Any thoughts on JBL E90s?

 

edster922
Unregistered guest
They usually run $400-700 a pair, I found them for $290 shipped.

Has anybody here listened to them? I'm looking mainly for great mids and highs, which the Ascends are supposed to be good at but these are half that price so it's very tempting...
 

Bronze Member
Username: Buckcrazy

Post Number: 59
Registered: Nov-04
do not buy as i work at futureshop canadian version of bestbuy they are and sound like mass produced junk for ur money u sure can find more musical &detailed speaker thanks.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Mb1

MontrealCanada

Post Number: 14
Registered: Dec-04
I concur. I went to Future Shop 2 weeks ago and did an A/B comparison on all of their floorstanding speakers. JBL (E60) was the worst sounding. Polk was the best to my taste. Athena and Bose were not as good as the Polk. The receiver was an H/K AVR430. Base on what I hear in this forum, JBL does not well with HK (both warm and soft).
 

edster922
Unregistered guest
Baldev,

I'm sure there are better speakers but for $300 a pair for floorstanding towers? I'm curious as to what you'd suggest as alternatives.
 

edster922
Unregistered guest
Baldev,

I'm sure there are better speakers but for $300 a pair for floorstanding towers? I'm curious as to what you'd suggest as alternatives.
 

edster922
Unregistered guest
MB,

As I understand it, there is a significant improvement when you get into the e90s and above. I'm thinking of buying the e90s from Best Buy to audition them, then returning them and ordering them online if I like them.

BTW, which Polk did you listen to? I like their RTi8 and above, but thought their bookshelf RTi4 and especially their Monitor 6 towers were very mediocre, and of course their R-series is the worst.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Mb1

MontrealCanada

Post Number: 15
Registered: Dec-04
edster922,

I listened to both the RTi8 and RTi10, and really liked the 10 (solid bass, not boomy). I'm hearing that many people prefer the 8 (with a small sub), due to better mids. I want to go back and listen to both again. I was really impressed by the soundstage of the 10 (best to my ears among Athena, Bose, JBL and Polk).

I'm really new to audio and still learning how to recognize quality sound. That's the though part. Having problems to analyze the mids. Anyone with recommendations or tricks to analyze the mids ?

Thanks
 

edster922
Unregistered guest
MB,

During your speaker testing did they have the speakers working alone or together with a sub? If it was alone then yes the larger woofers of the RTi10 would probably make a big difference.

In my mind, if you have a half-decent subwoofer and your receiver has bass management allowing you to high-pass (send all the low frequencies to the sub and let the mains do upper bass, mids, and highs, then the need for full-range tower speakers is greatly reduced.

The other factor to consider with supersized tower speakers is that while they do fill up large spaces better, they can sound muddy in a small space, and also they will suck up more power from your receiver/amp amd not sound good if you don't feed them enough power.

To analyze mids, I'd put on vocal music such as Norah Jones, Annie Lennox, etc. Stuff where the singer holds notes for long periods as opposed to just squealing them (e.g. you don't want to use Britney Spears to test out speakers). Or classical and jazz are also good barometers, especially on the highs.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Mb1

MontrealCanada

Post Number: 16
Registered: Dec-04
edster922,

Yes, the sub was off. I have a large room (19x28), reason why I'm looking for speakers that can move air.

My "beginners" strategy was to identify a pair of floorstanding speaker with the level of bass that I like (the RTi10 met that). Then, my next step was to match a center speaker to the tower speakers (CSi3 or CSi5 if I go with the Polk). Finally, because my wife doesn't want to see surround/back speakers hanging on the walls, I may have to go for convenience (in-walls) as opposed of quality sound for the surrounds and backs. Hoping that I'll be able to find timber matched in-walls at a decent price.

My goal is also to ended up with a configuration that will be well suited for multi-channel audio (DVD-Audio or SACD), if at all possible with in-walls.

In any case, I'll go listen to the RTi8 again (with and w/o a sub). Yourself and another member of this forum (Kano) seems to think that it's a good setup.

Thanks for the inputs. Well appreciated !!
 

edster922
Unregistered guest
For surrounds, you could drop to some low-end tower speakers like the Polk R30s, it's basically the R20 with a taller cabinet. I'd never use it for fronts because its mids and highs are horrible but for surrounds they should be OK, decent bass so might be adequate for HT. It's not too bad looking either.

Fry's had them for $100 a pair today only, you might be able to come closer to to that if you keep an eye out for sales or eBay.

In-walls don't necessarily have to be bad, a friend of mine had some Paradigms and they sounded awesome just paired with a sub and a Sony ES receiver in a pretty big room with high ceilings.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Monkey_man_jack

Post Number: 47
Registered: Dec-04
Yo edster992, get the JBL E100's, they are 3 way with dual 10 inch woofers. I would not buy speakers from Best Buy, or the Canadian Best Buy place. Speakers at Best Buy are cheap, they are usually falling apart on the shelves. Best Buy does not tend to carry the most high end of speakers. So the E90's probably are not bad, but the E100's are definately better.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Mb1

MontrealCanada

Post Number: 17
Registered: Dec-04
I think that I'm going to do some test with surround in-walls. Thanks !!
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