OP: I dont' know about better, but I heard the Klipsch Heresy's with a Rogue integrated and really liked them.
3-4 dB dip at crossover region: what should I listen for to hear it?
I haven’t posted here for about 10 years but thought I’d jump back in to ask about my new JBL 4349s. According to measurements on ASR and even JBLs own graphs, the 4349s have a 3-4 dB dip in the crossover region at about the 1.5 kHz mark. What should I listen for to hear this? I understand that music in this range will be quieter, but I’m not hearing any suckout compared to my Omegas or other speakers Ive had in my system. I’ve played some clarinet and violin concertos, two instruments that spend a lot of time in this frequency range, but I can’t hear an obvious difference. Am I listening for the wrong thing? I’d like to be able to hear this deficiency for leaning purposes if nothing else, so any pointers are appreciated.
Many thanks!
Showing 13 responses by erik_squires
OP: To be clear, your speakers don’t exhibit what I'd normally call horn colorations. While not perfect, the overall response in the horn region is pretty smooth compared to say an old-school Altec. The complaint ASR makes is that the two drivers don’t blend perfectly at the crossover. Horn colorations are the peaks and dips in the usable range of the horn, not how they mesh with the other drivers. |
@toddalin That was my memory/expectation as well. |
@mlsstl You are not wrong at all. By the way, I'm not saying a juiced frequency response is necessarily something never to be done. Between old Wilson's that had a similar crossover hole at ~ 2.4 kHz to the Dali's with the 2-3 DB extra treble lift, or the Dynaudio's with a W shaped response. These speakers all have fans and listening habits which make them the ideal speaker. There are also speakers and reviewers that have become enamored of certain colorations and call it neutral. Ugh. |
If you can’t hear it, you can’t hear it. don’t force yourself to. MANY speakers have ragged response graphs far worse than this, and they are often credited with being "revealing" and making the reviewer go through their entire music catalog again as if they are hearing the songs for the first time. Amazing!! What actually happens is that the ragged response makes some notes pop more than others, tricking your ear into believing it to be more revealing, and it is, but only in some ways. This is overall a very smooth measuring speaker, with the potential for excellent off-axis performance and dynamic range. JA at Stereophile has certainly praised a number of speakers that measured far worse. |
It would be very difficult for me to believe that the crossover dip was an oversight by the JBL crossover design team. While ASR is good at measuring and complaining, I’ve yet to see them do an in depth speaker analysis. They measure a speaker, sure, but an in depth look would be to disassemble it, trace out the crossover, measure the driver impedances and then put together a complete simulation. Or even better, do as Troels Gravesen does with some vintage speakers and demonstrate the value of a crossover re-think by making a new crossover and measuring the finished results. ASR is a misnomor. They are Audio Quality Review... they don’t usually know what the underlying tech is doing, they just measure the results, which is useful but doesn’t go far enough. For instance, the Kef Reference 1 Meta really needs an in depth crossover analysis because there may be great ways to fix the low impedance. ASR noted the impedance without any understanding of what they were looking at. My point is, they measure, they get all huffy and the like to think of themselves as the last word, but they are not even close. It is quite possible the crossover is the best compromise possible with these two drivers. I would be absolutely shocked if this was merely a matter of crossover selection. Not in this century and not from JBL. |
@panzrwagn I may have been thinking of the S. Harsch crossover alignment. |
@panzrwagn no. Linkwitz Riley sum to zero at the crossover if alihned correctly. This is more obscure. |
One other thing that I'm thinking about is that ASR is measuring the speaker at 1 watt. Lots of speakers measure close to flat ONLY at 1 watt and then have their performance rapidly degrade when louder or heated up by playing (i.e. thermal compression). For a speaker like this, excellent performance even when played hot would matter more for me. |
Couple of things come to mind. First, it could be deliberate to enhance imaging. Next, it may not be "real" in the sense that the overall energy you hear in a room may be different, or it is designed for zero toe in and listening at an angle which eliminates this issue. Despite the guys at ASR getting their panties all knotted up, if a bear poops in the woods and there’s no one there to smell it..... oh, I forgot the metaphor but basically if you don’t hear it who cares? This from a speaker maker who sweats each Hz and each dB!! 😂 Might be fun to MEASURE it in your room, and them switch a compensating parametric EQ curve in and out to see if you care and which you prefer. This is kind of tickling my memory of theater speakers, which were often 2-way and horn loaded. We never had perfect crossover matching, but we did have very good sounding theaters. This horn/woofer alignment striikes me as similar. |