The JBL Studio 698 tower speaker offers exceptional value by delivering performance surprisingly close to higher-end models, despite some minor sonic limitations and a potentially competitive internal strategy for JBL.
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you may have caught my recent review of
the JBL Studio 630 bookshelf side
speaker kind of looks like the HDI
1600 what 700 bucks or so a pair and
frankly I just wasn't that happy with
them there was a a strong mid-range
scoop of about five or so Deb depending
on where you draw your little line you
know and overall I'm just like what's
going on here the same person who sent
me those also had the 698 tower speaker
drop Shi to me now the tower speaker is
a true three-way design with dual 8in
wolfers a 6in mid-range and then a 1-in
compression driver loaded into a wave
guide and so the deal is that I first
listened to the 630 bookshelf speaker
and you know I did all that stuff and
then I pulled in the 698 and I set them
up and I got to be honest I was kind of
expecting the same thing with just with
more output right the Dual eight wolfers
I thought okay I'm probably going to get
a little bit lower going to get a little
bit louder but it's probably going to
have that same underwhelming tonal
characteristic that the 630s had at
least to my ear but fortunately that was
not the case the 698 Tower to me
represents an incredible value now it's
not the most linear speaker it's not the
best overall sounding speaker that I've
ever heard but man it's pretty freaking
close I mean well I shouldn't say pretty
freaking close to the best I've ever
heard but as far as being an incredible
value with good out put good linearity
overall good neutrality not perfect but
overall man it's right there so I listen
to every track that I could throw at it
you know just wanting to really see what
this thing does because at some point I
thought I'm going to break this speaker
not in terms of physically mechanically
breaking it but breaking the point at
which I thought it was a good speaker
again I was influenced by the negative
bias of the 630 thinking that I must be
missing something you know but the
mid-range sounds like it's there doesn't
sound like it's missing the overall
trend of the high frequency was there it
wasn't too bright the only thing that I
really ever ran into was I felt like on
certain instruments where there's air
and some Sizzle and some Shimmer to
Let's for example symbols it just wasn't
quite there and I thought well maybe
that's the aiming you know I aimed them
on axis directly at me but then I also
played around with Towing them off axis
but that wasn't it it wasn't the aiming
it didn't really matter which way I
aimed them as long as you know they were
pointed directly at me that really wound
up being the the best sound sometimes
pointing the speakers away from you
works out better sometimes pointing them
directly at you works out better in this
particular case with the 698 Towers I
would recommend pointing them directly
at you maybe maybe slightly off axis but
I would not go the route of lining them
up with the wall behind them and
pointing them 30° off axis to where
they're firing straight out into the
room if you do that I think you're going
to lose a little bit too much top end
now the flip side of that is with the
speaker like this you're probably going
to be using Equalization cuz these are
at least in my opinion these have the
look and the feel and the JBL history of
being a home
theater um what's what I'm looking for
here like targeted type speaker so
you're probably going to be using
Equalization if you do that you can
boost up the highend bring in some of
that sparkle that Shimmer if you need to
turn them off Axis or if in general you
just find that you're missing that you
can do that reasonably safely without
increasing a lot of distortion because
the distortion on the high end of these
is super super low but we'll talk little
bit more about that the radiation
pattern on these
horizontally is awesome it's about plus
or minus 65 degrees which is that's
like sliding right into that perfect
spot for where I want horizontal width
to be and the good thing about this wave
guide design is that it's matched well
to that midwoofer that's underneath it
and that gives you a smooth continuous
handoff as you go from mid-base to
midwoofer to mid-range and there's no
shrinking of the images in The Sound
Stage the images don't shift from way
out to the side to way narrow because of
a poor crossover design where a poor
crossover design may have poor matching
between the radiation pattern of the
Tweeter and the mid and then that would create
nonlinearities for a lack of better
words in the Imaging Precision of
instruments in The Sound Stage like if
it's supposed to be over here at 2 khz
but the crossover is crap and the
continuity and the handoff between the
mid-range and the Twitter isn't good
then the image may be over here or maybe
over here and just like it's not quite
where it should be you don't have that
issue with these speakers the only
downside is that they do they the
speakers do start narrowing around like
10 khz or so it's not super TI height
not like a dome Tweeter is normally
going to be because again this is a wave
got to design so it has a little bit
more flare so in my listening test I'm
like 10t away and then I do 6 feet away
and no matter where I was that mid-base
bump was pronounced it's around 80 HZ
and you'll see that in the data in a
little bit now I noticed that because
certain tracks I have you know they're
going to have a kick drum kick drum
