JBL Studio 590 Speaker Review

[amirm]

Where do I find your recommended list of gears...??

Go to the Review Index tab: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Reviews/

Select speakers. And then click on Recommended column twice. Then you get a list of all speakers recommended by me (there are some missing around end of last year/beg. of this year that I need to update).

 

[JDS]

This is a review, listening test and detailed measurements of the JBL Studio 590. I bought a pair last year on sale for US $800 but costs $999.95 each currently.
View attachment 306637
This is a hefty speaker that even comes with (vibration absorbing) outriggers. I should definitely file for hazard pay for lifting it 5 feet on the platform to measure it with Klippel NFS and then dragging it to our living room to listen to! I have taken off the grill which unfortunately has plastic tabs rather than being magnetic. I don't have a picture of the backside but there are two oversized ports there.

Here are the company specs:

General Specifications​

Type2-1/2-way dual-woofer, floorstanding
Finish Black

Audio Specifications​

Nominal Impedance 6 ohms
Crossover Frequencies1.5kHz
Sensitivity(2.83V@1m) 92dB
Frequency Response 35Hz-40kHz

Dimensions​

Width (in)12-11/16
Weight (lb) 69.5
Width (mm) 322
Depth (in) 16-1/4
Weight (kg)31.5
Depth (mm) 413
Height (mm) 1263
Height (in) 49-3/4

NOTE: our company, Madrona Digital, carries Harman products (parent of JBL) in custom system integration for residential and commercial applications. We don't have access to this consumer line but even if we did, it is not something we sell. But go ahead and read any level of bias you like in my subjective assessments.

JBL Studio 590 Tower Speaker Measurements
I measured the speaker as you see above without its grill. Acoustic center is the tweeter (although near-field id drops to just above the top woofer). Let's look at its anechoic frequency responses:
View attachment 306638
Depending how good your glasses are, you will walk away with a different view. Pull back, the response is more or less flat on axis is what we want. Zoom in though and the are a lot of fine variations which we tend to see in 2.5 way speakers as so many elements play together. Sensitivity depends on how you average the graph. I say it is closer to 90 dB than advertised 92 dB.

EDIT: it was pointed out that the there is a dummy panel you are supposed to put in place of the grill on the bottom of the tweeter waveguide. I had not done that so I remeasured the speaker again, this time with the full grill on:

View attachment 306844

As we see there is no difference. This is due to the tweeter not being covered in either case. And the dummy panel won't be doing much due to asymmetry only having a minor effect at very high frequencies.

Directivity is good resulting in rather predictable early reflections:
View attachment 306639

Combining the two, we see a pretty reasonable predicted in-room frequency response:
View attachment 306640

Here is our near-field driver and port measurements:
View attachment 306647

There is a lot going on here with a lot of resonances. In some sense designers did a good job of keeping this wilder party under control.


Looking at the horizontal axis, we again see good beam width and directivity control:
View attachment 306641
View attachment 306642

Vertically it is less optimal as many speakers are so stay at tweeter axis:
View attachment 306643

Dual drivers translates into very low bass distortion but alas, there are some issues up higher:
View attachment 306645

We can ignore the narrow resonance but I am worried about that distortion around 1 to 3 kHz. So I pulled up the distortion for individual drivers and it seems both tweeter and woofers are contributing to it:
View attachment 306646

Absolute distortion level is less informative but it shows similar good and bad news:
View attachment 306648

Impedance at 5 ohm while less than company spec, is still a full ohm higher and hence easier to drive than many speakers:
View attachment 306650

Waterfall shows a ton of resonances:
View attachment 306649
Finally here is the step response:
View attachment 306651

JBL Studio 590 Listening Tests
As soon as I started to play music, I had to step and take notice as if there was a voice saying, "hey bud, I am a big boy speaker!" I have talked in the past about how tower speakers project an image that is impressively large and not replicable with smaller bookshelf speakers. They do this by being tall but also with playing deep with authority. Such was the case with the 590 which handled my tracks with sub-bass (I call them speaker killers) with no discernable distortion. The level was a bit low but that was it.

Seeing the elevated treble in on-axis response I expected the speaker to be bit bright. Whether it was due to my ears being somewhat plugged due to allergies, existence of deep bass or both, I did not detect any sign of it being bright. It seemed balanced. It is more difficult for me to assess speakers in our living room but I thought the midrange and highs were unimpressive. Not bad. Or anything I could put my finger on. I just didn't enjoy all of my tracks as I do with very performant speakers. Again, keep all the caveats in mind as you read my subjective impressions.

I thought about applying EQ but I didn't know what and how much. Speaker wasn't bright so made no sense to shelve the highs down. And the variations in frequency response were so fine as to be silly to apply filters to it. If I were less lazy, I would create some narrow filters to counteract the resonances to see if it improves clarity.

Conclusions
There are two different speakers to analyze here: one that costs only $400 each as I bought it vs normal cost of $1,000. At $400, they are incredibly good. They are powerful, with even tonality and bass response that blows away any bookshelf speaker you would buy for $400. At $1000 each, I think there is some pause due to design issues here and there from many resonances to distortion. It would have been great to have perfect execution for $400 each but there is a reason the Revel line exists. Finer execution exists and naturally will cost you.

