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Topic: B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30) (Read 16282 times) previous topic - next topic
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B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

I've done a listening test today between the two (with and without a subwoofer) and although the L830 was good, somehow I liked the 685 better - maybe because of crisper mids & highs. The L830 seemed to have stronger bass.

These two have the same MSRP of about $999, but it is not unlikely to find them for $500 in eShops. After browsing through some reviews, i became unsure of my own impressions  "Official" reviews say the 685 is killer, yet unoficcial forum topics state the 685 is everything but accurate and the JBL ES line easily outperforms it (for the same price). And there is one more thing: how come, that though the ES line is tuned for "accuracy", it's bookshelf speakers are much cheaper than the L830, which I understand is a class below.

Please drop your $0.02.

PS: And how would you compare the RBH TK-line to these - if you ever had the chance to compare?
PS2: They (if I buy any of them) will be paired with an Onkyo SR606.

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #1 –
What is wrong with trusting your own judgement?
TheWellTemperedComputer.com

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #2 –
Nothing, actually. Yet I would like to see what do the masses say. More ears hear more. My ears might not be trained yet.

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #3 –
I think it unlikely you will find a large number of people who just happen to have listened to just these two speakers recently.

I had a look at both the manufacturers sites to see what they had to say for themselves.  I was amused by JBL's approach:

Studio™ L Series
Mylar®
Bi-Radial®
JBL EOS™
PolyPlas™
HeatScape™
Symmetrical Field Geometry™ (SFG™)
Kapton®
IsoPower™
Freeflow™
Straight-Line Signal Path™ (SSP™)

Poor B&W, They could only come up with three such marketing speaks and links to the awards their speaker has won.

I would go and listen to both speakers, taking your own CD's, and see if you prefer one over the other.

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #4 –
I would like to point out that if you do any wood work, you can build your own cabinets and save a considerable amount on many of their products, as B&W will sell you the drivers and crossovers at a very reasonable price. They are very DIY friendly company, in fact. Not only would  you save doing your own cabinet, you can build the cabint to a higher standard, with lower panel resonance, as B&W has to build within a tight budget for mass production and can not go using resources to make their cabinets ideal exept on their flagship products that command a very high price. You do need one measuring tool: a Dayton Woofer Tester 3 and a digital scale(which comes with the WT3 right now, I believe). The WT3 is needed to measure the T&S parameters of the midwoofers so that you can decide the optimal internal volume and port tuning using a freeware simulator like WinISD Pro.

-Chris

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #5 –
WmAx: Although I am not at all skilled with woodwork, I might have friends who do and with a good design, they will be able to prepare the cabinet for me. I found a lot of information on http://diyaudioprojects.com/ but I failed to find the drivers B&W is using. Instead, I found some good-looking full-range drivers (HiVi / Fostex / Jordan), but the total cost of all of them were already out of my budget of <$500 incl. work.

BTW: how do such speaker compare to the >$4000 speakers (or $8000 ???) What is the declared (and perceived) added value in that category?

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Matyas on
BTW: how do such speaker compare to the >$4000 speakers (or $8000 ???) What is the declared (and perceived) added value in that category?


It's fortunate that you asked me, as I am uniquely qualified to answer this, based on my extensive knowledge of the perceptual research in this field, along with my general research and work with differing designs - and study of these differing price sectors.

Let's say we take the best example (best example by way of ideal measured behavior for human perception) of a full size full range speaker at $1000 USD/pair and the best example at $15,000 USD/pair.

It is plausible that both may use the same quality drivers, even though this may not be true. The more expensive one will have a larger budget for a superior xover - but I have seen examples of low cost speakers with superb crossovers. The main difference between the best example of each in the relevant cost bracket would most likely be the cabinet system. The vastly more expensive option has a price that can cover the budget for a cabinet that is built to such standards as to have little to know audible cabinet acoustic output. It is very costly to produce a cabinet for production that has very low levels of panel vibration. One more possible main difference is the low frequency capabilities. The more expensive version has the budget for a very high grade bass driver with a very large motor with very high linearity, where as it would be very difficult to provide such a transducer in the low cost example.

