New JBL 4349 Speakers

[DK11706]

My HDI-3800 do a pretty good job with "chest pounding bass" despite their 8" woofers! I'd love to compare them with the 4349!

They would probably win that contest , but what I meant was that they will ever get that airy/hollow slam big woofers have, big woofers have a more "live sound" than small ones.

 

[DK11706]

Some of it's also room dependent. Excessive bass output can be a problem in smaller rooms with issues at those frequencies. Trust me, I'm dealing with 8" Volt woofers in a small bedroom (like 12' square) with limited acoustic treatment (there's limited space for acoustic treatment...), so I end up applying an EQ curve to control the bass. 12" drivers would be a nightmare.

It all room dependent, one thing I have learned through the years is to buy speakers that matches the room, going for the opposite is a lost cause. DSP can only help to a certain point, after that your speakers will loose their signature sound.

That's why you should always get a home audition before buying

 

[changer]

I have to disagree, the 12" woofer is part of the experience making the music free and vibrant and what it takes to makes chest pounding bass, I know you can get more bass with 2 x 8" woofers, but they will always sound compress/restrained when pushed and never achieve that chest pounding feeling you get with big woofers.

I would like to read some empirical grounding for this claim. Which 8" will noticeably compress to what degree more than what kind of 12" woofer and is this something we can perceive? I mean with good designs, not in general, I can imagine this can be the case. I know from experience with photographic sensors that per pixel surface size cannot be made up for with any sort of tweak, array and increased unit count. This way one could argue that two 8", although they feature more surface area, cannot compete with one 12". But this is gross false statement when whe compare unit numbers in this example, which for medium format huge pixel pitch still go into the millions, versus 1 or 2 units in this speaker example. Or take any pro-audio mid-top speaker, some featuring 15" woofers: they do not produce chest slamming bass at all, sure, they want SPL and leave the bass to 18" subs. There will definitely be a difference in how the soundwave of the given spectrum is radiated and this can be measured and displayed, but someone's got to show this then and a based argument too. I used to fancy that center solidity is something I miss from hifi speakers with smaller woofers. But come on, this might just be another crude imagination suggested by visual appeal of size.

Also, armin, very cool! Looking forward to see the data..

 

[Morla]

Do not forget the bias introduced by walnut and blue!

they burn a hole in the pocket in comparison to the HDI-3800

 

[okok]

is the review out yet..

 

[deercreekaudio]

I have been continuing my quest to bring these marvelous JBL 4349s under control with Dirac and SHD tone overlays. There is such potential with the great dynamic range, linearity and excellent impulse response.

Below are the new Dirac project curves, the before-and-after impulse response and SHD tone overlay. Note in the subwoofer crossover the soft high pass slope intersecting with the sharp subwoofer low pass, this was tuned before the Dirac project was performed. In addition I have also clicked the high frequency knob down one.

My opinion now…. Amazing, time depth resolution is extraordinary, tight solid impact, but still a touch of edginess.

Stay tuned

 

[Dueprocess]

I would like to read some empirical grounding for this claim. Which 8" will noticeably compress to what degree more than what kind of 12" woofer and is this something we can perceive? I mean with good designs, not in general, I can imagine this can be the case. I know from experience with photographic sensors that per pixel surface size cannot be made up for with any sort of tweak, array and increased unit count. This way one could argue that two 8", although they feature more surface area, cannot compete with one 12". But this is gross false statement when whe compare unit numbers in this example, which for medium format huge pixel pitch still go into the millions, versus 1 or 2 units in this speaker example. Or take any pro-audio mid-top speaker, some featuring 15" woofers: they do not produce chest slamming bass at all, sure, they want SPL and leave the bass to 18" subs. There will definitely be a difference in how the soundwave of the given spectrum is radiated and this can be measured and displayed, but someone's got to show this then and a based argument too. I used to fancy that center solidity is something I miss from hifi speakers with smaller woofers. But come on, this might just be another crude imagination suggested by visual appeal of size.

Also, armin, very cool! Looking forward to see the data..

