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Choosing the Ultimate Speaker: JBL Studio 698 or HDI-3800?

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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

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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

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YouTube Transcript:Choosing the Ultimate Speaker: JBL Studio 698 or HDI-3800?