fundamentals like 50 to 60 htz give or
take but then a lot of times in the room
what you'll have is you'll have kind of
the missing effect of a kick drum around
like 70 80 Hertz or so CU that kick drum
you know it's not just one Spike at 50
or 60 HZ it kind of tapers off like
almost like an EQ Bell and for that
reason in room a lot of times we'll have
a null around 80 HZ you it depends on
your room but most of the time you'll
have a null somewhere in that region 70
to 90 htz right around 80 htz now it's
interesting that this speaker features a
bump in there and it almost makes me
wonder if that bump was designed
to possibly and this is just a theory to
possibly counteract some of what most
typical rooms have in that dip in that
mid-base dip right in that region it
could just be coincidence it really
could just be but I noticed that now at
10 ft away I like that it was there at 6
feet away my room does a little bit
something different and that dip isn't
as prominent naturally in the room
so there was a little bit extra mid-base
Bloom at around 80 HZ that I didn't
necessarily care for so that's going to
be room dependent but I thought I would
mention that and put it out there for
you positioning of these speakers I
would say that if you can get them three
feet from the wall at least from the
baffle if ideally if you can get the
back of the speaker 3 feet off the wall
that's going to be
better if you move them closer into the
wall what I found was that the base is just
just
that mid-base area is just too prominent
now you can always go and EQ that down
that's fine and some will say and I
would tend to agree that I would rather
have too much of something than not
enough of something especially in the
base now on the higher end the mid-range
frequencies I'm I don't necessarily feel
that way but on the base end of things
because your room is doing so much wonky
stuff that you're going to have to use
Equalization so if you can use
Equalization to bring something down
then it's better to do that than it is
to try to bring it back up most of the
time you can't do that anyway cuz a null
in a room is an acoustic null and the
only thing you can do to fight that is
to move like peace I'm out you walk
around you go find somewhere else to sit
well you can't really do that in a room
because your seats are fixed your
speaker locations are fixed so maybe in
this case it's better to have that bump
at around 80 htz now going above that I
will say just kind of the overall tamber
sound of the speaker is mostly neutral
it really is uh you you know I mentioned
that higher frequency area like the 10
khz and above missing some air and some
sparkle there were a couple times where
I thought maybe maybe the speaker was a little
little
bit maybe just a little bit cilent but
you know that could have been track to
track I don't really see anything in the
data that jumps out at me and says here
I am this is your problem so that could
have just been from track to track the
dynamic range capability of the speaker
I mean yeah it's got two 8 inch wolfers
is really good but but it's worth noting that
that
below around like 60 HZ or so at least
what I noticed in my room is that when
you really get on them they don't make a
mechanical noise but you can tell that
the mid base isn't quite as impactful as
it is at lower volumes and let's just
you know ballp part range if I'm
listening around 80 HZ not 80 HZ sorry
if I'm listening around 80 DB at about
10 ft away they pair of speakers um then
then if I crank it up to like around the
98 to 100 dbel range which I know is
really loud but it's important for me to
convey this information and and numbers
that are easier to
follow then what I noticed was that the
mid-base snap in the impact wasn't quite
as there on the lower mid-base end below
about 60 HZ now some people will say sub
for territory is 30 HZ and Below some
people will say sub for territory is 80
HZ and Below that's why I'm kind of
defining my lower mid-base end is like
around 60 to 80 you know just kind of
giving you an idea there it may change
next week but at least I'm giving you
numbers now that would really be the
only caveat to saying that these things
have a lot of output capability and for
that reason you know I would definitely
recommend you run subwoofers with these
you don't have to run subwoofers with
these but if you want output below about
50 HZ you are going to need subwoofers
with these again going back to the
consideration that most people looking
at these are going to be y yying buying
subwoofers and using them in a home
theater then that kind of makes sense
these speakers retail at about $1,700
prare which I think is a good value I
really do they feature like I said
earlier a three-way design a 1-in
compression driver a 6in midwoofer and
two 8 in mid-base drivers this does have
two rear firing ports so that kind of
goes toward the notion of maybe don't
put them right against the wall for sure
not right against the wall but maybe not
necessarily close to the wall either
power handling by JBL is rated up to 250
watts per speaker these do come with a
removable magnetic Grill which I did not
use for my testing or my listening but I
like the fact that the grill is curved
to match the baffle of the speaker it's
just a nice good-looking overall design
in my personal opinion and the weight of
this speaker is at about 80 lbs just
maybe a little bit under that so they're
pretty heavy you might want to have
someone to help you pick them up out of
the box if nothing else one of my
favorite characters from The Goonies is
