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HiFi with STYLE | JBL HDI-3600 Review | New Record Day | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: HiFi with STYLE | JBL HDI-3600 Review
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Core Theme
The JBL HDI 3600 speakers offer a lively and engaging listening experience with a pronounced sense of "presence," making music feel immediate and exciting without inducing listening fatigue, particularly benefiting those with less-than-ideal listening rooms.
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so here's the deal
what i like the most about the jbl
hdi 3600s
it's the fact that they don't sound like this
this
welcome back to new record day my name
is ron if you are into two channel
audio consider yourself an audiophile or
music enthusiast
welcome home make sure you hit the
subscribe button and the bell
notifications so you know
when the next video drops so in today's
video we're going to be taking a look at the
the
jbl hdi 3600. these were sent out
directly from
harman and so i do want to just take a
minute and thank harman for sending
these out i certainly do appreciate it
all of my thoughts and opinions they are
my own nobody is paying me to say
anything here so
rest assured i'm going to tell you
exactly what i think about these
speaker's performance
now with that being said if you're
interested in sound clips
i do what's called sound clips with
commentary and i feel like i do a pretty
good job with it
and the benefit of the commentary
is i'm gonna tell you what i'm actually
hearing in the room
and so those two things combined a
really good recording
with my commentary that might be useful
and it might help
you understand where i'm going with this review
review
something else that i want to mention is
you can support this channel through
patreon if you'd like and there's other
ways to donate if you're not
into patreon that's totally cool we do
weekly zoom meetings now which is really
cool so every single week on sunday we
get together and we hang out and we chat
so consider it i appreciate it
let's move on and tackle the jbl
i want to start with the wave guide
because this
is one of the biggest features about
this speaker is that we do indeed have this
this
you know fancy wave guide this is all about
about
what is called controlled directivity
so we have you know frequencies that are beaming
beaming
and controlling those frequencies
physically with
a waveguide that's what it's intended to do
do
we're able to beam and force
the direction controlling the direction
of those frequencies why do we care
why is that a big deal well
a lot of us have realistic rooms
and we don't have a dedicated listening
room maybe we have
a weird room an l-shaped room or rooms
that are just
not made perfectly for
listening to loudspeakers and you know what
what
that's where controlled directivity is
going to be a huge
help because when it comes to setting up
those loudspeakers
and getting just a great center image
a big wide sound stage that sounds
realistic and sounds natural
that is exactly what these are going to
bring to the table
and it is one of the very first things
that i noticed is
you kind of just plop these down and
you've got a performance in the room
and i like that a lot about the jbl
hdi 3600s so i want to talk about
top end extension and i also want to
fold in
upper mid-range and yes even the heart
of mid-range
all in these same listening impressions
segment that we're going to be chatting
about i normally don't do that but i
think it's important
that i do it with these speakers because
i've noticed something about
their mid band performance upper
midrange and
top and extension that they all have this
this
one trait that
is worth chatting about and the key word
here folks
is presence let's unpack this for a
minute because well we have to define
what does that mean what does presence
mean there is a liveliness
kind of a spark that you get out of
compression drivers
out of compression drivers with wave
guides where
the presentation of the sound stage is
going to move forward
you kind of have this front row type of
a seat
to the performance and that is certainly
something that
i've experienced with the jbl hdi 3600s
if you want to hear what a song sounds
like as if you were in the jazz club
or you were sitting in the front row of
the rock concert
i think these do it but
they do it with style and what i mean by
that is when you have
a forward presentation what we're
calling this kind of
presence to the music where everything
is just kind of
you know up and hanging out in the room
with you
well sometimes when we don't have a
balanced frequency response when
something is
tilted up or we have some stored energy
that we need to worry about
and no we don't have any stored energy
that we need to worry about with these
not that i could find any
ways or we have resonances going on
inside the you know inside the
loudspeaker where something is being lit up
up
