Quote Originally Posted by tom1967 View Post
Are giving smaller 130s away at New Egg at $129/pr........are they also good?
They are nice little speakers, but nowhere near the quality of the Studio 530s.

The Studio 1 Series models have CMMD tweeters in a bi-radial waveguide. This gives them fairly broad dispersion and a less precise, slightly "raspy" MR and HF response compared to the Studio 5 Series. If you never heard the Studio 5 Series, you wouldn't appreciate the distinction, but if you heard both, you get it right away.

The Studio 1 models have a weird design, IMO, but they perform very well despite the looks; nonetheless, the engineering and design in the Studio 1 models is somewhat outdated, and they're definitely entry level models.

The Studio 5 models are far more representative of JBL's forward-looking "all horns all the time" philosophy, which is now in all of its top end and midrange models. They cost more, and they're worth every penny and then some.

OTOH, if I only had a couple hundred bucks to spend long-term on some speakers and wanted excellent bang for the buck, it'd be hard to go wrong with Studio 130s. If I was just going to spend a couple hundred bucks on impulse for a pair of speakers knowing I'd be upgrading in a year or so, I'd save my money.