data I think my overall favorite
character I'm torn I like mouth because
he wears the Prince Purple Rain shirt
and I like I mean his mouth but data is
one of my favorite characters not just
because he has slick shoes but also
because his name is data so speaking of
data let's get into that portion of this
review all the data that you're about to
see is captured using my clip old
nearfield scanner is a state-of-the-art
device that allows me to get anaco data
which means data without room
interaction in a nonanoic environment
such as my garage which you see in this
video or alternatively in my literal
dining room which my patrons have seen
but I'm not publishing that publicly
because it's a little bit embarrassing
to show off my dining room with a big
machine in it first up is the impedance
minimum impedance of 4.1 ohm above 80 HZ
this is the Ona response mean SPL 90 DB
dead onto the spec I like seeing that
you know a couple DBS off is typical
more than three or four DBS off is when
I start going man what are they doing
how are they specking this 90 DB dead on
that's good you can see that the
response is within about up here it's
Nega 4.51 to two but the negative is
because it's high frequency dip right
here and this is what I was talking
about earlier about losing some Shimmer
some Sparkle from certain effects aside
from that the speaker is actually pretty
close to within about plus or minus 2 DB
F3 is at 53 Herz F10 is at 34 Herz this
goes back to me saying that for response
in room below around 50 HZ give or take
you're still going to want to sub for
because the rate of rolloff is it's not
super fast I've certainly seen higher
rolloff rates but it's enough that if
you're trying to get down to 40 HZ or 30
HZ in the room you're just really not
going to get a lot of it unless you're
lucky and your room happens to light up
a certain mode in that region this is
the ca 2034 data set this is a really
good way to look at the overall
performance but isn't the only way so
this is one portion of the review that
we're going to look at on AIS response
same thing we saw here listening window
plus orus 30° to the side plus or- 10°
up and down tracks the on axis response
good so this green and this black the
fact that they track pretty well is a
good sign it means that the reflections
are going to be similar to the direct
sound that you're going to listen to
another way to check that is to look at
the erdi down here this dashed blue line
and whenever this is linear that's also
another good sign that the reflections
match the listening window response or
close to the on-axis response
what's important to note also is that
there's a little bit of a bump right
around here so if I draw a line through
this region this bump remains now this
bump is due to the distance between the
Tweeter and the midwoofer below it are
you going to hear that directivity
pronouncement probably not now it does
indicate that you need to be careful
about where you position your ears with
the Tweeter and this particular case
your ear should be in line with the
Tweeter sometimes sometimes designs like
wave got designs will require you to put
your ear between the Tweeter and the mid
wolfer so in that mid spot but in this
particular speaker's case I found that
right at the Tweeter axis is the best
response axis going back to this line
the fact that it's linear means that
this speaker will take well to
Equalization at least within this region
now it's going to be a little bit
tougher right through here but that's
not a big enough deal for me to say
don't buy the speaker this is the
estimated in room response and what I'm
about to show you pay attention is my
subjective take on what I heard overlaid
onto the objective representation of
a estimated inter room response so here
we go this is the blue line that I'm
overlaying this is kind of how I heard
the speaker first off mid-base peak
around what is that around 80 HZ 70 HZ
or so gives some extra punch but note
that I'm saying it can be boomy
depending on the room this drop right
down here around 2 khz there's a bit of
clarity or detail missing it's not
something that really like jumped out at
me but in some tracks I felt like maybe
it was slightly missing and when I
looked at the data I'm thinking okay
well maybe that's it this peak right
around 3 khz I actually didn't catch
this earlier maybe this is kind of what
I was hearing when I said it sounded
like the speaker maybe was just a little
bit cilent at times maybe that's it
maybe that gives a little bit of a glare
to certain sounds but I don't know if
I'm too concerned with it and then up
here this is the real thing that just
stood out to me the most was the lack of
air and sparkles with certain instruments
instruments
again you can equalize this up if you
want to heck you could even equalize
this down if you needed to this area is
going to be a little bit tougher to
equalize but as long as you are online
with the Tweeter you can equalize this
up smooth it right out and you're okay
now this little bit of an area you can
see there's kind of a a bit of a gap
here about 1 dbel or so between the
mid-base and the mid-range trend line I
mentioned that it sounded like the
mid-range lower mid-range was just a
little bit off but I thought it was was
because the mid-base was extra Punchy
and this kind of backs that up you know
the mid-base being a little bit extra
Punchy we hear things relatively you may
key in on something that I don't key
into you may initially say that I can't
take this and I love this for me I'm
thinking well this might be a little bit
too much I can handle this and I can
