JBL Studio 630 and Studio 698 - Review & Measurements by Erin

[sweetchaos]

I did my best to overlay the 2 images of JBL Studio 530 and create a GIF for you guys!

Here's the original 1 second timeout that I typically use:

Here's a 0.5 sec timeout, just in case as well.

Cheers!

 

[Beave]

The woofer has a 2nd order electrical LPF with a 2.3mH series inductor and a parallel cap (two actually, a 24uF in parallel with a 0.01uF).

I can't see how wrong values installed would account for the measured differences. Makes me now wonder if some woofers are built different/maybe out of spec?

 

[ryanosaur]

I trust my own, personal evaluation. Especially since it is supported by Erin's data. But I auditioned my pair in the same general time period that Erin was conducting his review. I don't see the results as mutually exclusive, personally.

Either running production changes, or production variability could be to blame.

I have heard the original BMR's and they sounded nothing like what I heard from the 530's over my two weeks they were in my space. I enjoyed my buddy's BMR's greatly.

I’m not saying they sounded the same, just that the 530s I have aren’t grossly out of whack to the BMRs, especially in how I will use them.

That said, I didn’t experience anything like elevated treble or the like that would concern me.

If jBL had some sort of batch discrepancy or spec change in the Drivers, the only way we can possibly know is if owners open up their gear and show XOs and driver models to see if something changed.

Beyond that, we have disagreeing results with one measurement suite being completed and another being abandoned. There are no true answers here. Anybody that thinks there are is dealing with alternate facts, to borrow a phrase. *shrugs

 

[Wseaton]

The woofer has a 2nd order electrical LPF with a 2.3mH series inductor and a parallel cap (two actually, a 24uF in parallel with a 0.01uF).

I can't see how wrong values installed would account for the measured differences. Makes me now wonder if some woofers are built different/maybe out of spec?

This follows me theory that one reason high end speakers cost so much more and typically deliver flatter response is they are having drivers made to much higher tolerances and limited production runs even though the actual driver components are made the same. Engineer designs a nice flat speaker response, and factory delivers drivers that use a slightly different voice coil because it's slightly cheaper. If engineer catches this do you think they are going to recall all those drivers or shipped speakers?

I used to blame in on cheap crossover networks, but I'm starting to shy away from that. Air Core vs iron core inductors or cheap caps can cause a sonic signature, but don't account for choppy spikes and troughs.

Doesn't account for why so many active speakers have the same problem, or maybe it does and they just don't want to build in proper DSP. I utterly don't get why active speakers, even budget ones can't deliver an attempt at a flat frequency response out of the box.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Maybe Erin measurements wrong? He is a making money from videos?

 

[VintageFlanker]

Maybe Erin measurements wrong?

Or Amir's ones... Or JBL assembly is very inconsistent, especially since we're talking about a speaker that is in production for more than 12 years. Or... Who knows.

He is a making money from videos?

Barely enough for this could have any influence. Come on.

 

[tw 2022]

But who is right?

JBL Studio 530 Speaker Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the JBL Studio 530 bookshelf speaker. They normally cost US $600 but routinely go on sale. That is how I purchased mine for US $280 direct from JBL. The 530 has a very unique style of its own: I normally take speaker grills off for...

www.audiosciencereview.com

I had very good listening sessions with the 530 and they match well to the BMR monitors. Not quite as accurate, but for how I will be using the 530s in my room I had no compunction about keeping them. My experience aligns much more closely with Amir's measurements.

Regardless, Erin said he never finished his review, seems like he cut short his measurements. so...

Loaded question...

Who do you trust?

same here, the 530s i have seem to mirror basic rules of neutrality.... Erin & I talked a bit about him doing a 3rd visit with the 530s(in the ASR 5 series thread) .. i'm hoping he finds some answers ....

 

[tw 2022]

Or Amir's ones... Or JBL assembly is very inconsistent, especially since we're talking about a speaker that is in production for more than 12 years. Or... Who knows.


Barely enough for this could have any influence. Come on.

i tend to think somebody tried to "improve" the product somewhere in the recent past ..

 

[JoeSchmoe84]

The woofer has a 2nd order electrical LPF with a 2.3mH series inductor and a parallel cap (two actually, a 24uF in parallel with a 0.01uF).

I can't see how wrong values installed would account for the measured differences. Makes me now wonder if some woofers are built different/maybe out of spec?

Agreed. An incorrectly wound VC in the midwoofer...maybe.

EDIT:
It appears that this could also be the substitution of a midwoofer with incorrect impedance (8r instead of 4r, for example). It's a roughly 3dB difference in the native response of the bass driver, across its entire bandwidth.

 

[JeffGB]

I've been listening to the 630's for a couple of days with EQ based on Erin's measurements but have become dissatisfied with the sound so today I removed the mid frequency EQ and left in the EQ to remove the bumps at 1.5k and 3k. It sounds much more natural in my room like that. The mids were too warm and bloated sounding with the EQ for the measured dip in the midband.

I don't know if my pair do not have the dip but they don't sound like it. I also have a pair of A130's which I really like using EQ based on Amir's measurements but when I change to EQ based on Erin's measurements for those speakers I don't like that either. It could be room differences but I'm going to need to buy a measurement microphone to see what is going on.

