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What budget speakers you like to see reviewed?

A pair of JBL A180, the middle brother tower version of the a130, is being offered at 300 USD from someone in Los Angeles. Perhaps we could all chip in, if @amirm is interested and willing. I for one and terribly interested in the a180 and a190 - and this is a good price! - but I'm not really willing to acquire them without good measurements....
 
Presently42 said:
A pair of JBL A180, the middle brother tower version of the a130, is being offered at 300 USD from someone in Los Angeles. Perhaps we could all chip in, if @amirm is interested and willing. I for one and terribly interested in the a180 and a190 - and this is a good price! - but I'm not really willing to acquire them without good measurements....
Click to expand...
Amir has already ordered a pr....
 
Presently42 said:
A pair of JBL A180, the middle brother tower version of the a130, is being offered at 300 USD from someone in Los Angeles. Perhaps we could all chip in, if @amirm is interested and willing. I for one and terribly interested in the a180 and a190 - and this is a good price! - but I'm not really willing to acquire them without good measurements....
Click to expand...

Harman.com sold the A180's for $99/each a few weeks ago during one of their (bi-quarterly?) mega sales, which was when Amirm bought. I believe they were also selling the A190's for like $130 or $150/ea, and the A130's for like $90/pair. Margins and dealer markup on speakers is insane.
 
tw 2022 said:
Amir has already ordered a pr....
Click to expand...
Yes. The truck delivered them so I had to offload them into my car to bring home. They are still in my car since I have no room to bring them in!!!
 
Haint said:
Harman.com sold the A180's for $99/each a few weeks ago during one of their (bi-quarterly?) mega sales, which was when Amirm bought. I believe they were also selling the A190's for like $130 or $150/ea, and the A130's for like $90/pair. Margins and dealer markup on speakers is insane.
Click to expand...
I think they are loss leaders. Shipping costs alone would be what I paid for them! These things are large and heavy!
 
amirm said:
I think they are loss leaders. Shipping costs alone would be what I paid for them! These things are large and heavy!
Click to expand...
I ordered one out of curiosity. They're large enough that Harman uses a trucking company rather than the usual suspects. Mine was considerably delayed, but I was impressed with how seriously Harman took shipping. It couldn't have been cheap, and for my $99 there was actually a speaker inside. Amazing. The sound? Not so much. The tweeter is painfully bright even though the response is fairly uniform. It is tilted up, but not peaky. My distortion measurements showed big problems below the passband, which suggests JBL is crossing the tweeter too low.
 
amirm said:
I think they are loss leaders. Shipping costs alone would be what I paid for them! These things are large and heavy!
Click to expand...
True, clogged ports must have dumped a surplus on them, or perhaps had to satisfy a quantity contract with the factory.

Dennis Murphy said:
I ordered one out of curiosity. They're large enough that Harman uses a trucking company rather than the usual suspects. Mine was considerably delayed, but I was impressed with how seriously Harman took shipping. It couldn't have been cheap, and for my $99 there was actually a speaker inside. Amazing. The sound? Not so much. The tweeter is painfully bright even though the response is fairly uniform. It is tilted up, but not peaky. My distortion measurements showed big problems below the passband, which suggests JBL is crossing the tweeter too low.
Click to expand...
They do trend bright subjectively but the in room response seems uncannily smooth from ~1-2Khz to 10Khz. I do see some distortion centered/peaking at 1.5Khz in basic REW sweeps, but it doesn't seem particularly egregious compared to other budget speakers. I would guess it'll show up as maybe 1-2% on Amirm's spin @ 86dB. I would be perfectly happy with them in a main system with EQ, stupidly good bargain at $99 IMO.
 
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Haint said:
True, clogged ports must have dumped a surplus on them, or perhaps had to satisfy a quantity contract with the factory.