make a tradeoff and then actually I
could just equalize the speaker pretty
much to flat on axis and have a great
sounding speaker out the gate horizontal
radiation plus orus 65° look how well
controlled that is now it balloons out a
little bit and there's some defraction
elements here a little bit go into the
vertical stay on the Tweeter axis see
how this dark red dips down through here
this is where the crossover is between
the Tweeter and the midwoofer and really
what this means is that the radiation
between those two is starting to diverge
enough to where if you're sitting
directly on the tweeter's axis and then
you sit below it or you sit above it
more than about 20 Dees as I've shown
here you're going to hear a pretty
significant difference in the overall
tamber of the speaker now that probably
doesn't matter for most people because
your vertical position isn't really
going to change but it would matter if
you have multiple rows in a home theater
setting because those secondary rows
they may not be within that 20° window
do you really care if the person behind
you hears everything perfectly I mean
they've got a person in front of them so
that's already changing things but it's
just something to consider harmonic
Distortion at 86 DB and then at 96 DB
these both look clean to me I said
earlier if you eqed up the higher
frequency yeah I I said you could do it
without really causing any issues I
still think that because it would be
above 10 khz if you added one or two Deb
to the higher frequency I don't think
it's going to be enough to really wreck
this and I didn't have any problems in
doing that multi-tone Distortion is more
important by far than harmonic
Distortion and as long as it's below
this 3% Distortion threshold personally
subjectively speaking this is my
personal opinion based on my listening
test as long as it's below that 3% line
I'm okay with it now if we're talking
it's up here at -20 DB we got problems
okay but because it's below this 3% I'm
okay with it and it stays well below
that for the entire bandwidth from 20 HZ
to 20 khz what happens if you use a
subwoofer and cross this speaker this
tower speaker above 80 HZ this is what
you get you really notice there's not a
lot of change there except for this
mid-range area go back see how this
mid-range area on the 80 HZ version gets
lower the Distortion gets lower
that implies it doesn't guarantee that
you're going to hear this but it implies
that you could hear improved Clarity
improved possibly dynamic range in that
particular area now we're at the SPL
limiting portion of things 76 DB
reference to 86 96 102 DB at 1 meter in
each of these respective colors a couple
things to note first of all the one that
caught my eye was the higher compression
in this crossover region so I don't know
maybe that's crossover components maybe
using a better component might lower the
Distortion here I can't say that I think
it would for sure it's possible it'd be
interesting to test that out one day
it's possible but more than likely
you're just talking about decreased
power handling due to the lower
crossover region of that horn speaker in
other words you're not going to take a
tweeter cross it over at 8 khz and
expect it to sound the same if you cross
it over at 500 Herz there's going to be
a lot of distortion there's going to be
a lot of thermal heating going on in
that voice coil on the 500 HZ and it's
going to cause more compression so it's
kind of walking that line I don't know I
don't know that it's enough to write
home about and personally I don't really
think that I heard anything going on in
this area if we go up to this 300 HZ
area I'm not sure what's going on but
it's below about 1 D I'm okay with it
and then if you go lower in frequency we
can see that 102 DB we start suffering
higher compression some of this is going
to be thermal heating of the voice C oil
some of this just is going to be maybe
potentially Port turbulence or things of
that nature and and without really
having the opportunity to try to break
those down and hear those I can't tell
you for sure but the data does indicate
some higher compression at the higher
output volumes I said earlier if you
crossed over above like 50 or 60 Herz
you'd probably be okay and that would
mean that you're left with this region
right here of compression I don't really
think that's a huge deal but below this
we can see that the compression starts
to creep in if you're Crossing them over
at 80 HZ you're probably still going to
be well okay with output capability
which the speaker has plenty of now
let's talk about a comparison to the big
brother and I say that lightly JBL HDI
3800 the 3800 is about $4,000 right now
on sale to about $6,000 and it just
depends on where you buy it but it is at
least at least two to three times the
price of the studio 698 which in my
opinion makes the studio 698 kind of a
no-brainer buy but at the same time the
HDI 3800 is objectively still the better
speaker so let's talk about that this is
a cool website that allows you to do
size comparison you just go to it
Compares sizes.com you type in the thing
that you want to put in dimensions for
you put in the dimensions and then you
just do your comparison 698 is red JBL
HD HDI 3800 is in green and you can see
that they're pretty much the exact same
I mean for all intents and purposes
these speakers are the same size let's
start off with the on-axis response the
on-axis response for the 698 is in Black
the 3800 HDI is in blue the studio 698
actually looks smoother above about 3
khz 4 khz in that region while the HDI
