Michal Ždanský Large quality home speakers have always been essential equipment for any music fan. In the same way, home speakers and other professional audio technology are the domain of JBL. With the Authentics L8 speaker, it kind of goes back to its roots, but adds something from the modern digital age. The L8 is a tribute to the popular JBL Century L100 speaker, from which its reincarnation partially borrowed the design and brought it to a more modern form.
Instead of a wooden body, you will find a shiny plastic on the surface, which resembles the surface of a black piano. It is polished almost to a mirror image, so you can easily see a fingerprint on it sometimes. The front and side parts are made up of a removable foam grid, which, by the way, catches dust quite easily. It is shaped like a small checkerboard, just like the Century L100. We can thus speak of a retro-modern style that can easily be incorporated into a modern living room as well as a wooden "living room" wall. Removing the grille (you need to use a kitchen knife) reveals two 25mm tweeters and a four-inch subwoofer. The speakers have a rich frequency range of 45-35 Khz.
All control takes place on the top of the device. There is a silver disc on each side. The left one switches the sound source, the right one controls the volume. The rotary sound control surrounds a translucent ring, which lights up to correspond with the volume level, which, given the absence of level markings (the button can be rotated 360 degrees), is useful and effective at the same time. In the middle of this button is the power off button.
Connectivity
Connectivity options are one of the main draws of the L8, in addition to sound. And they certainly didn't skimp on them, you can find almost all modern methods of wired and wireless connection here. The audio connectors for the wired connection are partially hidden. The optical S/PDIF input is located on the bottom of the device next to the power supply, while the 3,5mm jack is in a special chamber in the upper part under a removable cover.
There you will also find two USB ports for charging mobile devices and a post around which you can wrap the cable. The entire chamber is designed in such a way that the cable can be pulled out through the side where the slot is located and the lid can be folded back. To make matters worse, the lid can be replaced with a proprietary dock (must be purchased separately) into which you can then elegantly slide your iPhone in and charge.
However, wireless connection options are more interesting. In addition to basic Bluetooth, we also find AirPlay and DLNA. Both protocols first require the speaker to be connected to your router. This can be achieved in several ways, which the attached instructions will guide you through. It is not a problem to achieve this using an iPhone or a Mac. The easiest way to share your iPhone's Wi-Fi connection settings is with a sync cable. The Mac is more complicated to set up, when you first need to connect to the speaker via Wi-Fi, then select a network and enter a password in an Internet browser.
Once connected to Wi-Fi, the L8 will report itself as an AirPlay device and you can easily connect to it from your Mac or iOS device for wireless music playback. I appreciate that the speaker detects the AirPlay streaming request automatically and there is no need to switch the source manually. If both devices are on the same network, you will always have the speaker in the output menu. For PCs with the Windows operating system or mobile devices with Android, there is the DLNA protocol, a kind of standard alternative to AirPlay for non-Apple devices. Due to the absence of a compatible device, I unfortunately did not have the opportunity to test the DLNA connection, however, AirPlay works flawlessly.
I was a little surprised by the absence of a remote control, which would make particular sense when switching sources, however, JBL approaches the problem here in a modern way and offers a mobile app (universal for multiple speakers including JBL Pulse). The application can switch sources, change equalizer settings and control the Signal Doctor function, which I will mention below.
Sound
Given JBL's reputation, I had high expectations for the sound of the Authentics L8, and the speaker lived up to them. First of all, I have to praise the bass frequencies. The integrated subwoofer does an amazing job. It can pump a lot of bass into the room without turning the music into one big bass ball, and I didn't notice any distortion even at higher volumes. Every kick kick or low-frequency beat is perfectly clear and you can see that JBL really focused on the bass. There is nothing to criticize here. And if you find the bass too pronounced, you can download it in a dedicated application.
Equally great are the highs, which are clean and clear. The only criticism goes to the center frequencies, which are a little weaker in terms of quality compared to the rest. Sometimes they have an unpleasant pungency. However, the overall sound presentation is excellent in JBL's own quality. In terms of volume, as expected, the L8 has plenty of power to spare and would probably rock even a smaller club. For home listening at a relatively high volume, I only got slightly over halfway, so the speaker has a huge reserve.
I would like to pay special attention to the Clari-Fi technology, in the application called Signal Doctor. In short, this is an algorithmic enhancement of compressed audio that occurs on all lossy formats, be it MP3, AAC or streaming music from Spotify. Clari-Fi is supposed to more or less bring back what was lost in compression and get closer to lossless sound. When testing on sound samples of different bitrates, I must say that it can definitely improve the sound. Individual songs seem more alive, more spacious and airier. Of course, the technology cannot get CD quality from a trimmed 64kbps track, but it can noticeably improve the sound. I definitely recommend keeping the feature always on.
záver
JBL Authentics L8 will please fans of classic living room reprobeds who are looking for quality sound with a touch of modern technology. The L8 takes the best of both worlds – the classic look of large speakers, great reproduction and wireless connectivity, which is a must in today's mobile age.
Despite the weaker mids, the sound is excellent, it will especially please lovers of bass music, but also fans of classical music will not be disappointed. AirPlay is a big plus for Apple users, as is a mobile app to control the speaker. If you are looking for something more compact than a 5.1 speaker for your living room, the Authentics L8 will certainly not disappoint you with its sound and performance, the only obstacle may be the relatively high price.
You can buy JBL Authentics L8 for 14 crowns, respectively for 549 EUR.
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advantages:
[Checklist]
- Connectivity
- Excellent sound
- Application control
[/checklist][/one_half]
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Disadvantages:
[bad list]
- Price
- Slightly worse Wednesdays
- Someone may be missing the remote control
[/badlist][/one_half]
We thank the store for lending the product Always.cz.
That price is inflated and inadequate. A pair of good brand-name spare parts cost that much.
And I note that the sound is completely, but completely different.
and which speaker would you specifically recommend?
Good day.
E.g. Canton Duo
Canton AM5
Canton GLE 436
BW 685S2
Some of them cost even less than the tested speaker from JBL.
I note that there is always a pair of speakers.
Dynaudio Esotecsystem 242
Dynaudio Excitex X12
Dynaudio DM2/7
I would still include the Boston Acoustic brand there.
Nice day
The speaker is completely off. Small cone steamed on the price because of the sticker. If I buy a good pair of hifi for 15000, I will do much better than with this comedy. And in addition, the evaluation as slightly worse Wednesdays, what does that mean? Did the author try to use a better equalizer? More bands? Just a pointless review
It means that the presentation of the center frequencies is weaker and it has nothing to do with the equalizer. That's like saying that you can get great sound out of absolutely any speaker with the right EQ settings. Which of course is stupid.
Although you can get a few "decent" (one could argue) systems for such a price, but without a receiver. I don't want to directly defend this system, but I have a B&W A7 at home, which costs even more, and I don't regret it. It plays really well for those dimensions. It's about the dimensions and about the design. The design of this is nice. The problem is that the mids and bass are played by the bigger speakers together and they didn't add another woofer for the bass.
I would also like a speaker, but in a completely different price range, preferably under 3 thousand, do you have any recommendations? And to have AirPlay functionality.
At this price point, you'll have to make do with Bluetooth at most.
or buy bazaar's Airport Express and connect it to any amplifier or active speakers
Is there a remote control for the device other than a mobile please?