I like to remind you again of the joy of having a tower speaker. They take up no more space than a bookshelf and are far more stable than that on a stand. Meanwhile they are more sensitive and routinely player lower which is very important for music enjoyment.

I am going to put the JBL Studio 590 on my recommended list when on sale.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome. Click here if you have some audio gear you want me to test.

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Waveguides in general seem like a good thing. But this particular implementation puts a lot of distance between the tweeter and the upper woofer. I wonder if that has anything to do with the messy midrange and the lackluster subjective impression.

 

[Robbo99999]

Same effect as the woofer didn't change anyway.

Although the dummy panel would affect the tweeter response, not the woofer.

 

[MKR]

Measurements finished. As I suspected, no meaningful difference:

Thank you @amirm ! Above and beyond the call of duty I say

 

[gorb]

For those of you asking for a remeasure, with the help of my poor wife, we hauled the stupid thing back onto Klippel NFS. It just started measuring. Heaven help you all if the difference is small!!

Many thanks to you and your wife!

 

[amirm]

Although the dummy panel would affect the tweeter response, not the woofer.

??? I meant it didn't matter that I used the full grill as opposed to truncated one.

 

[DualTriode]

@amirm, thanks for luging that beast up the stairs.

This speaker is built to a price point.

The baby 8 inch woofers are pushed too far.

The bass reflex ports huff and puff and leak bass and mid frequency harmonics the way that ports do.

The CD and and much loved traditional bi-radial horn has a ragged impedance plot with the associated typical distortion.

I like the looks of it.

My favorite JBL speakers Dual 15inch woofers, 10 inch mid-range and sometimes the original Constant Dispersion 2344a Dolly Parton horns rock it for me.

Thanks DT

https://www.lansingheritage.org/html/jbl/specs/pro-comp/2344.htm​

https://www.audioheritage.org/images/jbl/extracts/4430-35.jpg

 

[Cadguy]

 

[DualTriode]

Listening to a sound demo on my bench speakers is like seeing a color tv ad on my B&W set.

Not much good in it.

 

[testp]

JBL released 4329P Studio Monitor, Erin's audio corner reviewed it, looks to be great active to consider as well

 

[375HP2482]

Listening to a sound demo on my bench speakers is like seeing a color tv ad on my B&W set.

Not much good in it.

Especially with a tile floor and bare drywall all around.

 

[amirm]

Listening to a sound demo on my bench speakers is like seeing a color tv ad on my B&W set.

Not much good in it.

I like the way he dresses the cable lifters at the end as if that is going to make a difference in this poor recording!

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

My pleasure. I have a manual version without which, I could not remotely manage to do all of this even with my wife's help. The challenge is no longer lifting the speaker but then moving it onto the stand (and off when finished). This speaker was a pain in that it has sticky rubber feet so it doesn't want to slide. You have to literally lift it while it is 5 foot up in space! At any moment you feel like it could topple and not only destroy itself but hurt someone. Luckily it is just light enough to allow one to do this. It was a different matter with 100+ pound products that also cost a fortune as well.

Originally I had thought of a hoist that hangs from the ceiling but I worry about how to secure a speaker with ropes and such without damaging it.

We used slings in the monument business. Prevents damage to delicate surfaces and corners. Monuments are extremely top heavy.

 

[Chrispy]

With grilles in place, the cherry finish models look rather nice.

Those were not available to me, just had black available (which is fine with me).

 

[andrewskaterrr]

Why in the world would JBL make such a big deal about installing the panel onto the horn/waveguide if it doesn’t do anything? Cosmetics only? It *might* reduce output a smidge in the 8kHz-16kHz treble range, but it’s just a tiny bit, and probably not audible anyway.

because it looks stupid without it, and symmetry. Why would you want the bottom of your horn to look different than the other 3 sides? Makes literally no sense.

 

[amirm]

We used slings in the monument business. Prevents damage to delicate surfaces and corners. Monuments are extremely top heavy.

Thanks. That's useful. Is there a trick for how you use them? I am worried that I may not be able to use them on the speaker face and would and hence the speaker will fall out in that direction.

 

[Dmitri]

So there are limits eh? Kinda hoping you’d test some Dunlavy Audio SC VI’s. Not gonna happen huh? ; )

 

[YSC]

Thanks. That's useful. Is there a trick for how you use them? I am worried that I may not be able to use them on the speaker face and would and hence the speaker will fall out in that direction.

tbh from a viewer it seems to me not worth the risk of you two's back health to keep doing this, having review data is great but risking health is not a good idea to start with, especially you have been near retirement age,

 

[Hipster Doofus]

I have been cursing them ever since they arrived which is almost a year ago! They have been taking huge amount of space in the garage and I love to dispense with them. If anyone local wants them, please message me.

Are they taken and how much ?..as if I need them..

 

[restorer-john]

@amirm Appreciate the re-testing of what is a pretty heavy speaker. I always drew the line at lifting over 30kg when it came to speakers, especially awkward ones. Lifting up onto the Klippel platform would be no fun.

When someone hopefully finally sends you a classic Yamaha NS-1000M to test, it will be the same weight at 31kg.