is smoother below that and just kind of
take your pick average sensitivity of
both I'm just going to say about the
same maybe they're like 1 d off but it's
not a big enough deal to worry about
this is the estimated intering response
of the studio same thing you saw earlier
a little bit of a mid-range dip through
here Peak on the mid base uh dip in the
clarity detail area a little bit of a
glare at 3 KZ missing detail and the
higher frequency missing that air now
what happens if I overlay the HDI 3800
in blue okay the blue much more smooth
to this mid bra region first of all
little bit better base extension as well
in room uh the high frequency doesn't
have this 3 khz glare and it doesn't
quite have the same amount of Shimmer
that is going to be lost as the 698 does
so just again objectively it looks like
the HDI still is the better speaker the
horizontal radiation it to me
subjectively is probably the biggest
difference between these two speakers I
mean yes they sound different but the
69h radiation pattern is about plus or-
65° as you see here but the HDI 3800 is
about plus or- 55 that's about 10° on
average it's kind of depending on where
I were to draw the line here I'm going
go back again you can look look and see
but the 698 has a wider radiation
subjectively I like that more Distortion
for the 698 here you go and then the
3800 here you go so the 3800 has a
little bit higher Distortion in the two
Kilz region probably the crossover
region but overall less from that region
and below and that's really the only
comparative data I have unfortunately at
the time I wasn't running compression or
multi-one test for the 3800 when I
tested it and that's not I mean I don't
have the means to go back and do that
again so I don't have that data my guess
is that the 3800 would probably Faire a
little bit better there I'm just
assuming that there are better parts
used but you know if you're looking for
the 698 on a budget and you I'm sorry if
you're looking for the 3800 on a budget
and you're thinking that the 698 might
be it I think it's safe to say that
that's a reasonable assumption now the
real question is Aaron which one would
you buy right I mean if I'm if I'm GNA
buy one of these two which one would I
buy and that's not quite so easy so to
me this is this is 100% subjective
coming forward right now the 3800 is a
much nicer looking speaker the the 698
looks great but the overall aesthetic
quality of the 3800 the gloss finish
looks really nice however in a home
theater I don't necessarily want a gloss
finish speaker because then you just get
more Reflections from the screen off the
projector to the screen and then off the
speakers and it just illuminates more
I've even seen people throw towels over
the side of their speaker cabinets just
to hide the reflection so that's
something to
consider the linearity of the 3800 is
more smooth but the
698 radiation pattern the width is wider
and the linearity you can smooth out the
response of both of them probably to be
pretty even on
axis but they will not sound the same
because the 698 is w so there's going to
be more room involvement and at plus
orus 65° again give or take I like the
698 and I got to be honest I didn't
think that I would say that you know if
again just P being honest and the folks
at JBL may not appreciate me saying this
and that's not like oh my godah blah
thing it's the truth um I'm kind of
wondering why they went the route of
making the 698
because you know when they had the 590
the studio 590 and the 580
those are really good speakers they were
competitive with the HDI in terms of
output you know and overall Clarity they
they were competitive they weren't like
tit fortat and they certainly didn't
look as good the studio series to me
looked hideous I'm just going to be
honest the studio 500 looks hideous I
don't the way those speakers look to me
I just like not for me but then they go
and make the studio 600 and they make
them look a whole lot like the HDI and I
feel like you're undercutting yourself
by making a speaker that really looks
the part of the HDI and at least with
this particular tower speaker I cannot
say this for the 630 because the 630
doesn't sound nearly as neutral as a 698
but at least for the part of the
698 objectively is almost as good as the HDI
HDI
speaker maybe if I had them back to back
and I was aing on my might say oh yeah
definitely the the HDI 3800 is better
but I'm just telling you like off the
data and off oral
memory I I just find it odd that they
would make a speaker that in my opinion
might be handicapping them from selling
more hdis so again purely just my
opinion that does it for this review if
you have any questions as always please
feel free to ask in the comment section
if you like what you see here and you
appreciate what I'm doing and you want
to help support you can do so a couple
different ways you can do so number one
by joining me at patreon.com /ar audio
corner or secondly second D secondly
goodness you can use one of my affiliate
links for these speakers or anything
else that you want to buy uh in doing so
it helps me earn a small commission at
zero additional cost to you and I get
that some people think that using
affiliate links are terrible I used to
feel that way until I started trying to
do this for free and it ain't cheap it
doesn't change the data you've got the
data that's my accountability so if you
appreciate what I'm doing and you plan
to buy these speakers or anything else
please consider again using one of my
affiliate links I will talk to youall
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