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H
aving used JBL speakers in
recording studios and at home
for many years, there’s some-
thing about them I’ve always
found reassuring. I may or may not have
warmed to the voicing of a particular
model, but I’ve always respected what I’ve
heard. So when cartons bearing the famil-
iar orange JBL logo arrived on my door-
step recently, I was eager to check out the
company’s latest efforts.
The ES Series occupies JBL’s upper-
middle price range, a hotly contested
market where prospective buyers know
what sounds good but don’t want to
spend stupid amounts of money to get it.
I unpacked two ES80 towers, an ES25C
center speaker, two ES10 surrounds, and
an ES250P subwoofer. With their sizable
bulk filling my listening room, I expected
significant sonic results.
The ES80 tower stands waist-high. Its
trapezoidal cabinet, which widens in front
and tapers to the rear, looks very stylish.
(All of the satellites, and the subwoofer,
work the trapezoidal styling angle.) The
ES80’s five vertical drivers are a pair of
6-inch woofers, a 4-inch midrange, and
a module with two
3
⁄
4
-inch tweeters, one
covering the normal high-frequency range
and the other covering ultra-high frequen-
cies. This same module appears in the
other satellites as well. Two pairs of stout
binding posts allow mono- or bi-amping.
There’s also a rear-firing port.
The ES25C center speaker uses an MTM
(midrange/tweeter/midrange) driver con-
figuration, with a pair of 5-inch midranges
flanking the tweeter module. Adjusting
the ported cabinet’s two feet can lower
its vertical angle. The ES10 surrounds are
direct-firing, with one 4-inch driver and
the tweeter module. There are two mount-
ing brackets on the back and two ports on
top. Make darn sure the kids don’t drop
pennies in there — or your car keys.
The ES250P subwoofer sports a front-
firing 12-inch driver, a downward-firing
port, and an amplifier rated at 400 watts.
Its control set provides adjustments for
level and crossover frequency (50 to 150
Hz with a 24-dB/octave slope), phase (0°
and 180°), and LFE/stereo line inputs. A
switch toggles between LFE (for the mono
low-frequency-effects channel on Dolby
Digital and DTS tracks) and Normal (for
a regular stereo input), with the crossover
adjustment bypassed when the former set-
ting is selected. All six speakers are faced
with removable black grilles.
SETUP
Installing the JBLs didn’t present any
unusual obstacles. I placed the ES80 tow-
ers 10 feet apart, about 1 foot out from
the front wall, and toed them in to face
the listening position. The towers are
supplied with threaded spiked feet, but
I used the included rubber feet instead.
As with any floorstanders, the proximity
of the drivers to my tile floor created a
reflection that colored the direct sound
path. To mitigate this, I placed throw rugs
on the floor in front of each cabinet.
The ES25C center speaker went below
my TV. Its vertical angle was good, so I
didn’t adjust its feet. I placed the ES10
surrounds on speaker stands in the back
of the room. I wish they had the same
adjustable feet as the center speaker so I
could have aimed them down a bit.
Subwoofer performance is very depen-
dent on room acoustics and on the sub
–
+
Snapshot
Classic JBL sound quality from towers
and a massive sub, complemented by
a tonally matched center speaker and
surrounds
Plus
:: Loud, natural sound
:: Clean high-frequency extension
:: Solid low-frequency extension
:: Robust construction
Minus
:: Sizable cabinets require a sizable room
:: Sound may be too bright and forward for
some
The Short Form
Price $2,395 (as tested)
70 JULY/AUGUST 2008 SOUND & VISION soundandvisionmag.com
ES Series home theater speaker system
JBL
test reports
Ken C. Pohlmann