Massdrop JBL LSR30X 5" Active Studio Monitors

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by purr1n, Jun 18, 2017.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Here is the 45 off-axis measurement. Holy cow Batman!
    JBL30X frequency response 45.png

    This is one of the things I love about JBL and their use of horns and waveguides. They know how to get horns right, without strange crappy honky frequency responses. Forty five degrees off-axis is actually kind of extreme. Many speakers start to take dump, like a huge 5-10db dump gradually starting at 2-3kHz just fifteen degrees off-axis.

    One thing I noticed about the LSR 30X is the wide sweet spot and very stable center image. I watched Star Trek Into Darkness last night. Center channel was spot on. It was like I had a speaker right in the middle of my screen! Even if I crouched down in my seat and moved my head to the side, the soundstage was stable with a strong center. With music content, the vocalists and instruments appear to float in the air, as if the screen and monitors were not even there.

    BTW, the macrodynamics are killer with high dynamic range film content! I turned the volume up so I could hear the dialog between Chris Pine and Goes-Apeshit-Spock. Suddenly boom! Wow, I literally got shaken out of my seat. JBL picked some good 5" woofers that balanced SPL capability, extension, and accuracy. The tweeter waveguides help with efficiency, effectively increasing dynamic headroom of the built in amps. Active crossover (what I am assuming) also helps.
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2017
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    One thing I forgot to mention: the volume knob on the back. It's not some cheap-ass pot, like as found on the back of the audiophile $1000 Parasound A23 amplifier. It's actually has steps. Half steps from 1 to 10. This is pro gear. No time for nonsense.

    IMG_20170620_233559 (Small).jpg
     
  3. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    Do you find that both volume pots attenuate similarily?
    Might get a local unit since they're going for 399SGD (~290USD) brand new.

    My Swans (D1010-IV) got kidnapped by my sister and brother in law.
     
  4. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I personally fixed the volume pots to a certain level after calibrating SPL on my pro-monitors. I use my headphone/DAC/pre-amp volume pot for left and right channel simultaneous volume level control. But YMMV.
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I could measure it. My bet is that they will be within 0.2db at worst. This is pro gear. They don't f**k around like audiophile / home threatre brands like Parasound, even at $300. I know it seems cheap (my my, how being in the personal audio space perverts our sense of value), but a typical medium sized studio will buy dozens of these kinds of monitors. It all adds up for them, keeping in mind they need routers, switches, cables, mixing consoles, screens, VU meters, cables, computers, pro-tools appliances, firewalls (yeah this stuff too), more cables, etc.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2017
  6. chakku

    chakku Friend

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    Great to see these getting all the more recognition and praise they deserve, they rid me of any desire to upgrade my speaker setup at my computer. :D
     
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I've heard some of the competition. IMO, the JBLs are one of the better ones. To move up, it would be the Adam monitors. Maybe @ultrabike can chime in. He's heard and measured of lot of similar monitors.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2017
  8. chakku

    chakku Friend

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    I can't say for sure as I haven't heard many Adam monitors but personally I feel like the upgrade path from these involves a leap into Genelec/Neumann territory.
     
  9. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    It is cheap.

    Before I settled for using an in-the-cupboard integrated amp with a couple of low-cost passives on my desk, among my plans/dreams were, at one end, the JBLs, which would cost a bit more in this country, and, at the other, pro monitors costing over a couple of thousand GBP.

    I was saved from the latter madness by the failure of a promised debt repayment. Well, I say "madness," but I'm sure that the Geithains would have been wonderful to own and hear.

    And I have never been really happy with the local-made speakers I did buy, so, in the future... anything could happen.

    Maybe the higher-end Adams (and Eves) are getting into that territory.

    My hearing is seriously high-frequency challenged, so when I listen to speakers and wonder where the bass is, I know I bought wrong. o_O
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2017
  10. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    45º off-axis looks very good, but then again these are small monitors with waveguides. There still seemed to be the tiniest 2kHz bump on axis. Is this audible?
    How's the phase response/step response? I bet they're using quite steep filters, especially with a crossover frequency of 1.725kHz. What about vertical off-axis response? The waveguide seems to focus sounds vertically.
     
  11. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Step Response
    Keep in mind reverberant half-room with lots of early reflections.
    Time from yellow to red line is 5ms.
    step.png
    Not perfect, but not bad, quite good. This is with the microphone pointed directly at the tweeter, level with the tweeter.

