Revisiting an old love: JBL Studio Monitors
It happens from time to time. I become entranced by some little thing. Something so special. An elegant piece of engineering. And admirable work of art. It’s happened again. This is the back story.
As a young person, I had a fascination with media technology. In fact, my teen years read like a rough draft of Wayne’s World. I volunteered/hung around the small town cable TV studio, learning to use their gear. Shot and edited little programs. Volunteered as a DJ. Lots of hands-on with the media technology the time.
So, when it came time to consider College, I decided that I wanted to study media production. There weren’t many options for media arts education at the time. My friend and I selected a private school in Toronto. It was good. All the teachers were active in the business. But it didn’t have its own facilities beyond classrooms.
Our engineering classes were actually taught at a handful of commercial recording studios around the city. The one that was most memorable to me was Cherry Beach Sound. At the time it had a brand new Sony MXP-3000 mixing console, superb Studer A824 multitrack & A820 2-track recorders and massive, soft-mounted JBL 4435 monitors.
Of course, I was just a kid. The gear was inspirational. But I didn’t truly understand much. If would take half-a-lifetime working production and broadcast facilities to acquire the experience necessary to appreciate excellence in technology when I was fortunate enough to encounter it.
In that first studio setting, the thing I really failed to appreciate at first were the JBL monitors. They were just there. They were large and soffit-mounted into the control room walls. They worked. Driven by Canadian-made Bryston amplification, they could get very loud. They sounded good.
Only later would I truly come to appreciate that monitors are there to let you hear exactly what’s being captured by the microphones. They’re not supposed to “sound good.” They’re supposed to be transparent.
That’s a complicated engineering challenge, but JBL has been a world leader in audio transducers since the 1940s. They have a long heritage of serious, methodical, research and development. That involves some of the most brilliant engineering minds in related industries, including Dr. Floyd Toole. His book is the definitive work on The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms.
Years Pass
While I always had some kind of music playback around the apartment or house, it was never a priority. I spent money on recordings, typically getting by with a minimum of equipment.
Alan Parsons once said that, “Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.”
Eventually, having settled in our current house, I setup a network-based music playback scheme based upon the (now defunct) Logitech Squeezebox. That installation has grown and evolved. We now have six separate zones of playback, each with modest supporting hardware. Decent, but nothing fancy.
I prefer to use semi-professional gear over consumer products. The M-Audio BX5 Series have been a long-time favorite. They’re affordable. In fact, they sound better they should, for the price. And the company is very plain about stating specifications.
Companies like Sonos bother me. They focus entirely on the user experience, outright refusing to publish any performance specifications for their products. To my mind, the technical merits of a well-designed device should be stated clearly. It’s not enough to be fun and cool. Be empirical as well.
On the other hand, Rolls Royce is famous for specifying the rated horsepower of the engine in its automobiles as merely “adequate.” The turbo version declared, “adequate plus 50%.” To some people, detailed specifications are meaningless. Literally, a distraction.
More Years Pass
I can’t recall where I first heard of the JBL M2 Master Reference Monitors. Introduced in 2014, they are the top of the latest generation of in a long line of JBL studio monitors. A clean sheet design embodying their very best ideas. Further, they draw upon Harman corporate siblings Crown (or Mark Levinson) and BSS for amplification and DSP/crossover engines. The M2 system is truly an exemplary feat of engineering, and the final product of Dr. Toole’s long career.
Of course, at $29,000 a pair they were interesting, but beyond my reach. I hunted around to see if there was some place nearby I could go to audition them, just to satisfy my curiosity, but came up empty. Pity.
More Affordable Derivatives
Over time, the technology developed for the M2 flowed into more approachable models, aimed at smaller studios. The JBL 708P and 705P, launched in 2018, embody much of what make the M2 interesting. They’re similar to the small, nearfield monitors that I’ve been using around here. Substantially more capable, and costly…but similar in nature.
As is my habit, I did some research. I found an array of glowing reviews at various online locations. Most notable, Audio Science Review (708P & 705P), whose community closely matches my own objectivist thinking, were very impressed. Engineering matters.
There are also some consumer oriented models, the 4305P, 4309, 4329P, 4367. While the professional models are in simple black boxes with fixed metal grills, the consumer variants have nice woodgrain veneers and removable cloth grills.