They do trend bright subjectively but the in room response seems uncannily smooth from ~1-2Khz to 10Khz. I do see some distortion centered/peaking at 1.5Khz in basic REW sweeps, but it doesn't seem particularly egregious compared to other budget speakers. I would guess it'll show up as maybe 1-2% on Amirm's spin. I would be perfectly happy with them in a main system with EQ, stupidly good bargain at $99 IMO.
Click to expand...
The response is very smooth, although monotonically increasing with frequency, and just going by the plots they shouldn't sound as bight as they do. I think the tweeter is being overworked, but we'll see what Amir's Klippel machine has to say.
 
Dennis Murphy said:
The response is very smooth, although monotonically increasing with frequency, and just going by the plots they shouldn't sound as bight as they do. I think the tweeter is being overworked, but we'll see what Amir's Klippel machine has to say.
Click to expand...
Yeah I did see a clear uphill trend in the tweeter when I tried them out as side surrounds (~4 feet to mic, direct on axis measurement), but as fronts (~7 feet and slightly off axis) the measured response was ruler flat. They sound like a brighter Revel F35 to me. High frequency subtleties in tracks are more forward and will sound more detailed in isolation, but more artificial and less natural in an A/B.
 
Dennis Murphy said:
I ordered one out of curiosity. They're large enough that Harman uses a trucking company rather than the usual suspects. Mine was considerably delayed, but I was impressed with how seriously Harman took shipping. It couldn't have been cheap, and for my $99 there was actually a speaker inside. Amazing. The sound? Not so much. The tweeter is painfully bright even though the response is fairly uniform. It is tilted up, but not peaky. My distortion measurements showed big problems below the passband, which suggests JBL is crossing the tweeter too low.
Click to expand...
Mine just arrived today, same deal - freight truck. Breaking in one now. For only $100 each they are a steal. Also, the A190's are now available on the Harman site for $125 again. Maybe I'll send the 180's back and get the 190's. The bass on the 180 is tight, fast, and loud, great for blasting my neighbors from the garage, haha, but it makes me want to hear the 190's for bass output. But a bit of a spoiler- these things are bright. I really can't enjoy a lot of music at reasonable volumes on them, especially when I'm A/B'ing them with my vintage and much mellower Snell E/III's and E/IV's. Not sure if the tweeter could be replaced or something.
 
cavedriver said:
Mine just arrived today, same deal - freight truck. Breaking in one now. For only $100 each they are a steal. Also, the A190's are now available on the Harman site for $125 again. Maybe I'll send the 180's back and get the 190's. The bass on the 180 is tight, fast, and loud, great for blasting my neighbors from the garage, haha, but it makes me want to hear the 190's for bass output. But a bit of a spoiler- these things are bright. I really can't enjoy a lot of music at reasonable volumes on them, especially when I'm A/B'ing them with my vintage and much mellower Snell E/III's and E/IV's. Not sure if the tweeter could be replaced or something.
Click to expand...
EQ.....
 
Dennis Murphy said:
The response is very smooth, although monotonically increasing with frequency, and just going by the plots they shouldn't sound as bight as they do. I think the tweeter is being overworked, but we'll see what Amir's Klippel machine has to say.
Click to expand...
Are you going to be able to fix it?
 
tw 2022 said:
EQ.....
Click to expand...
It's not just that they are too loud in the treble. There is a certain level of distortion. Perhaps "harshness" is a better word. You could EQ the highs down some but the distortion would still be there at higher listening volumes. They handle things like Thorogood and The Prodigy just fine, and "Start a Riot" is a hoot, but try some high fidelity treble like Lata Mangeshkar and the distortion is unbearable.
 
cavedriver said:
It's not just that they are too loud in the treble. There is a certain level of distortion. Perhaps "harshness" is a better word. You could EQ the highs down some but the distortion would still be there at higher listening volumes. They handle things like Thorogood and The Prodigy just fine, and "Start a Riot" is a hoot, but try some high fidelity treble like Lata Mangeshkar and the distortion is unbearable.
Click to expand...
Gotcha..Sounds like eq' ing is just putting whipped cream on poop...
 
If I lived in USA I would send Amir my swan m200mkiii+. Been a highly lauded pc desktop setup through numerous iterations since the early 2000s. So curious how they would measure.
 
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