This is a very basic summary, and is based on the primary measurable differences that are relevant to human hearing that I have found to exist between the best examples in two radically different price brackets.

-Chris

Quote from: Matyas on
WmAx: Although I am not at all skilled with woodwork, I might have friends who do and with a good design, they will be able to prepare the cabinet for me. I found a lot of information on http://diyaudioprojects.com/ but I failed to find the drivers B&W is using. Instead, I found some good-looking full-range drivers (HiVi / Fostex / Jordan), but the total cost of all of them were already out of my budget of <$500 incl. work.


You can not find the drivers because B&W makes their own drivers. If you contact B&W tech support, they will directly sell you the drivers and crossovers that you desire. IME, they have very fair prices on most, no more expensive than one wold expect to pay at a driver parts online retailer for equivalent quality name brand raw drivers.

YOu will need a basic tool called the Dayton Woofer Tester 3 for $100 from www.partsexpress.com in order to measure the T&S parameters of the drivers to determine the cabinet volume/port tuning.

-Chris

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #7 –
Quote from: brownianm on
I was amused by JBL's approach:

< snip >
Mylar®
< snip >
Kapton®


Poor B&W, They could only come up with three such marketing speaks and links to the awards their speaker has won.

Marketing speaks?  These two at least (and I assume many of the others) are brand names of materials used.  Mylar and Kapton are registered trademarks of DuPont and must be listed in such a way, again I assume the same is true of the others.

IMHO "marketing speaks" would be "Super Sound Stage Tweeter" as opposed to the rather technically pedantic "Mylar Dome".
Creature of habit.

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #8 –
Quote from: WmAx on
You can not find the drivers because B&W makes their own drivers. If you contact B&W tech support, they will directly sell you the drivers and crossovers that you desire. IME, they have very fair prices on most, no more expensive than one wold expect to pay at a driver parts online retailer for equivalent quality name brand raw drivers.


Thanks for the answer. One thing I am missing though is how would I tell which drivers are of equivalent quality? Taking the 685 drivers as baseline where are the Jordans positioned? Above or below (either according to your listening experience or according to the price range - if you happen to know)?

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Matyas on
Quote from: WmAx on


You can not find the drivers because B&W makes their own drivers. If you contact B&W tech support, they will directly sell you the drivers and crossovers that you desire. IME, they have very fair prices on most, no more expensive than one wold expect to pay at a driver parts online retailer for equivalent quality name brand raw drivers.


Thanks for the answer. One thing I am missing though is how would I tell which drivers are of equivalent quality? Taking the 685 drivers as baseline where are the Jordans positioned? Above or below (either according to your listening experience or according to the price range - if you happen to know)?


Such correlation is hard to make! The Jordan drivers are intended for different bandwidth and have different characteristics as compared to the B&W units. Now, for comparison of general build quality, etc.; you can compare this way. But I have never examined a B&W 685, so I can not make any comments here. Now, I can say the CM7 has very high build quality driver units that are comparable with the Jordans in this specific aspect. The CM7 also have rather advanced technology drivers, with the same FST midrange design used in their flagship models. As an example of price ratio: the CM7 has a street price of $2000 USD/pair. The tweeter costs about $87, the mid-range costs about $110 and the woofer costs about $90. Each speaker has two crossover boards. One for mid/tweeter and one for the woofer. If I remember correctly, the total for both is about $220. This would bring the driver/crossover parts for each up to $507 each channel. These parts prices were from about 1 year ago. I expect the 685's drivers/crossovers will also total about 1/2 the actual cost of the street/dealer price. But all it takes is a phone call to B&W to find out for certain.

What I really intended with my first post in this thread, was that if you were certain you really liked a certain B&W model, is that you can buy the drivers and crossover boards and build your own cabinets and save about 1/2 what the product would have cost you in the store. In addition, you can build the cabinet to higher quality standard with less resonance/panel acoustic output since you are in control of that part now.

-Chris

B&W 685 or JBL L830 (or ES-30)

Reply #10 –
Thanks WmAx, I got the idea! I guess, I will have to do some panel resonance investigation and study