JBL L810 User Manual
test reports
test reports
The Studio L successfully
combines powerful
sound with a compact,
no-nonsense package.
WHAT WE THINK
52 FEBRUA RY/MARCH 2006 SOUND & VISION
S
peaker maker JBL is just one part of the Harman International family, but for a
brand that makes up only a single slice of a large pie, it has an incredibly diverse
product mix. Along with home theater speakers, JBL makes systems for musicrecording and film sound-mixing studios, movie theaters, concert halls, comput
ers, and cars. So many different speakers coming out of one lab is bound to lead
to some crossbreeding — a theory that helps explain the Studio L series. JBL’s
newest creation takes the robust build quality of its professional studio monitors and
mixes it with the flat-TV-friendly installation options we’ve come to expect from home
theater speakers. The result is an unusually rugged wall-mountable system — one that
makes other recent entries into the field look fussy and feminine in comparison.
The exceptionally sturdy cabinets — JBL ensures maximum rigidity by using 1-inch-
thick MDF for the front baffles — make Studio L
speakers heavier than most. Good thing, too: the
testosterone rush I worked up by heaving them out
of their boxes put me in the right frame of mind to
appreciate the blunt, unembellished design. The slablike L820 and L810 left/right satellites and LC2 cen
-
ter speaker have rounded edges and are surprisingly
Studio L Series Home Theater Speaker System
slim (51⁄2 inches deep with the
grilles on) given their overall heft.
The L8400P subwoofer echoes
the look of the sats, although its
silvery, molded-plastic feet add a
slight flourish. If your domestic
partner is a Martha Stewart-like
design fascist, you might want to
check out some of the sleeker, sex
ier options on the market. But if
your normal scene consists of bud
-
dies, brews, and a networked Play
Station alongside the home the
-
ater gear, this rig’s for you.
Each woodgrainfinished JBL sat has keyhole
mounts for a wall installation. Not
wanting to break out the drill, I
placed the L820s on 24-inch-high
speaker stands at either side of
my plasma TV and the L810s on
higher stands slightly behind and
at either end of my couch. The LC2
is one of the biggest center speak
ers I’ve ever tested — its higherthan-normal cabinet makes it a
better candidate for wall-mount
ing than TV-stand installation. On
the plus side, the LC2’s dual 6-inch
woofers make it an excellent sonic
match for the L820, which sports
a similar array of drivers. Fortu
-
nately, JBL also offers the match
ing LC1 ($ 499), a conventional hor
izontal center speaker that will fit
the shelves of most TV stands.
Like the larger L820, the L810
that I used for the surround chan
-
nels is a substantial, direct-radiat
ing satellite speaker with betterthan-average bass. After listening
to the pair’s focused, muscular
delivery on a few multichannel
tracks, I decided to angle them
back about 45°, bouncing the
sound off my rear wall for a more
diffuse, dipole-like presentation.
The L8400P, like most subwoof
ers, did its best work placed in the
right front corner of my room. An
LFE (low-frequency effects) set
ting on the sub’s back panel let me
bypass its internal crossover to
avoid overlap with the one in my
preamp/processor, which could
muddy the bass. The L820’s speci
-
fied 55-Hz bass rolloff meant that
JBL
PHOTOS BY TONY CORDOZA
SETUP
$3,098 / JB L.COM / 516-4 96-34 00
AL GRIFFIN
SV02 JBL-6rev.indd 52 12/13/05 3:35:49 PM
P L U S
Clean, uncolored sound.
Very good dynamics.
Excellent build quality.
Shallow cabinets permit wall mounting.
M I NU S
Blunt, unembellished looks.
The J BL Stud io L fro nt sate llite s are de signed f or mount ing ar ound a flat T V.
key features
●
L820 f ront left/right ($750 a pair)
3
⁄4-in
supertweeter, 1-in tweeter, 4-in midrange,
6-in woofer; 12
1
⁄4 in high; 19 lbs
●
LC2 center ($ 599)
3
⁄4-in supertweeter,
1-in tweeter, 4-in midrange, two 6-in
woofers; 12
1
⁄4 in high; 29 lbs
●
L810 surr ound ( $650 a pair)
3
⁄4-in
supertweeter, 1-in tweeter, 5
1
⁄4-in woofer;
14
1
⁄4 in wide; 14 lbs
●
L8400P subwoofer ($ 1,099 ) 12-in
driver; 600 -watt amplifier; crossoverbypass switch ; 15
1
⁄2 x 161⁄2 x 151⁄2 in,
58 lbs
●
Finished in black ash, beech, or cherry
vinyl woodgrain
●
SYSTEM TOTAL $3,098
test bench
JBL’s Studio L series main speakers all had
uniform directivity in the horizont al plane
and matched timbre, though there was some
roughnes s in response above 1 kHz. The
L8400P subwoofer could reach 109 to 112 dB
at 2 meters from 50 to 62 Hz, but output fell at
nearly 16 dB per octave below 50 Hz, meaning
it’s not a deep-bass powerhouse. Nominal
impedance for the L820 and LC2 measured
unusually low at 4.3 and 4.4 ohms, respectively
— something to note when matching them
with an amplifier or receiver. — Tom Nousaine
➥
Full l ab resul ts on S&V Web si te
the short form
soundandvisionmag.com SOUND & VISION FEBRUARY/MARCH 2006 53
I could have used a lower than
normal crossover, but the system
sounded fine with the standard 80Hz THX cutoff, so I ran with it.