and vibrating and making noise or
we have cone breakup all of those things
lead to with this presence in this kind
of forward presentation
it leads to the dreaded listening fatigue
fatigue
we have something that now sounds shouty
bright too forward in your face
kind of edgy we don't want to hear that
no way and when i say these perform
with that presence with style what i
mean is
we're not hearing any of that nasty
stuff gotta give props to
jbl with this because whenever i listen
to these loud speakers
i have a tendency of wanting to rock out
and i want to continue
rocking out and that's a good sign it means
means
there's nothing about this loudspeaker
that is
ripping my head off and it sounds so
forward that
i just can't do it anymore fun is one of
the key words that i landed on when i
did the sound clips with commentary with
these speakers
and it's for a dang good reason it's
because they are a
very fun speaker to rock out with
now another thing that i want to mention
when it comes to
anything that is in the time domain we
can see on the frequency response of
these speakers that they
extend all the way out to 20
and beyond and at 20
there's quite a rise in the response and
i don't know for sure
what the heck is actually going on with
these drivers is it anything that you
should be concerned about
i don't think so we're talking way out there
there
way out there past the point where most
of us can even
hear and what i noticed about these
is they do offer things that we describe
on our channel as
in the time domain what the heck does
that actually mean
it means that we're hearing the ambience
and the thing that is in time after the
fundamental hits so you have that crack
of the symbol
and then you have the decay and the
shimmer that lasts
after it when does that get cut off and how
how
deep into the room can you hear these
types of
you know time domain type subtleties
these do it and this was one of the
things that
i quickly started to latch onto as i was
digging into
like a lot of acoustic material or stuff
that is very percussive that has
a whole lot of cymbal work i was finding
myself saying
i'm clearly able to hear stuff bouncing
off walls
ambience little subtleties in the music
little nuggets
of information that all too often
a lot of loudspeakers it just drops off
like a rock
and you're not hearing deep into the
recording and with the
hdis i had no problem of hearing
all the information that i would ever
want to hear in the time domain
and that is a huge
huge bonus to the hdi 3600s
upper mid-range i want to talk a little
bit about
electric guitars and i want to talk a
little bit about
sibilance s's this might be
the only time where i started noticing
okay i think i'm hearing a little bit of
that waveguide it's certainly not this
make no mistake it's not
that and i think that in the event where
i had a bunch of you guys over and you
were to hear these speakers if i had
the speaker grills on these i think half
of you would be
shocked that there's even a compression
driver and a waveguide so
kudos to jbl for making that thing
vanish with that being
said i have noticed that on
specifically with upper mid range the
top end of female voices
s's are a little bit more pronounced
there's gonna be some times where things
can sound
just a little bit spitty just a little
bit more
forward and a little bit more aggressive than
than
some other designs out there you know
this is just gonna be something that
you're going to have to decide
is that going to bother me or do i
actually like that particular trait
is that s poking out every now and then
is it actually realistic sounding to me
and i can't decide that for you i really
can't this is where things get very subjective
subjective
i didn't find it distracting i embraced
it i embraced it with this kind of
presence and lively presentation that
we've been talking about that
that's just a part of the package
you're gonna have to wrestle with this
one it didn't bother me
and that is the honest-to-goodness truth
is i was like it's fine
this is no big deal this is just part of
this sound this kind of lively type presence
presence
that we've been chatting about in this
this review
now i want to talk a little bit about
electric guitars because there was
another thing that i noticed
as well with the 3600s first of all
for the most part these love
and i mean love electric guitars
they have snap they are exciting
it is like i said early on it is
fun to just rock out with these speakers
at the same time
i think you do need to know that there
will be some times where i am convinced
i'm hearing a little bit of that wave
guide it might be a particular frequency
band it
could definitely be music dependent but
there's times where i'm like
that sounds like it's coming from the speaker
speaker
and whenever that illusion of the sound
stage is broken
you know where that vanishing act of the
speakers is broken
it's kind of a deal for me you know i
mean that's something that i have to
take note of
