JBL Studio 530 Speaker Review

[carsknivesbeer]

Tangband could you elaborate a little on adding the batting? Did you only put it into the top behind the tweeter and did you take the front off or go through the rear?

 

[Dennis Murphy]

You think tube connectors are reasonable???

They talk about them more than any other "upgrades" in the video and even insinuate it's not worth the cost of "upgrading" the speaker against its MSRP because of all the sets of tube connectors you would have to buy. LEL!

"upgrading": changing crossover components with higher cost parts of identical values which do not affect frequency response while simultaneously creating a video about measuring speakers frequency response with the intent to "upgrade" them.

Dennis, I feel like I've seen you post that you also don't believe in this nonsense. How is all this not a misguided train wreck again?

I think we have a forest and trees problem here. Danny likes to sell tube connectors, and I agree that would be a waste, and the lack thereof by itself doesn't disqualify the 530's from being a high end speaker. But compared to the other videos in this series, Danny isn't recommending any upgrades. He doesn't see any deficiencies that would be worth fixing. He doesn't even try to sell you a sheet of NoRez. So if you think this vid is a train wreck, I hate to think what his other vids would be called.

 

[laudio]

Would agree with that. Why tweak the 530s unless you could really improve them? They are great as is - at the price. Certainly compare with higher dollar speakers measured here, just less bass.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

JBL knows how to design a crossover. I have never been worried about the lower quality pieces used in my crossover inside my speaker. If its of suffiecient quality and serves its purpose, then thats all that needs to be said and done. Anything more is akin to advertising having cardas cabling instead of copper wire. As for your special kef crossover @maty I would not compare the lower quality kef q100 crossover to the ones in JBL.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

Boo hoo no Mungdorf or Clarity capacitors...

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Boo hoo no Mungdorf or Clarity capacitors...

What is that? Are all of those resistors and little caps there to give you a choice of tweeter voicing? I've never seen anything quite like it. Don't let Danny see it--He'll offer a $1200 upgrade.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

What is that? Are all of those resistors and little caps there to give you a choice of tweeter voicing? I've never seen anything quite like it. Don't let Danny see it--He'll offer a $1200 upgrade.

It's part of the HF and UHF trim controls for the JBL 4367. It has 6 settings for each HF/UHF. +-0.5, 1, 1.5dB.

I wonder what the crossover in the Salon2 is like. I suspect it's of much higher quality then the one in the 4367. But again, this doesn't really matter when it comes to end sound of the product. The 4365 had a crossover with what appears to be a higher build quality (maybe because it was completely manufactured in California) but by all intents and purposes, the 4367 is the superior sounding (and measuring!) speaker. So this is why I'm convinced that higher quality parts in the crossover aren't too important as long as they're designed well.

I trust Greg Timbers over good 'ol Danny, as amusing as he is. Also wait a minute... who's Danny? I thought the guy on the New Record Day youtube channel's name is Ron, not Dan.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

Could not find anything of what's inside a Salon2, but here's one of a Revel F50A. Very neat and tidy!

It's interesting to see the design methodology differ so much between the Revel and JBL Synthesis lines. I suspect we'd see similar internals on the Revel M22 vs the JBL 530, and the same story with the aforementioned Salon2 vs the 4367.

 

[maty]

JBL knows how to design a crossover. I have never been worried about the lower quality pieces used in my crossover inside my speaker. If its of suffiecient quality and serves its purpose, then thats all that needs to be said and done. Anything more is akin to advertising having cardas cabling instead of copper wire. As for your special kef crossover @maty I would not compare the lower quality kef q100 crossover to the ones in JBL.

Filters can be improved and / or use better components but drivers usually are not, and their distortion. That is the key with Q100 and the new Q150 and others coaxials. And without the need for very complex filters with a multitude of components such as JBL. It is more economical and practical to use DSP by software for final tuning of the frequency response, so we will spend less on the filter with good components. Which? that is the question.

 

[Jon AA]

It is more economical and practical to use DSP by software for final tuning of the frequency response, so we will spend less on the filter with good components.

I vote "Yes." Not because DSP is cheaper necessarily (depends upon application, of course) but because in the end you can end up with a better speaker. If throwing a couple hundred dollars worth of "better parts" at a crossover (along with "improving its design") was all that was required to optimize things perfectly, I think we'd see quite a few passive loudspeakers with a frequency response that looks like the JBL M2's. But we don't--even when that's what the designer is aiming for. Some get somewhat close, but it's hard to find one that couldn't be improved with some DSP.

 

[tuga]

I vote "Yes." Not because DSP is cheaper necessarily (depends upon application, of course) but because in the end you can end up with a better speaker. If throwing a couple hundred dollars worth of "better parts" at a crossover (along with "improving its design") was all that was required to optimize things perfectly, I think we'd see quite a few passive loudspeakers with a frequency response that looks like the JBL M2's. But we don't--even when that's what the designer is aiming for. Some get somewhat close, but it's hard to find one that couldn't be improved with some DSP.

This is why I started the topic about measuring the electronics in active monitors.

What is the processing bit-depth used in the JBL M2s?

According to Jussi Laako, "With some amount of digital shuffling, 32-bit floating point quickly looses it's precision."

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ound-better-than-pcm.5700/page-35#post-176174

 

[Tangband]

How much sheep wool, please?

