Coulda fooled me. LOL. Aside from the occasional complaint, I frequently see glowing recommendations (particularly for the price point) here. I'm actually tired of reading about them. I also expect substantially more people own the JBL' due to the price.

To be honest, I was just going by the comments in this thread disparaging the JBL. I know people on here love the KH120 as they have been out for a while.

The JBLs forgive much more, mabye you confuse that the Neumanns show you your mixingmistakes and the JBLs not, maybe that's the issue with stereo field. I had a listen to the JBLs and they were not good at all. For professional use the JBLs are a no-go! I know the KH-120 very well.

So you listened (in a store I presume) to the JBL', and automatically knew they were terrible for mixing/forgiving, without actually mixing on them?

Uhhh....Okay, I guess.

Yes I did a mix on them, with the KH-120 besides, in a small budgetstudio of a friend. It was a schoot-out between Focal Alpha 50 and KRK Rockit 6. He want to equip another room for small pre-productions. Otherwise I wouldn't comment in this thread. The JBLs are good for hearing a nice mix, making beats, write songs etc., but they are really really not suitabble for semiprofessional even less professional mixing & recording tasks. Therefor the KH-120 are made.

tks for clarifying doc no

im curious to listen to mix out of jblsr305,,, no kidding guys send links to see how it translates ...

Thank you for clarifying. When I saw "listen" I assumed that's all you did. I'm really surprised that you couldn't even get a semi—decent mix out of them, since I've seen people using laptop speakers accomplish such a feat. It's really just learning the nuances of a speaker. You say yourself you know the KH 120' "very well."

I've read about people having success with these speakers on here. Perhaps one of them can comment further.

Here's an example of a user here claiming to get good results with the JBL (as compared to the Equator D5):

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/low-...eris-e5-2.html

Edit: BTW, do you know what specifically made the JBL' terrible for mixing in your case? Thanks!

Hmmmmm.......I know this guy mixes his songs on the JBL 305'.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/memb...1091-batsbrew/

https://soundcloud.com/bats-brew


Outside of user comments, mixes seem hard to come by.

Don't think either of these are good for most regulars posting. The KH usually end up
In the hands of those with cash that will never make a product that will recover the investment. Others simply can't afford them, but rave or crave despite lack of even trying them. The lsr's are a typical intro mistake I would think. Usually a 1/3 of sale price is the cost of the components, or wtf can be made of quality for under $100 bux? Probably nothing. Only thing that gets done in talk talk talk forums besides professionally spending money is muph projects. I would think monitors around $2500, including sub, should fit the bill for almost anything no matter what the skill level of the user. Any less is trash & any more is throwing money away unless a user is earning money with the purpose of recouping the cost of the equipment through sales of tracks or providing an audio related service utilizing the monitors. At some point being realistic has to come to light in terms of accomplishing music production. How many sets of monitors does one have to blow through before getting to work and make a piece of audio material? One? Two? 50? Holy crap.

Interesting perspective.

Does the OP still think the JBL 305 are better than Neumann KH 120?

That is a good question and one I hope to answer when, or if, I ever go home! I've been away for a long time.

I will say that while on the road, the Audeze LCD-X headphones have me convinced that I will miss neither.

How do you compare the low end of the JBL 305 vs KH 120?

The weight. . Thats the reason wht my audeze is mostly not used

after a lot of use I have discovered strange noises coming from the 308's like somthings loose but on the inside..the build quilty is not good ..very thin and cheep ..I was doing acoustic and it sounded like the bridge was vibrating but when I switched to my D5s the sound went away ... thats a deal breaker for me..I have had to tighten the black plastic ring around the woofer during a bass session a few weeks ago aswell.. so the search continues..oh well

Lovin' my JBL's 305! I've been mixing on them the last few years very successfully. Many of those songs got published, radio plays etc...No complains whatsoever, don't plan to change them soon...I've hear the Neumann's, really cool but for the price difference...I expected more and I'll stick with the JBL's, quite happy user here!

Those JBLs are awesome... They were going for $100 each new a few months ago. They sound way beyond their price range.

I do think the Neumann's are better, but for cheaper the Focal CMS65 is even better.

I love mine, though they're the first decent pair of monitors I've ever owned. Im much less technical than 93% of the people on this board but my mixes sound great. For me it was between these and the krk's and these sounded much more balanced and less bottom heavy. I think they're very detailed but again not much to compare to. I have a rather large room and I know I've set them up too high but again, still sound great and I can always just stand up lol.

And oh yeah dirt cheap. Scrolling through reading posts about decent setups starting at 2500 bucks im sure is a valid statement, but brand new these are what...300 bucks? I got mine used for 100. Not sure that deal is beatable.

Weird thing is, I have been frustrated for months trying to get mixes done with my KH120's. Night before last I put my 308's back up and got it sorted out in a couple hours. Not sure what's going on. The KH120's are obviously much better. Maybe my ears just WANT to hear a little hype, and there's sure not any coming from the KH120's. Or maybe something else entirely happened. I don't know.

Anyone care to share some updated thoughts years later?

I have a pair of LSR305 mk1 and after I mixed on them with good results, I decided to swap the woofers with some goodies. I chose a pair of Seas because they are amazing and have 25% more piston area than the original woofer of the LSR305.
H1520-08 U16RCY/P

The monitors sound amazing now, with great depth and detail.

Did you do any audio frequency measurements with the old woofer and with the new Seas woofer to see the difference?

Kind regards

Almost certainly not a good idea!

For starters the JBL cabs are ported and ported cabs are designed for one particular woofer and can not be replaced with a woofer that has different Thiele/Small parameters.
In all likelihood the SEAS will need a different sized box with different port tuning frequency requiring different port length and or diameter.
It may also need a different crossover frequency.
If you haven't measured the JBL woofer you don't even know if the SEAS has a suitable sensitivity or impedance.

Have a look at the link. To be usable at least Fs, Qes, Qms, Qts and Vas must be identical and the chances of that being the case are practically zero.
Also the ideal port diameter is related to driver Sd (cone area) which obviously it is not.


Thiele/Small parameters - Wikipedia

I have a pair of 305s that don't get much use anymore. I record mostly acoustic bass for which I need a deeper monitor. Maybe if I had a sub. But since I have other monitors with an 8" speaker I just use them rather than spend more money.

I've had a pair of LSR308s for about 4 years now.

They've helped me make some of my best mixes, and while I'm super grateful to have them, I do not agree with the assessment that they punch way above their weight, nor that they contend with high end monitors 3x their price. They sound exactly like what they are: a solid pair of mid-tier speakers. Nothing more, nothing less.

My biggest gripe is with their midrange: they have a washy/metallic sort of characteristic that I find unusable without room correction software. They do open up when used in conjunction with Sonarworks, but even then, there's still room for improvement. Nevertheless, if you're willing to put in the work and learn their sound, you can do great work with them.

I've never used KH 120 As, but my guess is that the JBLs aren't quite in the same league.

You probably need to bear in mind that the JBLs are not mid tier priced but rather dirt cheap.
Mid tier performance is an extremely good result for them.

I disagree. The current 308 MKIIs retail for $500/pair, which was the same price for the older MKIs when they were released.

“Dirt cheap” would be more applicable to M-Audio or Behringer studio monitors, IMO.

Behringer Truth £209

JBL 305 £127

You were saying?

I'm talking about the 308s, not the 305s.

But look man, I'm not here to argue semantics with you. If you think $500 for a pair of speakers is "dirt cheap," more power to you. Just know that there are 5" Behringer USB studio monitors that can be had for $130/pair.