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New JBL 4349 Speakers

TimVG

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They've got some stiff competition at their price point though... Quested VH3208s are about the same price for a pair, and they have a dedicated midrange. Of course, they're designed from the ground-up as studio monitors... and that means that they don't hide bad recordings the way some speakers do.

I have yet to see a 12" woofer that can really handle midrange well, so I'm immediately skeptical of the JBL, but that's just me.

The only thing this Quested 3-way seems to do is color everything played through it.

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H-713

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Where did that response come from? I'm not going to claim that everything they design is perfect (I will also note that the V3110 and the VH3208 are very different), but you absolutely cannot trust measurements if you don't know the setup. I've seen plenty of people slander known-good speakers for having a "ragged" response that is, in fact, not caused by the speaker at all. Two people can measure the same speaker and get VERY different results if one of them does it poorly. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but I also know that the drivers in that speaker are generally well behaved.
 

TimVG

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Where did that response come from? I'm not going to claim that everything they design is perfect (I will also note that the V3110 and the VH3208 are very different), but you absolutely cannot trust measurements if you don't know the setup. I've seen plenty of people slander known-good speakers for having a "ragged" response that is, in fact, not caused by the speaker at all. Two people can measure the same speaker and get VERY different results if one of them does it poorly. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but I also know that the drivers in that speaker are generally well behaved.

These are from Sound and Recording, by prof. Anselm Goertz - IFAA institut für Akustik und Audiotechnik.
They are anechoic measurements of course, and perfectly accurate and interpretable.
 

TimVG

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It's funny reading user impressions though:

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The truth effect :D:D

The reality is of course what I said earlier, this monitor will color anything played through it. Best to spend your €8k on something worth it.
 

H-713

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It's funny reading user impressions though:

View attachment 113109

The truth effect :D:D

The reality is of course what I said earlier, this monitor will color anything played through it. Best to spend your €8k on something worth it.

Possible, though like I mentioned I'm surprised to see that because I know the behavior of the drivers they're using. They're well behaved. Do you have a link to the article / place where they were measured? Would be interesting to read more.

Some of Quested's stuff is better than others. I know a few people who are less than thrilled with the V3110, and I know I probably wouldn't spend $8K on them. From what I understand, it was an answer to the hip-hop recording crowd that wanted more bass (but not necessarily more accuracy) than the 8" monitors could provide. The 10" Volt driver isn't as well-behaved as the 8" drivers.

FWIW, Roger Quested apparently likes the designs with the 8" Volt drivers a whole lot more than those with bigger drivers. At some point I'll measure on of my 2108s, though mine are almost 30 years old so there may be issues related to age as well.
 

PaulD

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I have yet to see a 12" woofer that can really handle midrange well, so I'm immediately skeptical of the JBL, but that's just me.
30+ years ago I might have said the same thing, but I have 2 sets of JBL M2s in different rooms, and the midrange is superb wth 15" drivers crossed over at 800Hz to the waveguide-loaded HF unit. With modern driver technology those old maxims are not true any more.
 

TimVG

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Possible, though like I mentioned I'm surprised to see that because I know the behavior of the drivers they're using. They're well behaved. Do you have a link to the article / place where they were measured? Would be interesting to read more.

Some of Quested's stuff is better than others. I know a few people who are less than thrilled with the V3110, and I know I probably wouldn't spend $8K on them. From what I understand, it was an answer to the hip-hop recording crowd that wanted more bass (but not necessarily more accuracy) than the 8" monitors could provide. The 10" Volt driver isn't as well-behaved as the 8" drivers.

FWIW, Roger Quested apparently likes the designs with the 8" Volt drivers a whole lot more than those with bigger drivers. At some point I'll measure on of my 2108s, though mine are almost 30 years old so there may be issues related to age as well.

Hi

It was featured in the 'studio monitor' special featuring 80 reviews including detailed measurements of all. It can be purchased digitally here for €8,90

https://www.soundandrecording.de/shop/studiomonitore-special/

Well worth the small price.

I've no doubt the issue is not with the drivers. In fact using the onboard tone controls I've simulated one can 'flatten' the response somewhat already.

questedtc.png


Ideally this would have been done from the start. The last 10-15 years we've seen a lot of progress with regards to simulation software, so the design is a bit outdated with regards to directivity and such.
 

thewas

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Where did that response come from? I'm not going to claim that everything they design is perfect (I will also note that the V3110 and the VH3208 are very different), but you absolutely cannot trust measurements if you don't know the setup.
Those measurements come from one of Germanys most renowned professors or acoustics who does all the measurements for the pro audio magazine Sound & Recordings (has measured there more than 100 monitors till now) and few others, the setup is long known and measurements can be fully trusted (match also well Klippel NFS ones performed here)
https://www.fidelity-online.de/messungen-an-lautsprechern/
https://www.soundandrecording.de/equipment/studio-monitor-kaufen/
 

H-713

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With context (which you have very graciously provided) I am more than willing to accept that as a valid measurement and does suggest that it may be a fairly flawed speaker. That wouldn't really surprise me- as I mentioned, the demand for the V3110 came from a market that wanted more bass, but not necessarily more accuracy. It's quite different from the VH3208, which would probably be higher on my list based on driver choices. The 8" Volt drivers are less squirrely on the top end and would be easier to cross over to the Scanspeak midrange compared to the 10" drivers.

