Built quality JBL 705 i speakers

[Olli]

I‘m a bit shocked about the built quality of my newly arrived brand new JBL 705i speakers - is this normal?

 

[Juhazi]

Looks normal, compare to this advertisement!
https://www.thomann.de/gb/jbl_lsr_705p.htm

"New normal" doesn't mean good quality!

 

[direstraitsfan98]

It’s funny you mention this. I recall having a conversation with a Swedish chap who was complaining to me about the less premium feel of his particular JBL, speaker, the 4367 versus the 4365. Which he owned beforehand. Specifically, there was a serious defect with the horn construction, and it’s mounting to the upper cabinet. A gap between the two on only one of the monitors. When he contacted JBL about it, they said that was normal.

JBL has been cutting corners since the mid 2000s, shortly after Harman bought them out. I wouldn’t say this has resulted in products with inferior sonic performance. It anything, the opposite is true.

Some examples of this that I can think of is the finishing of the R&D of the Master Reference (M2) monitor, and it’s continual trickle down into other products, like the 705, and the Synthesis line. Conversely, you can see that JBL moved production from their Woodbridge facilities to Mexico, and also, China. As expected, the attention to detail and care has been lost a bit.

The predecessor to the JBL Synthesis 4367, the 4365, was a speaker with considerable more time and care paid attention to the quality of construction. The crossover board for the 4367 seems hastily put together, with globs of hot glue lying on the board, and less premium look and feel to the fit and finish (the 4365 weighs over 25kg more!) what’s important to note that by all accounts, the 4367 is a surperior sounding speaker to the 4365.

Takeaway from all this? JBL (all of Harman, really. I didn’t even get into my thoughts on Mark Levinson) has been cutting corners where they can, and probably investing some of that savings into R&D. I imagine the costs of running their state of the art testing facilities and keeping engineers on payroll has skyrocketed in the last few decades versus 60 years ago.

Sorry for the bit of a rant! I really wish the build quality of the newer JBL stuff was the same level as even 20 year ago. I sympathize with your concerns.

 

[ripvw]

JBL has been cutting corners since the mid 2000s, shortly after Harman bought them out.

Harman bought JBL in 1969:

https://www.jblpro.com/www/jbl-story/history

I visited their Northridge, California facility many times from the mid-1970's to the mid-1990's - construction quality was always very high with their US made products during that time IMO...

 

[Thomas savage]

I‘m a bit shocked about the built quality of my newly arrived brand new JBL 705i speakers - is this normal?

View attachment 31704View attachment 31705

Yea my 705p's were crappy too

 

[direstraitsfan98]

Harman bought JBL in 1969:

https://www.jblpro.com/www/jbl-story/history

I visited their Northridge, California facility many times from the mid-1970's to the mid-1990's - construction quality was always very high with their US made products during that time IMO...

I think I meant Samsung then. Thanks for clarifying. The 90s would have been a time when JBL were still manufacturing their top the line Everest line in the USA.

 

[Ron Texas]

IMO, in some of the more expensive studio monitors a lot of what you are paying for is the ability to control them over a network and built in EQ. However, one would think at the prices for the 700 series the plain black cabinets could be finished nicely.

 

[Olli]

I don‘t care about the looks that much because they will be ceiling-mounted anyway. And they sound great. But I somehow thought JBL/Harman was positioned more like a premium brand. Reminds me of how cars were built in the 70s, especially wrt gap dimensions. Strange to see something like that from a major (consumer) brand in 2019.

 

[BillG]

But I somehow thought JBL/Harman was positioned more like a premium brand.

These are studio monitors, though, and there's a different mindset to that environment - they don't care about "premium", or even looks really. They want sturdy, reliable monitors that are as accurate and as transparent as possible...

 

[Olli]

I have quite some „studio“ stuff as well: RME, Motu, Adam... all of these brands have a built quality that is miles away from the JBL 705i. So „studio“ can‘t be the excuse.

 

[jhaider]

But I somehow thought JBL/Harman was positioned more like a premium brand. Reminds me of how cars were built in the 70s, especially wrt gap dimensions. Strange to see something like that from a major (consumer) brand in 2019.

Did you buy those as A-stock? Mine are similar, but I bought B-stock so such cabinet fit/finish issues were built into the discounted price.

 

[anmpr1]

The cabinet fit and finish on my inexpensive Presonus Eris that I use for PC speakers are better.

