The purpose of this test is to illustrate how much (if at all) the output changes as a speaker’s components temperature increases (i.e., voice coils, crossover components). One of the most significant selling points of the JBL 306P MkII is how they offer superb value for money. Yes, you can find cheaper monitors out there, but often you’ll be sacrificing a great deal in several areas like build and sound quality. The 305 and 306 somewhat ended my hi-fi buying hobby. I'll be the first to admit the woofer and tweeter are nothing special. Cheap, even. But as Amir alluded to, thanks to their excellent controlled dispersion they have a wonderful ability to sound "right" in the less-than-ideal listening rooms many (most?) of us are working with. In practical usage, this trumps a number of other flaws one might see on the graphs. I have heard objectively better speakers, and more subjectively enjoyable ones, but they have more quirks and cost multiples of the JBLs. It's rather narrow. If you're distorting at 5% across the entire frequency range that's one thing, this is another - perceptibility of narrowband stuff like that tends to be much lower than we'd think when we see those sharp peaks on a graph.

JBL 306P MKII Powered Two Way Active Studio Reference Monitor

As we'd expect, it's a whole other story when you high pass them so they're not trying to play deep bass. When used alongside Pro Tools 12 and our interface for mixing, we had a very easy time balancing mixes, adjusting equalization settings, and adding compression, finding that our mixes always translated as expected to other devices and listening settings. Our only gripe was that the speakers had a small amount of amp hiss when in a very quiet room with no sound playing, but that’s to be expected of any powered speakers with this volume potential and at this price point, and it became unnoticeable whenever sound was playing at any volume. These are my everyday speakers in my main setup. I'm no golden ears, but having listened to a lot of passive commercial and DIY speakers in this price range they are definitely my favorite, except for maybe the DIY Amiga towers (though that is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison) A major test of the 306P’s performance is to hear how well they integrate with our own monitoring system, comprising ATC SCM100A main and SCM25A midfield monitors, along with Yamaha NS10M nearfields. The JBLs perform superbly in this context, sounding naturally balanced, free from hype and insightful. In terms of scale, they sound far bigger than our NS10s and, with their widescreen soundstaging, on a par with the larger SCM 25As. With that in mind, I would easily recommend the 306Ps as the sole monitoring system in modestly sized project studios. ConclusionI understand these are really the “darlings” of the budget monitor scene. For the price, you do get a lot of good performance. However, I think it is important to highlight these concerns as they will ultimately affect a person’s final mix. For example, they may try to EQ out the midbass resonances I noted or the 1-2kHz issues or the HF shelf. If these attempts toward correcting the sound were made then the end user - who may have a much better system without these issues - would get bass that doesn’t sound right, or a 1-2kHz region that doesn’t right. I am providing this information so those who are shopping and/or use this speaker are aware of some of the things that were readily apparent to me with a variety of music genres. Output is limited by the internal DSP. From my testing, this occurs somewhere between 96dB and 102dB at 1 meter and results in significant limiting of the output signal. If one assumes 3dB of in-room gain and 6dB from adding a second speaker, this works out to be approximately a maximum volume of 105dB at 1 meter and 93dB at 4 meters, in-room for a pair. It is therefore reasonable to assume that these are not ideal for farfield, long-term high output listening and are best relegated to nearfield or midfield use for higher output levels. If listening at moderate volumes, these make a reasonable solution in terms of output levels. Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws: While the two EQ options (low and high-frequency shelf) are nice, I do wish there were additional options for fine-tailoring the sound to a particular location a la the Kali IN-5 I recently reviewed. Though, that would also factor into the cost. My recent discussion with Earl Geddes where he recommended one minute on, measure, another minute, measure.

JBL 306P MkII - MusicTech Review: JBL 306P MkII - MusicTech

is right in the middle of the female vocal range so it is not like the deep bass region where we want enough power to shake the foundations of the house. Below is the actual measured in-room response (with no DSP correction). This is a spatial average taken over approximately 1 cubic foot. The speakers were placed approximately 1.2m from the front wall (not the cabinets; but the actual wall). The listening position was primarily at 1.5m but for this test I measured the response at two different distances from the speakers. If you already like what you see with the 306P MkII but want a little extra grunt, the larger 308P MkII is worth considering. A capable and powerful 8-inch studio monitor.Services Guitar Workshop Electronic Repairs Workshop Music Store Events & Workshops Piano Showroom Music Lessons Recording Studio The below graphic indicates just how much SPL is lost (compression) or gained (enhancement; usually due to distortion) when the speaker is played at higher output volumes instantly via a 2.7 second logarithmic sine sweep referenced to 76dB at 1 meter. The signals are played consecutively without any additional stimulus applied. Then normalized against the 76dB result.