Quested monitors generally get very positive responses from those using them including a lot of people who like the V3110 (though not everyone), so it's interesting to see how poorly they measure. It is known that Roger Quested always put significant weight into his own listening tests. That can play out well, and it can also be a train-wreck. It depends on a multitude of factors. What it could point to, however, is their monitors being designed with certain assumptions about their location in a control room. Most people will note that they are sensitive to placement and that they need to be at least 2 meters away from the listener to behave well.

As for the argument about big drivers and midrange...

I'm of the philosophy that asking a 15" driver to deal with low bass as well as midrange isn't an ideal situation, no matter how well-designed the driver, but that's just my perspective. Every engineer has a different design approach. As I mentioned, it makes me skeptical, but I'd have to hear them and measure them to know for sure. Part of it is that I'm a little gun-shy when it comes to trusting JBL and Harman stuff after some lousy experiences with their recent pro gear.
 

deercreekaudio

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This stand design, the Type M, has a 9" front height with a 2° tilt. It's a significant shift from our classic designs with have a 8" front height with a 5° tilt. Feedback will be apricated.

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deercreekaudio

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O by the way
Did you like the 4349 sound?
Yes for the most part, very detailed yet occasionally slightly irritating which is what I would expect from a two way compression driver system.
I have been tuning these in a 2.1 system using Dirac Live and have excellent clarity and resolution between various instruments and vocals. Laser imaging, dynamic, fast punch..... fun. However on some content the compression driver/horn has a bite which is hard to remove with DSP.
Here are some project images, first you can see the smoothed raw response which is excellent, very close to the Dirac target curve. Then you can see in the Dirac overlay where I'm trying to tame the horn, that on top of the Dirac Project Harmon tilt.
Fun project.
 

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deercreekaudio

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Not yet, my typical practice is to let Dirac process the system in it's nominal state, and then add EQ with DSP. I have been considering the tone controls, adding one more variable. Any suggestions?
 

Valentin R

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Not yet, my typical practice is to let Dirac process the system in it's nominal state, and then add EQ with DSP. I have been considering the tone controls, adding one more variable. Any suggestions?

I would go the other way around with your descriptor
 

changer

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However on some content the compression driver/horn has a bite which is hard to remove with DSP.

You have an idea why it is hard to tame? When I read what you said I first thought it might be the issue that the CD-part of the sound is strictly without 'room' and too forward/in your ear. But then I remembered that the M2 with it's diffraction slots has quite a wide pattern. What was the dispersion angle of the M2 already? It isn't too tight if I remember correctly, so there should be a good amount of early reflections. If you are able to control on axis with Dirac, something is probably happening off axis, or what is it?
 

changer

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As for the argument about big drivers and midrange...

I'm of the philosophy that asking a 15" driver to deal with low bass as well as midrange isn't an ideal situation, no matter how well-designed the driver, but that's just my perspective. Every engineer has a different design approach. As I mentioned, it makes me skeptical, but I'd have to hear them and measure them to know for sure. Part of it is that I'm a little gun-shy when it comes to trusting JBL and Harman stuff after some lousy experiences with their recent pro gear.

Over at diyaudio, someone tested with very different drivers the impact of simultaneous bass and midrange reproduction, a typical task for a 2-way topology. It obviously has an impact on sound reproduction. But the measurements are rather limited and it would be interesting to define certain thresholds first to check for relevance.
https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/367059-testing-2-vs-2-5-vs-3-imd.html
 

H-713

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Yeah, in general I'm not a fan of big 2-ways. I'm probably not the only one who generally thinks that a 6" is usually about the limit for a good 2-way. The Quested H108 / V2108 is one of the few 8" 2-ways I like, and that's probably because the Volt 8" drivers are unusually well-behaved at higher frequencies, so it can be crossed over in a reasonable place for a 2-way. There aren't a lot of 8" drivers with good low-frequency capabilities that can be crossed over high enough for a regular dome tweeter.

Still, when it comes to midrange, I really feel that there's no comparison, and I know a few people (who's opinions I very much respect as being worth a lot more than my own) who will say that the obsolete Quested VS2205 has an even better midrange as a result. Of course, this is not a Quested thread, and even if it was Audax discontinued the woofers that were used in the VS2205 a long time ago. I'm not really sure what happened with Audax, though it's unfortunate because they made a few different drivers that I really liked.

The ATC and Volt dome midranges have excellent performance as well, but at a cost... the Volt is about a $600 midrange driver, and the ATC won't be any cheaper.

Now, the JBL seems to have taken the route of a very low crossover frequency of around 800 Hz, and they get that by using a compression driver with a large horn. Whether that's a better compromise is up for debate.

From my perspective, if I were designing an $8000 speaker my preference would be to avoid pushing it. I'd probably go for a 3.5 way - which is what Quested did with the 3208, though my implementation would likely be different. This may not have been an option for JBL, a company that likely expects a reasonable profit margin, and the VH3208 is a pretty costly speaker to build, even with Quested's rather minimalist (and that might be giving them too much credit) cabinet finishing solution.
 
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