise in crossover, they need to rip apart a speaker, and do over the crossover when just a tiny correction with electronic EQ does the job. And importantly, you can A/B the results instantly to know if you are doing some good.

As to what he said, it is immature and without a point. His measurements were quite crude compared to what I have here. So not sure what he thinks we need to learn.

 

[RayDunzl]

Passive crossover (actually separated low and high pass filters, with some additional tuning inside each) for my big two-ways:

High pass at top, low pass at bottom.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Crossover schematic, full technical manual attached:
Also, an interesting thing I noticed: measured at 1m the flattest response is on the tweeter axis, but the drivers are not in phase at this angle. They got in phase only when I lowered the mic to the woofer level (the deepest notch when the drivers are connected in opposite polarity):
View attachment 56412View attachment 56413

Except for concentric drivers or conventional driver layouts in speakers designed for near-field listening, phase relationships are (or should be) optimized for a normal listening distance--say 3 meters--and not for one meter. At one meter, the relative arrival times of the separate drivers at the listening distance will usually be best approximated at one meter by moving the mic down from the tweeter axis.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

I watched that before posting my review. I cracked up how they thought to fix a tiny rise in crossover, they need to rip apart a speaker, and do over the crossover when just a tiny correction with electronic EQ does the job. And importantly, you can A/B the results instantly to know if you are doing some good.

As to what he said, it is immature and without a point. His measurements were quite crude compared to what I have here. So not sure what he thinks we need to learn.

I'm not sure either, Amir. As for crossovers, all you need to know is that Danny is in the upgrade kit business -- EQing, DSP or otherwise, is bad for that business. To his credit, he admits the 530 is pretty good as-is and not worth modding considering how difficult it is to disassemble/reassemble and its modest price tag. I think we can all agree on that conclusion, whether we EQ it or not.

 

[Putter]

I watched that before posting my review. I cracked up how they thought to fix a tiny rise in crossover, they need to rip apart a speaker, and do over the crossover when just a tiny correction with electronic EQ does the job. And importantly, you can A/B the results instantly to know if you are doing some good.

As to what he said, it is immature and without a point. His measurements were quite crude compared to what I have here. So not sure what he thinks we need to learn.

With apologies to someone like Dennis Murphy who seems like a genius at that kind of thing, crossover modification seems like an obsolete art akin to setting points on the ignition or rebuilding a carburetor.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

With apologies to someone like Dennis Murphy who seems like a genius at that kind of thing, crossover modification seems like an obsolete art akin to setting points on the ignition or rebuilding a carburetor.

No apologies needed. Although I still think EQ'ing can do more harm than good depending on how and where it's implemented, there's no question that passive crossovers in general are in the same league as carburetors (I don't miss my 1973 BMW 2002). I expected to be chewing grass in the back 40 acres years ago. But there's still strong demand for passive loudspeakers that can perform well without added tinkering, so I'm going to keep putzing around.

 

[rajapruk]

That very nice in-room response is not acheived by ”luck” as the review kind of suggests, I think.
I think it is the perfect deliberate tuning/choice of combination of flaws by the designer, that cancel eachother out in total.
The importance of the direct-sound frequency-response in any single direction is often overrated nowadays, I think.

Edit: I do not mean it does not matter. But the relative importance of it is often overrated, I think. The perfect speaker for me though would radiate the exact same FR in all directions of the room.

 

[spacevector]

Crossover schematic, full technical manual attached:

Also, an interesting thing I noticed: measured at 1m the flattest response is on the tweeter axis, but the drivers are not in phase at this angle. They got in phase only when I lowered the mic to the woofer level (the deepest notch when the drivers are connected in opposite polarity):
View attachment 56412View attachment 56413

Curious how you are deducing from those graphs that at 1m, the response is flat on tweeter axis (this is clear) but the drivers aren't in phase? But that they are phase at woofer level where the response shows a dip.

 

[Biblob]

Isn't the in-room response quite bright? Because it doesn't attenuate that much, from the looks of it. Certaintly not 10 db from 20-20khz

 

[spacevector]

In that regard, you don't want to put much absorption anywhere although this is not a big enough deal to ignore other factors (e.g. a room that is too live with many bare surfaces).

Somewhat off topic but what determines that a room is too live? Is there an acoustic measurement of a room a layperson can make to determine the liveliness of their rooms and optimize it?

 

[amirm]

Somewhat off topic but what determines that a room is too live? Is there an acoustic measurement of a room a layperson can make to determine the liveliness of their rooms and optimize it?

Yes, you can measure the RT60 and aim for something in the 0.25 to 0.6 seconds (the larger the room, the higher the number). Multi-channel systems can live at the lower end of that.

If you are using the REW program, look at the Topt measurement graph and look at the response around 500 Hz.

The choice of music also impacts this. Orchestral/big band music tends to benefit from a more live room whereas rock and pop works better with a more dead room.

To give you an idea of the two extremes, outside is mostly dead. A church very live.

 

[tuga]

No expert here - just was trying to highlight some context; you won't find many speakers $2,000 plus that measure this well. That the ELAC may be a bit better by some metrics is impressive, but it's also a newer speaker

Anyway, too bad they're so ugly.

I know how this would stand up in court but years of listening to speakers have put me off speakers with audible uncontrolled cone breakup resonances, more often than not before I was able to look at the measurements. .
Anyway, the peak at ~1.5kHz would prevent these JBLs from making it into "worth listening to" list, in spite of the "perfect" horizontal directivity plot.
In my opinion and experience, or in other words personally, I would add more weight to this aspect of speaker performance in the Preference Ratings.
Violins and presence region resonances don't go well together.

 

[tuga]

That very nice in-room response is not acheived by ”luck” as the review kind of suggests, I think.
I think it is the perfect deliberate tuning/choice of combination of flaws by the designer, that cancel eachother out in total.
The importance of the direct-sound frequency-response in any single direction is often overrated nowadays, I think.

This has been considered cheating when discussing the Harbeths though.

The M30 in-room curve has a higher pitch and the response of the port is much better integrated. Trifles...