 

[Olli]

Did you buy those as A-stock? Mine are similar, but I bought B-stock so such cabinet fit/finish issues were built into the discounted price.

At least this was not inidcated by the seller musicsquare.de. But good point, I‘ll ask him. That would explain things.

 

[FrantzM]

I have five LSR 3 Series and their fit is not that bad ...

 

[ripvw]

I have five LSR 3 Series and their fit is not that bad ...

Although I sold hundreds of JBL products in my career, the 308P MKII are the first JBLs I've ever owned. The simple black box made of thin MDF that makes up the majority of the cabinet is nothing special, but the molded plastic front fascia is very different. Every edge is chamfered and rounded to support the amazing qualities of the waveguide. The effort put into this portion of the speaker makes it well worth the $500 list price per pair - and at $149 each they were a steal...

My Dynaudio BM6A monitors held up very well during the 11 years I owned them. They were much sturdier boxes of thicker MDF and were internally braced as well. Some of that was due to the fact they had very heavy 100/100 wpc discrete MOSFET amps hanging off the back of them. But even here, for many times the price I paid for the JBLs, the Dynaudio Pros had nowhere near the fit and finish of the domestic models which are truly like Danish furniture.

 

[Julf]

Good!!
I write this note only with the aim of providing material, for the construction of acoustic boxes.
The page is in Spanish, but very complete.
I hope it will be you useful.
Regards

https://planosbafles.blogspot.com

Spam? Promotion unrelated to topic at hand, posted in at least 3 threads.

 

[Olli]

BTW: The dealer agreed on the poor quality and gave me another 150 EUR discount. Nice.

 

[watchnerd]

My Dynaudio BM6A monitors held up very well during the 11 years I owned them. They were much sturdier boxes of thicker MDF and were internally braced as well. Some of that was due to the fact they had very heavy 100/100 wpc discrete MOSFET amps hanging off the back of them. But even here, for many times the price I paid for the JBLs, the Dynaudio Pros had nowhere near the fit and finish of the domestic models which are truly like Danish furniture.

Very true. My Dynaudio LYD monitors are matte black, sturdy, and utilitarian. One has a nick in one corner due to being dropped, but you barely notice it. In contrast, my Contour 20 pair in the living room is gloss white and looks like high end Scandinavian furniture.

That being said, I wish the tweeter guard of the LYD was also available for the more expensive tweeter on the Contour.

I've had to give mouth suction to the tweeters more than once.

 

[riker1384]

The cosmetic issues might not matter in and of themselves, if they don't affect sound. But it would make me worry, if the cabinet is constructed that sloppily, what about the actual audio components? Do we know if they have good consistency and that you'll be getting a speaker that sounds the same as the ones measured in the magazines?

Have people measured multiple examples of any of these speakers to see how consistent they are?

 

[echopraxia]

The cosmetic issues might not matter in and of themselves, if they don't affect sound. But it would make me worry, if the cabinet is constructed that sloppily, what about the actual audio components? Do we know if they have good consistency and that you'll be getting a speaker that sounds the same as the ones measured in the magazines?

Have people measured multiple examples of any of these speakers to see how consistent they are?

It seems likely that the poor build quality (or consistency) actually is affecting the sound quality, because the independent measurements I've recently been shown for these speakers show severe flaws:

JBL 705P:

Look at the MASSIVE null at around 750hz on-axis where a 10db drop is measured, combined with a very weird looking time-plot where it's almost as if everything at this frequency is smeared and delayed by 5ms!

It's hard to imagine how this happened and got past the design phase from a company that prides itself in making speakers that measure well as per Harman research. So how do you think this happened?

It seems possible that this could be due to shoddy construction of the cabinet where various severe resonances appear or disappear depending on the particular unit. Looking at the decay plot, this does not appear to be something that can be corrected with DSP (but I'm not an expert on measurements as much as some people here are; so additional thoughts would be appreciated). In any case, even if this were correct-able with DSP, JBL clearly failed to do so.

P.S. For comparison, here are the same measurements of the Neumann KH120, a speaker which is less expensive than the JBL 705p but measures far better in every way I can see aside from power handling and max SPL:

Neumann KH120 (For Comparison):

(Apologies for the bad resolution; this is an extraction from a PDF review linked by Neumann's website, which seems to contain very limited resolution of this as it's only included as a thumbnail.)