is i don't want to hear speakers in the
room ever i just want to hear a
performance and
while for the most part if we're talking
about the tone
of the electric guitars awesome with the 3600s
3600s
it's so lively and fun and engaging
but again depending on where
those frequencies sit there were times
where i felt like
i know where the speakers are and that
was a little distracting
every now and then so something worth mentioning
mentioning
and something that you should know so
what about the rest of all of the instruments
instruments
that are hanging out in the entire arena
of upper mid-range
we haven't even talked about strings we
haven't talked about
horns brass the brass section ron
what the heck does that sound like on
the jbl's
it sounds freaking awesome that's how it
sounds i am certainly not
a huge jazz buff by any stretch of the
imagination but whenever i did listen to
any kind of jazz material on these
anything with a sax with a trumpet
anything brass related i gotta say
it sounds awesome with the 3600s
and if i was to take a guess if you are
really big into jazz
and you've already tried clips and
you've already tried some jbl's and
you're big into compression drivers and
you're just wondering
hey is this going to bring the party without
without
listening fatigue the answer to that
question is
all right so as we drop into the heart
of mid-range male vocals
female vocals from that let's just say a
hundred hertz
up to around 800 hertz 700 hertz
the heart of mid band everything dancing
within that region
what can you expect from these speakers
as i said at the very beginning of this
review and we've been talking about it
since then
and you probably have listening fatigue
by now
you're gonna hear presents when the
singer steps up to the mic
female male vocals there's just
something about
it just right there it is just johnny on
the spot
every single time and it is a very
exciting type of a presentation and it's
something that i
fell in love with and i want to
celebrate as
one of the key things that i think a lot
of folks are going to like about the 3600s
3600s
staging capabilities putting you front row
row
with the band you're just hanging out
you've got them in the living room or
the listening room with you
that's exactly what you can expect what
you're not going to hear
and what you're not going to experience is
is
a crappy cabinet you're not going to hear
hear
additional bloom in the male vocals
you're not going to hear that i can
promise you that you're not going to hear
hear
the cabinet walls coloring the sound
of any kind of male vocals
i'll tell you this much mark knopfler is
not going to sound like barry white
when you listen to these it is truly a
straight line performance when it comes
to male vocals
and that is exactly what i experienced
whether i was
indeed listening to barry white barry
white sounded the way that he should
if i was listening to mark noffler mark
noffler sounds the way that he should if
i was listening to eddie vedder
eddie better sounds the way that he
should and their voices are clear
they're concise and i was happy
with how these speakers were voiced in
the heart of mid-band when it came to
another thing that i really liked about
the hdi 3600s and i talked about this
in the sound clips with commentary is
anything acoustic
yes yes is the answer to
any question that you have about well
ron what about acoustics yes
is the answer dude
you guys play anything with acoustics
ben howard eric clapton it doesn't matter
matter
you dive into gregory allen isakov any
fans out there
holy smokes when you play acoustics on
these speakers
that presence that kind of lively type
presentation that
these speakers bring to the table it is
so much fun and intoxicating and i
couldn't help but just
getting lost in acoustic track after
acoustic track
and you know what the same thing can be
said about
anything percussive anything with a
really interesting rhythm section
you're in for a treat with these no
doubt about it
let's go ahead and combine mid bass
and bass this is going to be the hardest part
part
in this review and
i want to make sure i get this right so
bear with me i'm going to speak i'm
going to speak from the heart here
on one hand i love the bass performance
that i'm able to get out of the jbl hdi
there is a confidence in the bass that i
can appreciate
and you will probably end up with more
bass than what you need
do you need a subwoofer with these i
don't think so
i never found myself saying what i
really need
is deeper bass i didn't feel that way
jbl has you spec down to
i think 38 hertz and i believe
jbl when it comes to their base
performance i was
really pleased with clearly being able
to hear
every single note so if we're listening
to an upright and typically that's what
i go to is
can i hear every single note
and more than that are any of those
notes waking up this cabinet
in a way that is a distraction are we hearing
hearing
the cabinet resonating kind of like
blowing into a coke bottle if you will
