Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

I measured the frequency response of the JBL speaker in the listening window—spatially averaged to minimize room standing-wave problems—using third-octave pink noise, and measured the near-field low-frequency response with a sinewave sweep to get an idea of the true bass extension. The low-frequency –6dB point, measured nearfield, was 42Hz, but there was a little too much upper-bass energy in the room between 63Hz and 200Hz, suggesting that the woofer could do with a little more damping. Given that this lift will artificially extend the bass extension, the true cutoff point would probably be around 50Hz; this was confirmed by the in-room measurement, which showed the response to be falling rapidly below this frequency.

The in-room response, very flat from 200Hz to 3kHz, met excellent ±1dB limits apart from a slight prominence just above 1kHz (which may correspond to the slight "eee" coloration noted). Above-axis, a slight notch developed in the crossover region, showing that JBL's engineers have optimized the vertical dispersion for the speaker's use on reasonably high stands. There was perhaps a little too much treble energy in the final octave. The measured impedance fell to around 6 ohms in the lower midrange, but the load will present no problems to amplifiers.—John Atkinson