About twice the amount of the original damping material. Donˋt block the port.
I also recommend blutack between loudspeaker and stand.
Solder all connections inside the loudspeaker, except the compressiondriver ( to difficult to open up the chamber.)

 

[carsknivesbeer]

I added about 40g of synthetic quilt batting per speaker by going through the back where the speaker cable terminals are. That is probably a little bit less than what is there before (I had this amount already and I did not remove what was there to measure it. There is no material in the front middle between the woofer and the tweeter so I put some there and some in the top and behind the woofer. I measured before and after in REW and did not find any significant changes but the waterfall does not show any resonance at 1.4kHz. I forgot to generate a waterfall before I added batting, and I am new at this, but with very little effort/cost maybe it's mitigated? Its seems like a weird place to cut cost but so does the unfinished bottom...

 

[Tangband]

I added about 40g of synthetic quilt batting per speaker by going through the back where the speaker cable terminals are. That is probably a little bit less than what is there before (I had this amount already and I did not remove what was there to measure it. There is no material in the front middle between the woofer and the tweeter so I put some there and some in the top and behind the woofer. I measured before and after in REW and did not find any significant changes but the waterfall does not show any resonance at 1.4kHz. I forgot to generate a waterfall before I added batting, and I am new at this, but with very little effort/cost maybe it's mitigated? Its seems like a weird place to cut cost but so does the unfinished bottom...

You can hear the difference for the better with more damping material. Jbl 305 mkII ( I have bought that speaker to ) also benefits from this easy upgrade.
The resonance at 1,4 kHz is mainly coming from the tweeter.

 

[maty]

I can't tell for sure from this pic because the ends of the core are obscured. If the pic were taken head on to the core and was high resolution, you should be able to make out the laminations. The actual material can be the natural silver color of steel, or it can be dark grey. I have faith that Harman wouldn't use a solid iron core. I've examined dozens of inexpensive speakers, including the super cheap AJ Pioneers, and they've all used steel laminates. The only exception to the rule is speakers like some Daytons that don't use any inductors at all. But if I'm wrong, bad on Harman. In any event, the other components are hardly low quality, and there are way more than usual in the tweeter circuit, which has air core inductors and film capacitors rather than NPE's. There are a couple of NPE's in the woofer circuit, but that's standard practice. If you used poly's, they would be prohibitively expensive, and suck up cabinet volume.

This week, Danny Richie talks about iron core inductors, at 9:21

 

[ctrl]

This week, Danny Richie talks about iron core inductors, at 9:21

To contrast Danny's hypotheses a bit with facts, here are some results of an investigation of core inductors from 2009 (Hobby Hifi 1-2009).

- The saturation current decreases only slightly with increasing frequency.
- The saturation current decreases significantly with increasing inductance of the coil.
- Ferrite core coils have a relatively low load capacity, P-core coils and core inductor coils have a much higher load capacity.

To get a feeling for the magnitude of the distortions produced by core coils, we now take a look at the results found for the "worst" type of coil, the ferrite core coils.
The diagram shows the third-order harmonic distortions produced by the coils as a function of the voltage at 2 ohms resistance. The total resistance varies slightly (with the inductance), as the coil has a DC resistance and reactance depending on the inductance - in our case 2.7 Ohm.

With an inductance of 2.2mH, the distortions remain below 0.1% up to 15V and below 0.32% up to 18.5V. This corresponds to about 125W and 188W at 4 ohms. The coil costs about 10-15$ for the end user.

With the cheapest ferrite core coil examined, for 4-7$, the distortions remained below 0.32% at 4 Ohm to 53W power.

Personally, I would use air-core coils when building a 2-way loudspeaker, since the low inductance makes it unimportant in terms of price.

But as long as you don't reach the saturation limit of the core coil when listening to music with a "cheap" 2-way speaker, it doesn't make much sense to replace it with an air core coil or even more expensive "high-end" coils.

 

[maty]

Maybe the explanations that Danny Richie gives are incorrect, I do no know, the important thing is if there are appreciable sound differences, something that I have not verified by myself unlike the filtering in tweeter.

According to Circuit Theory, there should also be no audible differences in HF with decent capacitors and resistors but I have verified that this is not the case. The explanations I have read do not end up convincing me.

It is frustrating, at least to me, not knowing why the usual theory does not work perfectly in audio.

PS: After much research, seven years ago, on which speaker to buy, the analysis of the KEf Q100 driver made by Erin was the key in my choice. It is something that many do not take into account, they only value the frequency response and almost nothing else.

 

[Jon AA]

there should also be no audible differences in HF with decent capacitors and resistors but I have verified that this is not the case.

I guess it's settled then. Amir needs to start sending all the speakers to you so you can detect all those things that can't be measured. We know they matter so much.

 

[maty]

We have the Atlantic and almost a subcontinent between us. As you will perfectly understand, I have other priorities more important than simple objects.

 

[Deleted member 2944]

According to Circuit Theory, there should also be no audible differences in HF with decent capacitors and resistors but I have verified that this is not the case. The explanations I have read do not end up convincing me.

Where does it say in "circuit theory" that no audible differences should be noticed from capacitors and resistors???
If you're going to make silly statements like that, you better cite a reference.

You're performing some sort of weird, maty extrapolation here. I suggest to quit engaging in straw man arguments and start thinking much more objectively. You'd probably increase your objectivity quite a bit if you quit reading that Danny Richie nonsense.

Dave.