that's probably a bad example but it
gives you an idea but
is this cabinet waking up in a way that
we don't want to happen
the answer to that question is no so
on one hand jbl has done
a great job with giving
you know what i would say is an accurate picture
picture
of all of the notes everything is in order
order
and nothing is jacked up to the point where
where
we need to have a different kind of
conversation in the review
nope not at all nothing wrong with the base
base
the overall base performance out of the 3600s
3600s
why do we need to have a to heart and why
why
am i saying this is this is going to be
i believe and i am convinced
at this point that
the cone material of a loudspeaker
matters a lot and i don't want to paint
the picture of
aluminum drivers is a bad decision i
don't feel that way at all
and i think that getting what we're
about to talk about
out of a loudspeaker it has been my
experience that it is
easier to do with a different material than
than
aluminum and what we're going to be
discussing is what is called
texture and tone in bass
so there is indeed
resolution and clarity in
base and when you hear it
you can't unhear it you know it's there
and then you crave it you're like i want
to hear
when that snap happens on that upright
base which is typically up higher the snap
snap
of the string right but then the vibration
vibration
and then the body the cavity of the body
of that upright starts to wake up and
starts to craft
the note that we're hearing i want all
of it
i want to hear clearly the tone
of that upright bass it is the one
thing about these speakers that i was just
just
wanting a little bit more of i was just
feeling like you're giving me the note
and the note is there and it is there
with confidence but i'm not
getting as much clarity or definition
in that initial attack no resonance that
i can hear
we have a cabinet that was engineered
well it's properly braced
and we can hear every single note
no problem and they can drop bombs
no problem i just wish
that you had a little bit more
definition and clarity mid bass
and bass so i want to talk a little bit
about soundstage
we've already talked about this
throughout the review that yes we have
this kind of front row type of an experience
experience
there's some presence in the music
everything has this liveliness to it
that is all totally true at the same time
time
i do want you to know that you can
for the most part make these speakers
totally vanish
so even though you're gonna have
everybody hanging out in the room with you
you
it's not a situation where everything is
being played from the speakers
no you're actually gonna have everybody
in their correct spot
and when it comes to the capabilities
of width how wide these things can
spread their wings
they do a fantastic job with that you're
not going to get the same
depth that you can get with some other
designs so
again think of it as just kind of this arc
arc
in front of you this semi-circle of
musicians that are hanging out
of course this is dependent on
the recording you guys know that but if
it is mixed well
you're gonna get that illusion only
every now and then
the s's and female vocals some electric guitars
guitars
might break that illusion that
soundstage magic
that we all crave might break it for a moment
moment
it was never distracting enough that i thought
thought
we really need to talk about this for 20
minutes and so
we aren't going to do it what i am going
to tell you is
these absolutely can stage
they can disappear you can do it i would
encourage you to use lots
and i would also encourage you to consider
consider
crossing the streams i have done an
entire video that walks you through how
to do this
anytime you have a speaker with a
waveguide or a horn
i think you should consider doing it and
that video is
down below so in the end what do we have
well we have a speaker that i can recommend
recommend
just as long as you understand what it is
is
you're gonna get with these guys and
what you're gonna get and what you can expect
expect
is some presence some liveliness
some fun in the music where you're in
the jazz club
you are in the front row of the rock
concert and on top of that
you're not going to be listening to this nor
nor
are you going to be entering listening
fatigue because
jbl doesn't know what the heck they're
doing and they're trying to lift up the
top end and
do a whole bunch of other wonky stuff
like play around with resonance
no this is a company that absolutely
knows how to engineer a loudspeaker
they're doing it right
and this is an easy recommendation if
that presence and that
liveliness in the music is something
that you crave
harmon jbl thank you for sending out
the 3600s it was a pleasure to review
these speakers
and send me something else let's keep
dancing let's have some more fun and folks
folks
thank you so much for hanging out with
me i certainly do appreciate it
make sure you remember to like and
subscribe if you haven't yet
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