Two 8" woofers do not have more surface area than one 12" woofer (or, it's unlikely they would). Differing cone shapes could affect the surface area, but in most scenarios, one 12" woofer has ~10-15% more surface area than two 8" woofers combined.

 

[changer]

You are correct, I was not taking into account that dusts caps and suspension reduce SD more with two units than with one. But I could not make any general assesment on what is typical SD though. Anecdotal evidence, the FaitalPro 12 Inch woofer I use for my DIY 2-way-speaker (12PR320) only accounts for 6.5 percent more SD than two SEAS CA22RNY combined (490 to 460 cm³). Still more, but a tight margin.

 

[Zvu]

@changer I am working on a two way with Faital.

How did you use it ?

 

[changer]

What do you mean? It is a 2-way topology and Hypex powered/controlled. You are probably working on a passive solution, as with this JBL 4349 we all want to know more about? Youtube's not a place for audio (mushy ) but anyway:

It is much better than youtube's audio stream and my recording capabilites allow to show.

 

[Zvu]

Oh, hi Shepple

What i was wondering was what driver/waveguide combo have you used and where is crossover point. But now that i've seen the video and recognized the speaker, i know.

And yes, it should be passive but if i don't get the measured results i want, i'll transfer to dsp since i really think transducers deserve it.

 

[changer]

Maybe passive is fine. As you may remember, I was affraid only that I could not get the acoustic centers of both drivers match properly on the z-axis, even with asymmetric crossover and every goof you can pull off. This is why I wanted to be able to dial in the necessary delay, maybe the harshness deercreek talks about might be a phase issue too? Really easy to care for with a DSP and these plate amps do not only sound marvelous, they also give you a very good DSP. You said I would be happy and you were right! Sad only that AKM factory burned down and price increased. I can test any XO-point you want!

 

[Zvu]

OT

I plan to try with waveguide on top of the cabinet (for physical time alignment) and in cabinet (inspired by JBL 4349). Since you wanted B52 waveguides, i asked here about the price of 3D scan so i could upload it to thingiverse. Then anyone in the world could download it and print it. It is doable but the price for finished .stl file is 60€ and i payed 18€ for both waveguides. Didn't seem like a good value to me.

 

[Purité Audio]

https://www.hifinews.com/content/jbl-4349-loudspeaker

Keith

 

[Zvu]

Somebody flipped the polarity of tweeter during production.

 

[changer]

Not necessarily. Have a look at the measurement of deercreek: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-jbl-4349-speakers.14980/post-678895 The dip shown in this measurements can also be accounted for 6 to 7 dB as in this hi-fi news review. The difference with this hi-fi news measurement lies in the absurd lack of energy below the crossover point (mids, low mids) and the excess above. Any voice and string instrument should really sound muffled and sparkling if this is well measured. What deercreek showed to us is very different, with basically good continuity throughout the band and a favorable slope, with lack of energy at the crossover. I honestly cannot understand how this sums up and wonder if off-axis corrects these on-axis problem which will probaly persist throughout other measurements. If this is not dealt with off-axis, this is a less sophisticated crossover than the one Zilch produced for the masses with his Econowave design. You can see his crossover on axis is less fluctuating and basically stays within +- 2 dB on-axis : http://techtalk.parts-express.com/f...4467-flex-your-pcd-mettle?p=465340#post465340 If he managed to integrate the drivers, how could Harman/JBL fail at it?

 

[Zvu]

I still think it is some kind of production mistake Hardly a product variation.

Here is JBL's spinorama for 4349

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...w-jbl-4349-speakers.14980/page-10#post-581536

And here are independent measurements

https://www.hifitest.de/test/lautsprecher_stereo/jbl-4349_20054

I don't really see what else could it be. 14dB dip right at the crossover frequency is really a lot.

 

[Jim Matthews]

I particularly like the portable tool box stand with folding rule riser.

kewl

 

[amirm]

I have this on NFS. Working on numerical optimizations. Best case review date is Tuesday but may drag into Wednesday. It is a heavy monster and I have to see if I can drag it up to listening space...

 

[Valentin R]

Great news thanks

What acoustical axis did you consider
Directly on horn or center between horn and woofer