Home > Consumer Reviews > JBL Venue Series Stage 6-Inch 3-Way Speaker

I bought these speakers to complement my home theater system - my old EPI's had expired. As front speakers for home theater, where you can supplement base with a sub-woofer and voice with a center channel, these are very adequate. However, for pure music listening I would recommend going a step or two up. A primary attribute of great speakers is "presence", where the listener is aware that there is music in the room, but not aware of the speakers. With these, I am always aware of the speakers - which I believe is caused by overly bright highs that give a slightly unnatural cast to the sound. My old speakers had presence, but alas; I cannot afford the thousand bucks or so it would take to replace them with speakers of equal quality.

This is Jbl's entry level front channel speaker. It is a great deal. The bass is very nice (I actually won't be buying a sub) and the sound reproduction is very clear. Haven't gotten to volume test this yet since I set it up at 11:00 PM but everything so far has been GREAT. I love the sound from these.

While JBL's speaker performance hasn't been quite as awe inspiring as the products from companies like paradigm and definitive technology, they have still produced quality speakers to those that don't desire to empty their lifesavings on recreational music listening and movie watching. I have used that spiel before in my review for the JBL stadium, but I liked it so I used it again.

With that said, I use these speakers as my rear surrounds and find myself still outwardly giddy about the purchase. Having experienced the sound of the stadiums I figured "why not?" for the surrounds. Needing to fill the void of sound at the back of my room I went out and bought some 4' wire shelves (to raise the sound to a height that would be above a person's ears when seated) and placed these speakers up on their respective pedestals.

For my testing I hooked up my computer to my Harmon Kardon receiver via toslink (optical) and messed around with the soundstage on several demanding songs and video clips. On lower volumes bass presence is well accomplished, louder volumes however prove to be too demanding for the unamplified little 6" speaker (no surprise). Midrange is always full, and can be a little overpowering, but to the normal user at more acceptable volumes, you'll never have problems. I have always enjoyed JBL's tweeters, you get a much fuller sound stage than the "sweet spot" creating horn designs, and for the price range you will not find better high end frequency performance.

The speaker's sensitivity (for those who don't already know) is the ability for the speaker to take an electrical signal and turn it to recognizable sound. The higher the sensitivity, the louder volume you get with less wattage per channel. Luckily these speakers don't require much power so no thousand-plus dollar amplifier is required so those 100-400 dollar best-buy receivers work just fine. Plus you'll never need to worry about blowing a speaker as receivers turn off on their own when they push too much current (A plague all too many of us home theater owners have to deal with). Don't like it? Go buy a preamp, a few amps and speakers that can handle 300 watts each and 5000-plus dollars later problem solved (until you look at your movie theater style electric bill).

Again I would have liked to have seen biwiring capabilities, but the speakers still reproduce sound very well. And, I must say that the silver grills look really nice but good luck trying to match it with anything else in the room that isn't black. The easiest way to rectify this little problem is to just take them off, the speakers look awesome without them anyway (Which is probably why every picture you see online has the grills off).

Anyway I'll stop now. For those looking for a modest home theater I would certainly suggest these as main (Front)speakers. They performed better than I had expected and only require a subwoofer to help assist with bass representation.

These loudspeakers are amazing and a great value through amazon. They provide great sound with little to no distortion. I first tried the cheap Sony's and they had a ton of distortion that was immediately recognizable in a side by side test of these JBL's. The do a great job on high pitched tings, and also provide reasonable base for acoustic music. At first I didn't have my Sub turned on when setting these up and the music sounded good and there was some base but not quite enough for The Pixies, and NIN. I paired it with a JBL Sub that brought it up to par in the bass category. Considering they only cost $244 for a pair, you can't find better speakers.

I bought these a few months back and I don't regret it. For a 6in woofer these things can really pack a punch. I alternated them from "B" fronts to surround and back to "B". I have the JBL dual 8s for my main fronts and the pair well when using both channels. If you want surround they can do that, if you use them as I do they work great that way too. If you're not into HT and just listen to music you will be suprised at the clarity. For the price I don't think you can beat these and they honestly do play much bigger than they are.