They also have different connectivity options. Models ending in ”P” are powered, with built-in DSP/crossovers and power amplifiers. Models without P, or ending in “i” are traditional, passive designs, requiring external amplification.
When it became apparent that they occasionally sell of B-stock at a discount, I was seriously tempted. Toward the end of 2023, I succumb and purchased a pair of the smaller JBL 705Ps from Solotech.
Initial Impression
When the JBLs first arrived I simply put them in place of the M-Audio BX5 D3’s they were to replace in my office. They were fed by a Raspberry Pi4, fitted with a HiFiBerry Pro XLR DAC, running PiCorePlayer.
It would be categorically unfair to compare the cheap-as-chips BX5s against the JBLs that cost 6-8x as much. The JBLs simply outperform their predecessor in every way imaginable. They deliver startling clarity. While still being relatively small, they’re capable of much deeper and more commanding bass. With a 250 Watt digital amplifier for each driver (!) they go much louder, with effortless ease.
They include an on-board DSP with parametric equalization and delay. This can be manually setup via controls on the back of each monitor. In a professional installation, at a large facility, this would all be remotely controlled from the JBL Intonato control system. In my, simple installation I have the EQ disabled for the moment.
HiQnet: IP Connectivity
Intonado is a control system that leverages IP connectivity that JBL calls HiQnet. HiQnet is common to many Harman Pro products. Their Audio Architect software uses it to control and configure systems. Also to update firmware.
Digging around online, it appears that the Intonado product was sidelined in 2017 when Samsung bought Harman, the parent company of JBL.
If I were to be setting up something more complicated, for example, an Ambisonic surround environment, I might like to use HiQnet to dial in EQ and timing for each of the playback channels.
An All-Digital Path
Feeding the JBLs via the analog XLR inputs involves a couple of potentially unnecessary signal conversions. The music starts as a digital stream, converted to analog via the HiFi Berry DAC. That’s conveyed to the monitors as a balanced +4 dbm analog signal. Once inside the monitor, it’s converted to a 24 bit 192 kHz digital stream for crossover filtering, EQ and timing adjustment, then converted back to analog for each of the power amplifiers.
It occurred to me that feeding them a digital signal, via the AES/EBU input, would substantially simplify that flow. That would leave only one, final digital-to-analog conversion prior to the power amplifiers.
To accomplish this change in signal path I purchased a HiFi Berry Digi 2 Pro HAT. This replaces the PRO XLR DAC, providing an SPDIF format digital output. Happily, the SPDIF format stream is something the AES inputs will accept.
An AES signal carries both (even multiple) channels on one wire. AES inputs have “looping” outputs. The output of the RPi goes to one of the monitors, looping out to the second monitor. The input selection menu on each monitor lets me assign it to play channel 1 or channel 2. This was easier to setup than it is to describe.
Best of all, it all works as I had hoped. Music playback in my office is now entirely digital; from the Lyrion music server, over the network, to the RPi & the JBLs.
Micro-PA
A short while ago I hosted a public meeting. It was in the library at a nearby elementary school. The school provided a projector in support of my slides. Given the size of the room I thought it wise to use a small PA to ensure presenters (including myself) could be heard. I’m told that I move around a lot when presenting. If I look to the screen while speaking it can be difficult to hear me unless I have a microphone.
I had very little time to setup, so I had to keep it small and simple. I settled upon a couple of wireless microphones fed into a little Soundcraft mixer, onward to one of the JBL 705Ps. Given careful speaker placement, and the controlled directivity of the JBL, there was no opportunity for feedback. The little PA setup was unobtrusive while sounding surprisingly clear and full. Such niceties tend to make a good impression on the audience.
Color Me Impressed
These little JBL 705Ps are easily most impressive small monitors I’ve ever encountered. It’s hard to fathom just how great they sound for being such a small box. In truth, they make me want a pair of the larger 708Ps. However, at the present time there don’t seem to any bargains on those. Even precious few available on the used market. Even if I had the spare funds for such a purchase, which I most certainly do not.
It’s been a long time since I bought something new for music playback. These JBLs have been a welcome upgrade.