Can JBL E250 go 30Hz or below?

[AVJunior]

Any one heard of this Sub?

[lazyhaze]

Any one heard of this Sub?

i have one of these subs in my room right now, you can buy them at Best Buy, which is good cause then you can do a home demo, and return it if you don't like it. the E250p doesn't go very low, it will make sounds at 30 Hz and below but there is a huge dropoff in sound pressure level (SPL) once you go below 35 Hz. by the time you get down to 30 Hz the sub is very quiet compared to any other frequencies present in your system. i have a tone generator and tested the sub with a SPL meter sitting in my normal listening position. i also find that the amplifier is pretty weak on this sub, i need to have the volume at around 2 o'clock on the Gain knob to have it match the rest of my system. pushing an amp that hard usually leads to high distortion with a sub.

hope that helps

[console]

I have a pair of JBL L100A, the last version - I have heard that it can go below 28Hz without major drop, and that the A model use the best 12" JBL ever made. It sounds like it goers very low to my ears ( and my windows ), but I have no equipment to measure. What do you think - do you know any thing on the L100A ?

[console]

i have one of these subs in my room right now, you can buy them at Best Buy, which is good cause then you can do a home demo, and return it if you don't like it. the E250p doesn't go very low, it will make sounds at 30 Hz and below but there is a huge dropoff in sound pressure level (SPL) once you go below 35 Hz. by the time you get down to 30 Hz the sub is very quiet compared to any other frequencies present in your system. i have a tone generator and tested the sub with a SPL meter sitting in my normal listening position. i also find that the amplifier is pretty weak on this sub, i need to have the volume at around 2 o'clock on the Gain knob to have it match the rest of my system. pushing an amp that hard usually leads to high distortion with a sub.

hope that helps

I have a pair of JBL L100A, the last version - I have heard that it can go below 28Hz without major drop, and that the A model use the best 12" JBL ever made. It sounds like it goers very low to my ears ( and my windows ), but I have no equipment to measure. What do you think - do you know any thing on the L100A ?

[console]

i have one of these subs in my room right now, you can buy them at Best Buy, which is good cause then you can do a home demo, and return it if you don't like it. the E250p doesn't go very low, it will make sounds at 30 Hz and below but there is a huge dropoff in sound pressure level (SPL) once you go below 35 Hz. by the time you get down to 30 Hz the sub is very quiet compared to any other frequencies present in your system. i have a tone generator and tested the sub with a SPL meter sitting in my normal listening position. i also find that the amplifier is pretty weak on this sub, i need to have the volume at around 2 o'clock on the Gain knob to have it match the rest of my system. pushing an amp that hard usually leads to high distortion with a sub.

hope that helps

Just a little detail. The human ear begins to hear low freq from about 30Hz ( according to the experts ) ), so freq at 30Hz and propably up to 40Hz you will have a rising curve of hearing, SO when you experience the above, what you realy experience is that your human ear will hear less and less till it cant hear the freq below 30Hz - but the sub may very well reproduce the sound below 30Hz - but you cant realy hear it, and it sounds like the sub drops..

What you CAN hear is the noice from single glass windows when they wibrate and make the frame wibrate too.

[lazyhaze]

@console...while what you say may be true about hearing low frequencies, the measurements i did were done with a meter, not my ears. higher quality subs will not experience such a dramatic dropoff until a lower frequency.

@royphil...i think jbl is probably exaggerating the power ratings for this sub. if i have to put the volume at close to 100% to match my other speakers than the subwoofer doesn't have much power in reserve for a more powerful system. any amp being pushed that hard is going to be clipping very often and probably has huge THD. 250 watts is a huge amount of power, the sub should be absolutely deafening if that is the true rating. i am an electrical engineering student and it is depressing how badly many manufacturers massage their numbers until they get nice high ratings to impress the big box audio crowd. as for the Sony WX-700, i have one on order now because i want to compare it directly to the JBL before i return it. i have heard many good recommendations for it on this board, from you and many others. it is probably also not the 250 watts it claims to be but if it is even half that it is still by far enough power. i have high hopes for the WX-700 as it is an acoustic suspension (sealed) sub, which is supposedly better for music according to what i have read on this board. fortunately i can do a home audition to test this out.

[console]

@console...while what you say may be true about hearing low frequencies, the measurements i did were done with a meter, not my ears. higher quality subs will not experience such a dramatic dropoff until a lower frequency.

@royphil...i think jbl is probably exaggerating the power ratings for this sub. if i have to put the volume at close to 100% to match my other speakers than the subwoofer doesn't have much power in reserve for a more powerful system. any amp being pushed that hard is going to be clipping very often and probably has huge THD. 250 watts is a huge amount of power, the sub should be absolutely deafening if that is the true rating. i am an electrical engineering student and it is depressing how badly many manufacturers massage their numbers until they get nice high ratings to impress the big box audio crowd. as for the Sony WX-700, i have one on order now because i want to compare it directly to the JBL before i return it. i have heard many good recommendations for it on this board, from you and many others. it is probably also not the 250 watts it claims to be but if it is even half that it is still by far enough power. i have high hopes for the WX-700 as it is an acoustic suspension (sealed) sub, which is supposedly better for music according to what i have read on this board. fortunately i can do a home audition to test this out.