    FR with phase
    phase.png

    Group delay
    These have a port on the back. I'll stick the microphone in to check the port frequency.
    group.png

    Will check vertical lobing tomorrow. It's common for horns to limit vertical dispersion to mitigate woofer / tweeter combing. Low x-over isn't that unusual. I've run 1.6kHz 2nd order with a ScanSpeak 9900, but then again, because I can build these myself, I can live dangerously. But in context of near-field and waveguide loading, 1.725kHz, if indeed that's what it is, wouldn't be anything out of order. The lower you can push the tweeter, as long as distortion isn't bad, the better it sounds.

    My usual complaint with cheap monitors is muddy bass and veiled sound. This one pulls off bass and clarity quite well.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2017
  12. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    That looks like the minimum phase, not the phase to me. Step response looks like what I expected. Looks like both drivers are connected in the same polarity. 4th order slopes?
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I also didn't feel the 1db 2khz bump was all that audible. To put things in perspective, the HD600's 3kHz bump is very slightly annoying to me.
     
  14. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    This puts more into perspective where the headphone industry is currently. You can spend thousands on cans and tonality wise they'll be walked over by low end studio monitors.
     
  15. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    Yes, 3kHz HD600 bump is annoying, but I do feel good headphones can compete with speakers tonally, at least with the more broad variance of setups you can see at the High End show. Half of these speakers are too U-shaped. Brighter than modded HD800 or HD600 and 5-10db bass emphasis. But then again I haven't heard headphones that can compete with my speakers with Voxativ widebanders tonally. And those aren't particularly neutral by speakers standards, at least in measured terms.

    I don't think it's all that fair to compare headphones to speakers in tonality. Pretty much every headphone is a single driver system which puts a greater burden on the designer to get everything right. Then again headphones are pretty much all minimum-phase systems. With these speakers looks like there's probably a 360° phase shift at the crossover frequency, which isn't anything out of the ordinary for speakers.
    Also there's no real consensus for a target FR and I'm not sure if there ever will be.

    Headphones have a huge advantage in terms of distortion. Most headphones come close to less than 1% distortion 20Hz-20kHz at 100db, which most speakers can't even dream of. In the midrange headphone distortion can be an order of magnitude lower than good speaker drivers. You don't see speakers with less than 0.05% distortion at 90db above 100Hz.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2017
  16. Azteca

    Azteca Friend

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    Absolutely. Coming from the pro world, I was very pleased with the Focal Spirit Pro, HD600 and modded HD800. Once I heard Hifiman, Grado, Stax I thought "Wtf is this?" It seems headphone folks find their way to the accepted industry standards after a very circuitous path (or, 5 years and $20,000 later, fully embrace their flavor of euphony). I do think these JBLs are a particularly strong value and cheaper active monitors have continued to improve over the days of yore. But if you hear some of the nicer Adams, Focals etc. you may find yourself wondering why you're so worked up about class A amps, passive speakers and headphones that completely bury entire octaves of content.
     
  17. Azteca

    Azteca Friend

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    Oh, and PS, Harman (parent company of JBL) does not f**k around. Their research and engineering is very good. The Olive-Welti/"Harman" curve was the product of a good deal of research. Headphones are just getting started as something pros take seriously. I hope we see some moves towards neutral and consistent as we have with pro monitors if not consumer speakers.
     
  18. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Sorry @Serious, but that's nonsense. There is among professionals, especially in the TV and film industries. There is a lot of work around here in the entertainment industry to ensure consistency of sound. You can't do that without a consensus of how stuff is supposed to sound like.

    Not fair. But manufacturers aren't even trying.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2017
  19. DigMe

    DigMe Friend

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    Wish I could buy speakers now. I'd be all over these. When a I was a gigging musician I used JBL's a lot. They had a reputation for being excellent performing low-cost speakers for musicians. JBL and EV accounted for probably 80% or more of the systems that myself and friends' bands played through and I was never disappointed with them.
     
  20. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    These JBLs use hand-me-down technology from considerably more expensive models. Specifically, the wave guide. If there is a criticism of it it is that it lacks mass. I've seen a mod for this (essentially filling the light plastic front-panel moulding with dense foam) on the net. I think it was applied to 308s, but the 305s probably look much the same inside.

    I've mentioned the link before --- but I'll see if I can find it now.

    Edit, links:
    NoAudiophile.com 305 review

    NoAudiophile.com 308 review including mod
     

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