A Little About JBL

[Pelliott321]

I just could not own anything that looked like this speaker.
Too many drivers.
Music should only have one path whether electrically or acoustically

[brombo]

It is a phased array -

https://www.linkwitzlab.com/Keele%20-%2 ... Arrays.pdf

In the presentation the phasing is done geometrically by having the drivers in an arc. In the JBL CBT it is done electrically (partially) with a rather complex crossover network.

[Pelliott321]

Any you had that crazy Parts Express speaker and how long did you have that monstosity

[brombo]

I still have them. The JBL CBT speakers are an upgrade (in the CBT36K the crossover from the midrange to the tweeters was too low, 1kHz) and will sit on top of the subwoofers. Remember this is a home theater and I want each seat to have the same loudness which is why I am using the CBT speakers.

[Cogito]

I dont care what audioscience review says.

This speaker pair is retailed for $1435 and it has 42 drivers.
If you consider 50% margin for the retailer cost of each driver come to $17. Thats not including cabinets, crossovers, assembly, painting, testing, packaging, shipping etc, etc.. With all that taken into account, each driver could not be more than $2.

What quality are you expecting from $2 drivers?

[brombo]

Why don't you care what the review says? Do you think the measurements are erroneous? All the drivers use Neodymium magnets. How can you know what the drivers cost? Yes, the speakers are designed for "professional" applications and many find there way into churches for sound reinforcement because of their constant beam width properties.

[tomp]

At one of the Speaker Design Competitions where I was a judge, the three judges including me gave the highest marks to one of the entries in what at that point was the under $200 category. It was shy on bass, but the rest of the performance was outstanding. Driver quality has increases dramatically in recent years and there are now drivers out there that are real values. It all about knowing what you are doing.

[Cogito]

Do you think the measurements are erroneous?

Age old argument. Measurements are done with sine waves which are the easiest to reproduce. We dont listen to sine waves. That is why measurements do not tell the complete story of how the speakers really sound. The day some smart engineer devices a method to measure performance of speakers with music as source, I will be all in. Until then, measurements are just a guideline.

How can you know what the drivers cost?

Educated guess.

Last edited by Cogito on September 9th, 2025, 12:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Cogito]

At one of the Speaker Design Competitions where I was a judge, the three judges including me gave the highest marks to one of the entries in what at that point was the under $200 category. It was shy on bass, but the rest of the performance was outstanding. Driver quality has increases dramatically in recent years and there are now drivers out there that are real values. It all about knowing what you are doing.

Tom,
Again, we have to go back to the design criteria. You DIY person should have given audio quality highest priority in the design. Can we say the same about these JBL speakers?

And in a DIY speaker, cost is calculated only for raw materials. Labor cost is not included. In real world, the $200 raw material speakers would be sold for more than $1k in retail stores, no?

[cport]

Please just look at the review. The speakers were designed by Don Keele who wrote most of the book on speaker measurements ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Keele_Jr. )
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/foru ... cer.21469/

Keele might have designed these speakers, but without information on the design criteria he was working with, one cannot make any judgements. Afterall, contemporary JBL is not a "high-end" company anymore. They are competing in low-end mass-production speaker brands like Yamaha and Sony.

@Cogito: You might want to "tuck in" these statements, as your "knowledge gap" is starting to show -- rather than "obstructions" that cause reflections, these are shaped grates that are Patent-pending Tapered Horizontal Waveguides (notice the wide gaps that leave the woofer/mid-ranges mostly exposed), and which perform the function of steering and directing the sound-pressure waveforms. JBL is still a high end company, and makes some wonderful products -- and is part of the same family as REVEL. They do tend to target pro-audio and low-end markets, but the drivers that they manufacture (or OEM) are very well designed -- "Music is art, but sound reproduction [in the home] is science and engineering", and JBL(Harman) is a leader in the scientific investigation of sound reproduction.