I havnt heard the 250, but I can tell you my experience with the L100. I have a modest Technics SU-610 amplifier 35W pr. channel ( will look for a good old Marantz soon ). The volume scale is 1-10. At 1.5 my single glass windows starts to vibrate, ( so its not the sound preasure which make the windows vibrate - but the freq it self ). at 2 its loud, 3 is party level, and 4 I did test once but I´m afraid the windows will shake out of its frame playing some of the modern tracks. Its not bass I miss at any sound level ! And perhaps some instrument can measure a drop - but I cant hear it. There are some things in this world which simply cant be measured by an instrument for quality, and speakers is one of them.

So my JBL´s has a very high degree of responce - which I think most of the old JBL´s had, since the consept was to make speakers for small to medium sized consert rooms where only old and low power equipment was available. Comparing to my "old" 3-way speakers, I get about 60% more sound preasure on the same watts.

MSC Eng. Electronics 1986 / MBA

[console]

i have one of these subs in my room right now, you can buy them at Best Buy, which is good cause then you can do a home demo, and return it if you don't like it. the E250p doesn't go very low, it will make sounds at 30 Hz and below but there is a huge dropoff in sound pressure level (SPL) once you go below 35 Hz. by the time you get down to 30 Hz the sub is very quiet compared to any other frequencies present in your system. i have a tone generator and tested the sub with a SPL meter sitting in my normal listening position. i also find that the amplifier is pretty weak on this sub, i need to have the volume at around 2 o'clock on the Gain knob to have it match the rest of my system. pushing an amp that hard usually leads to high distortion with a sub.

hope that helps

Forgot to mention that you need at least 150 W pr channel to drive the subs correctly on transients.

[royphil345]

The position of the subwoofer volume control necessary to match the other speakers has nothing to do with how powerful the sub's amp is. With a 250 watt sub, you should be able to match the level of your other speakers at the full volume most AV receivers are capable of. (Unless your crossovers are set very high and your sub has to do most of the work) If a 250 watt sub can't do that, then I'd classify it as underpowered. I haven't heard of this or any other JBL sub being underpowered. Sure, some of the previous models tended to burn out their amps in about a month. Think that should be taken care of now.

Why in the world would you need at least 150 watts to drive a powered sub?

I've only heard the JBL sub at Best Buy. It sounded tight and punchy. Didn't seem to go all that low, but it's really hard to tell much about any component in Best Buy's listening areas. Before buying, I'd also go to Circuit City and audition the Sony SA-WX700, which I think sounds just as good and goes a bit lower for a little less $. (web prices) Don't bother listening to the boomy, single-woofer crap Sony subs at Best Buy. That's not what I'm talking about.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

{quote]Just a little detail. The human ear begins to hear low freq from about 30Hz ( according to the experts ) ), so freq at 30Hz and propably up to 40Hz you will have a rising curve of hearing, SO when you experience the above, what you realy experience is that your human ear will hear less and less till it cant hear the freq below 30Hz - but the sub may very well reproduce the sound below 30Hz - but you cant realy hear it, and it sounds like the sub drops..

What you CAN hear is the noice from single glass windows when they wibrate and make the frame wibrate too.[/quote]

Actually our ears ability to hear low frequecies drops off at 40hz. At that point bass is tactile more than audible. A good sub will smoothly make the transition for audible to tactile without any noticeable dropoff in amplitude.

I have a pair of JBL L100A, the last version - I have heard that it can go below 28Hz without major drop, and that the A model use the best 12" JBL ever made. It sounds like it goers very low to my ears ( and my windows ), but I have no equipment to measure. What do you think - do you know any thing on the L100A ?

My expirence with the L100 suggests that it does NOT have much output below 35hz. However it has very fat bass down to about 40hz or slightly below.

In terms of the original poster question about the sub lazyhaze has got it right on this one.

[E-Stat]

Actually our ears ability to hear low frequecies drops off at 40hz. At that point bass is tactile more than audible.

Indeed. The 32 hz fundamental from a pipe organ is sensed more than heard. I can feel it from the foyer of the church.

My expirence with the L100 suggests that it does NOT have much output below 35hz. However it has very fat bass down to about 40hz or slightly below.

JBL's specs support that notion. Here's a link to the pro version of the Century, the 4311:

JBL Specs

rw

[console]

Indeed. The 32 hz fundamental from a pipe organ is sensed more than heard. I can feel it from the foyer of the church.


JBL's specs support that notion. Here's a link to the pro version of the Century, the 4311:

JBL Specs

rw

@E-Stat:

Thanks for the link !