JBL Studio series speakers, bright or warm ? (1 Viewer)

[Boka]

Are the JBL Studio series speakers considered bright or warm ? How about Denon receivers?

Thanks

 

[Johnny Mac]

Denon is usually considered to be warmer sounding than others and the JBL's are relatively bright. Good match IMHO.

 

[John Garcia]

I don't feel the Studios were overly bright. Tight, clean midrange and good highs, but I wouldn't call them bright like the older HLS models.

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

I wouldn't describe the JBL bookshelfs as being bright but at bestbuy, the floorstanders sounded a bit more harsh. JBLs aren't even close to the brightness of Klipsch though they both use their own version of a horn tweeter.

Let me think of the negatives of the S38 original:

I noticed that soft vocals and whispers sound a bit raspy/artifical. This separates them from being a high end speaker IMO. I also hear port noise when I send them deep bass notes in the 20-40hz range. (Which is out of their range anyways).

The vocalists in the center sound stage sometimes sound like they are coming from a pinpoint location rather than a human. Teamed with my sub, the highs seem to come from above the speaker, while lower notes seem to come from below.

I've heard Denon considered as slightly bright from resellers and a magazine I read.

I've also auditioned some higher priced speakers by energy, paradigm, and monitor and could easily compare their highs with that of JBLs.

 

[John Garcia]

Compared to Harmon Kardon and Marantz, Denon sounds on the bright side to me. I had never really spent any time critically listening to Denon prior to looking for a receiver last year, and I was surprised when I demoed the 3802 and it was what I consider to be fairly bright and a little bit flat with music.

 

[KyleGS]

Compared to my H/K's the Denons sound a little bright. Not enough to complain about. Or it could be that my H/k's are just laid back. My S38's are dead on neutral in my opinion. Not bright, not warm- just neutral. Than again, brightness is a function of many things including receiver, wire, room ,etc. My S38's may be neutral just on my H/K.

 

[Adam Bluhm]

I also hear port noise when I send them deep bass notes in the 20-40hz range. (Which is out of their range anyways)

Chris, is port noise all you hear? If I understand this correctly, they can't even produce noise below 45hz.
JBL S38II
Maybe I've never understood frequency response correctly. :/

 

[John Garcia]

45Hz is the -3dB point, that does not mean there is no sound beyond that, but it will very quickly fall off as the frequency becomes lower.

 

[Phil Iturralde]

JBL spec'd their speaker in anechoic chamber on Axis (like all Speaker MFG's) vs. Tom Nousaine established S&V Speaker (±30-degree window) Standard Testing procedure.
For more S&V Speaker Graphs, see my webpage Are Bose Speakers Over Priced vs. Performance??
NOTE: Because my website is 'FREE', hosted by GeoCities, if too many HT enthusiasts visit, GeoCities will shut it down for an hour or so because it exceeded the specified 'freebie' Data Transfer Rate. Sorry about that, just bookmark it and visit my site an hour later or when everyone has gone to bed!
Phil

 

[Adam Bluhm]

Wow. There's always more to learn.