 

[Beave]

Did Erin's video show the impedance of the Studio 530 that he measured? That would help provide clues to sort this out.

The Studio 530 uses a 4 Ohm woofer, the 553H. The Studio 570 uses two 10 Ohm woofers in parallel, with the part number being 553J for the 10 Ohm version.

In this thread: https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/jbl-no-support.620573/page-4 there is mention of a part number change for the 530 woofer. More clues?

 

[JoeSchmoe84]

Did Erin's video show the impedance of the Studio 530 that he measured? That would help provide clues to sort this out.

The Studio 530 uses a 4 Ohm woofer, the 553H. The Studio 570 uses two 10 Ohm woofers in parallel, with the part number being 553J for the 10 Ohm version.

In this thread: https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/jbl-no-support.620573/page-4 there is mention of a part number change for the 530 woofer. More clues?

I don't remember if Erin did, but I think you are on the right track here.

 

[Azatto]

Here is crossower schematic I took from my pair. Dont know hipass coil inpedance, I gues it should be around 0.20-0.24 mH.

 

[OfficialChill]

He addresses the discrepancy in his latest livestream. TL;DW: results match more closely if he sets the reference axis below tweeter level. But his two speakers still did have some variation in the treble region

 

[ryanosaur]

Love that Erin responded to this with a video so quickly! He is easily one of the top 3 most important audio channels running and many should take notes. Authenticity and integrity are worth their weight!

 

[tw 2022]

Love that Erin responded to this with a video so quickly! He is easily one of the top 3 most important audio channels running and many should take notes. Authenticity and integrity are worth their weight!

Erin, in my mind , is a pretty class act....

 

[JoeSchmoe84]

Just watched his video. Love that guy.

It brings up a thought, for me; it seems that establishing the correct acoustical design center is *vitally* important to getting good spin data. And that, to extrapolate further, to get that wrong seems to call into question a significant percentage of a given NFS run.

Also, I auditioned the 530's directly on tweeter axis. So it makes sense that my experience was that of more prominent treble. Nothing in the manual contra-indicated this as a use case that I found.

It also reminds me of a larger JBL speaker (4367??) that Stereophile tested wherein a small shelf/ledge in the passband was also present. Will look for that. Makes me wonder if those measurements also missed the correct acoustical center?

I'll update this post when I find the Stereophile link.

UPDATE:

Okay it was actually Erin with the mighty JBL M2. Is this passband "ledge" an artifact of maybe being slightly away from the true acoustic center??:

JBL M2 Master Reference Monitor

JBL M2 Master Reference Monitor

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

I've been listening to the 630's for a couple of days with EQ based on Erin's measurements but have become dissatisfied with the sound so today I removed the mid frequency EQ and left in the EQ to remove the bumps at 1.5k and 3k. It sounds much more natural in my room like that. The mids were too warm and bloated sounding with the EQ for the measured dip in the midband.

I don't know if my pair do not have the dip but they don't sound like it. I also have a pair of A130's which I really like using EQ based on Amir's measurements but when I change to EQ based on Erin's measurements for those speakers I don't like that either. It could be room differences but I'm going to need to buy a measurement microphone to see what is going on.

How did you eq based on his measurements?

 

[sweetchaos]

JBL Studio 630 written review is live now:

JBL Studio 630 Bookshelf Speaker Review

JBL Studio 630 2-Way Bookshelf Speaker Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

 

[Beave]

I like what Erin does a lot - taking detailed measurements and correlating them with what he hears, and explaining to his audience the value of measurements. He provides a great service to us enthusiasts.

Having said that, I do not agree that the measurement axis explains the discrepancy between his results and Amir's results as far as the woofer level is concerned.

Yes, as he shows, the dip and bump at the 1.4kHz crossover changes considerably as one moves up and down for the measurement axis. So that can explain the differences seen around the 1.4kHz crossover. I'm not so concerned with that.

And I'm not concerned with the small measured differences in the treble region, either between Erin's two samples or Erin's data versus Amir's data. Those are small, narrow, and can be explained by production tolerances of the mechanical assembly of the compression tweeter, the waveguide, and the tolerances of the rather complex analog EQ done by the crossover.

But the overall woofer output level does not change enough to account for the measured differences, at least to my viewing of the data.

From Amir's review (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/jbl-studio-530-speaker-review.12298/), we get this graph for off axis vertical response, which shows the expected significant variation around the crossover region as you move up and down. Change Amir's data by a few degrees and you get a lot closer to Erin's data showing the dip and peak in the crossover region.

But there is just a little (2dB or so) difference in overall woofer response even if one goes way off axis (+40 degrees, the dark blue trace). And if you do go that far off axis, then the treble output is rolled off by several dB (6 to 8 dB or so), which would be very different from Erin's results.

Take the response at 800Hz as an example. No matter the angle, the output barely changes. as shown in the graph above. Yet Amir's results are maybe 3 dB higher there than Erin's results. This can't be explained by measurement angle alone. Same goes for the region around 100 to 200Hz, and really for the entire bass region.

Measurement angle is critical for the crossover region, and to a large extent for the treble region, but much less so for the bass.

I don't do much on Youtube, but if Erin is reading this or somebody wants to comment on his Youtube video, ask him if he has results of the impedance for the Studio 530s that he measured.