One notable feature of all JBL Stu
dio L series speakers is a hornloaded “supertweeter” that is said
to extend response out to 40 kHz.
Human hearing cuts off at half
that frequency (or less), so it can
be reasonably argued that supertweeters are better suited for dogs
and other animals with more
sensitive ears than our own. JBL,
however, says the feature lets you
derive the full benefit of high-reso
-
lution audio formats like SACD.
Thinking along those lines, I
pulled out a Sony SACD of Bach:
The Four Great Toccatas and Fugues
performed by E. Power Biggs — a
truly awesome name for a con
cert organist. Derived from master
tapes used to produce a quadra
phonic recording back in 1974, it
features Biggs playing a four-organ
setup controlled by a central con
-
sole in Germany’s Freiberg cathe
dral — an ideal environment for a
surround sound recording.
I can’t say with absolute cer
tainty that the L series sats’
extended highs made much dif
ference in this case. What I can
say is that when I listened to the
Dorian
toccata and fugue in D
Minor, the diverse ranges of the
four organs sounded distinct, and
I could clearly hear the textures of
the keyed notes. But clarity didn’t
come at the expense of other attri
butes: each instrument had an
exceptionally smooth, airy sound,
and there was a spaciousness and
warmth that helped convey the
cathedral’s vast interior. But the
most striking thing about listen
ing to this performance on the JBL
speaker system was the sense of
being seated in a continuous, com
pletely seamless, space. There was
also a smooth transition between
the low and high organ notes as
Biggs made his virtuosic runs
across the keyboard.
The JBLs also revealed loads of
detail on acoustic folk songs like “John Wayne Gacy”
from Sufjan Stevens’s
Illinois
— possibly the pretti-
est song ever written about a serial killer. The speak
ers easily captured the raw, intimate tone of Stevens’s
voice. And the piano — also recorded in a church
— had a wonderfully liquid and spacious sound com
-
ing from the front L/R pair of L820s. On a more rous
ing track, “A History of Lovers”
from the Iron & Wine/Calexico
collaboration
In the Reins
, the
JBLs did a fine job of capturing
the slamming, up-front sound of
the drum kit while also clearly
rendering the multiple layers of
acoustic and pedal-steel guitar.
And when a horn section kicked
in midtrack, the Studio L sys
-
tem’s effortless delivery proved
it could rock just as hard as
other JBL setups I’ve heard.
It’s not the Freiberg Cathedral,
but in the movie
Batman Begins
,
the Batcave serves as a sacred
space of sorts. I especially like
a chapter from the DVD where Bruce Wayne (Chris
-
tian Bale) rediscovers an old well leading to an under
ground cave — the site of a childhood trauma — and
crawls down to confront his primal fear by standing
amidst a cloud of swirling, shrieking bats. The JBLs
did an excellent job of conveying this scene in all its
unsettling detail. The L810 surrounds gave a real
istic sense of envelopment, from the initial echo of
water droplets in the damp, cavernous space to the
swarm of flapping, beating batwings that gradually
engulf Wayne. And in a scene where the sinister Dr.
Crane talks to Carmine Falcone, the LC2 center clearly
delivered the clipped, icy tone of Crane’s voice and
the crime boss’s heavy (and unconvincing) Brooklyn
accent, with only a slight variation of tone at off-cen
-
ter seats.
The “studio” tag on the Studio
L speakers is well earned. This system’s robust build
quality surpasses that of many speakers in its price
range and makes a strong connection to JBL’s profes
-
sional line. The same can also be said for its clean,
uncolored sound and impressive dynamics. While
the satellites’ extended highs didn’t exactly make me
stand up and say “Aha!,” the system’s performance
with top-notch SACD recordings was nothing short
of stunning. You can easily buy a better-looking sys
tem for several hundred dollars less, and it will make
a more elegant design statement alongside your new
flat-panel TV. But if performance is more important to
you than the fussy stuff, you’ll be well served by JBL’s
Studio Ls.
S&V
MUSIC PERFORMANCE
MOVIE PERFORMANCE
BOTTOM LINE
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