JBL Studio 290 Floorstanding Speakers Review Highlights

Studio 290 floorstanding speakers are typical JBL products. They are well built, equipped with good components, and perform respectably in what they are intended to do: reproduction of high fidelity sound for music and home-theater applications. The speakers’ well-balanced full-range sound promises many hours of listening pleasure.

JBL Studio 290 Floorstanding Speakers Review

JBL Studio 290 Floorstanding Speakers Highlights Summary

  • Full-size floorstanding speakers featuring dual 8″ PolyPlas™, 4″ PolyPlasTM, and 1″ CMMD® Lite drivers deliver in rear-port bass-reflex design
  • High quality dual gold-plated biwire-able speaker terminals
  • Wood-grain cabinet finish with glossy top
  • Well-balanced upper to lower frequency presentation
  • Capable of producing room-filling sound, although the upper frequency can be a bit hard and edgy when pushed too hard
  • Neutral soundstage with a slight hint of forwardness

Introduction to the JBL Studio 290 Floorstanding Speakers Review

JBL, which is now part of Harman International, has had a long-standing history in audio world. It has been around since 1946. From personal to car to professional audio products, JBL makes them all. The fact that the company is able to maintain its existence for so long is an indication that it must have done a few things right, including the quality of the products it produces. Reviewed here is a pair of home speakers in the current JBL product lineup.

JBL Studio 290 is a floorstanding speaker that is about in the middle of the line of its Studio 2 series. It retails for $599 each, which put it slightly above budget speaker category in my book.

JBL STUDIO 290 FLOORSTANDING SPEAKERS REVIEW SPECIFICATIONS

  • Design: Floorstanding Speaker, Ported Enclosure
  • Single 100mm (4″) PolyPlas™ Midrange Transducer
  • High Definition Imaging (HDI) Horn Design
  • 25mm (1″) CMMD® Lite High Frequency Dome
  • Recommended Amplifier Power: 20 – 225W
  • MFR: 38Hz – 22kHz
  • Sensitivity: 91dB
  • Nominal Impedance: 8 Ohms
  • Braced Enclosure with Slipstream™ Rear-firing Bass Port
  • Dual Gold-plated Binding Post Speaker Terminals with Bi-wire Capability
  • Dimensions: 47.1″ H x 10.75″ W x 13″ D
  • Weight: 55.2 Pounds/each
  • JBL
  • SECRETS Tags: JBL, JBL Studio 290 Floorstanding Speakers, Studio 290, horn, Studio 2, Secrets 2015 speaker reviews

JBL Studio 290 Floorstanding Speakers Review

Design and Setup of the JBL Studio 290 Floorstanding Speakers

The JBL Studio 290 speakers have a black matte wood-grain cabinet finish on the front, back, and sides with glossy black finish on top. The side edges of the cabinet are soft rounded. The speakers are handsome-looking, but I would not call them “visually striking 21st century design” as JBL mentions in the speakers’ brochure. They are handsome alright, but their appearance is not a standout. What I mean is if you put them among 100 other speakers, it is hard to imagine that they will be the first catching your eyes. Overall the speakers seem to be well built with only a slight resonance heard from knocking the sides of their cabinets.

The JBL Studio 290 features two 8″ PolyPlas bass drivers and a single 4″ mid-range PolyPlas mid-range driver in a bass reflex-design with a rear bass port. The tweeter is of 1″ CMMD dome variety in a horn-type of enclosure. According to the speaker’s information sheet, this horn design is intended to disperse the high-frequency sound towards wider listening area. I like the fact that JBL uses bi-wireable high-quality gold-plated binding-post speaker terminals on the Studio 290. The speakers are shipped with these terminals bridged using gold-plated connector plates for single-wire default setup.

During the evaluation, I inserted the JBL Studio 290 speakers in place of my long-time reference, the NHT Evolution T6 speakers, in my open family room with an area larger than 1000 sq. ft. In two-channel configuration, the speakers were driven by Classe CA-100 amplifier through the Adcom GFP-750 active/passive preamplifier. The speakers were slightly toed-in based on the manufacturer’s recommendation to get the best possible imaging at the listening spot. I tested the speakers in both single-wire and bi-wire configuration through the NHT crossover and Parasound HCA-855 amplifier. Just out of curiosity on the capability of the speakers in a home-theater application, I used them as the front channels in my surround-sound setup as well.

 

The JBL Studio 290 Floorstanding Speakers In Use

Out of the box, the speakers sounded a bit incoherent with strained treble. The sound gradually loosened up and eventually no further improvement was noticeable after a few days of regular use in my system. I did my critical listening after I considered the speakers have been completely burned in.

For stereo music listening, I played various genres of CDs from my collection played back through Shanling CD-S100 CD player. Overall, the JBL Studio 290 pair delivered good balanced sound. I did not notice bass or treble over-emphasis on the music produced by the speakers, which was a good thing. Treble-heavy speakers are tiring to listen to while bass-heavy speakers can make all music unnecessarily boomy. I did not mean that these speakers were shy in the treble and bass departments either. When called for, the speakers could deliver those with enough energy. These speakers could fill in my big room with no problem; however the sound could be a bit brittle and edgy on the upper end when they were pushed too hard. These were not an issue when the speakers were played at normal listening levels.

The upper frequency range of the speakers had good clarity and details, but it lacked smoothness when compared to my NHT T6. This might be an unfair comparison, however, as their price points were widely apart. The JBL Studio 290s were also no slouch in reproducing vocals. They sounded quite natural and had good clarity. Being critical, what I missed from the vocal reproduction of these speakers was a focused image. No matter how I changed the toe-in angle or the placement of the speakers, I could not get the pinpoint image of the singer’s location. In a way, this affected the palpability of the overall presentation. However to put it in perspective, usually you can get such palpability only from speakers in higher price range. The strong point of the speakers is in reproducing bass. Bass articulation was there with nice definition and good intensity. In the stereo music listening, I never felt the need to fire along my subwoofer to aid in the bass department.

The sound presentation pictured by the JBL Studio 290 speakers was neutral with a slight forward tendency. They might not produce the widest or deepest soundstage, but it was good enough to create a believable presentation. I found that they did a more outstanding job in reproducing pop music or small jazz ensemble than big-stage classical orchestra.

These speakers actually exhibited noticeable different sound characteristics with and without their grills. They sounded more open without the grills, but I found the highs were often too sharp for my ears. I preferred to listen to these speakers with their grills on, as their sound was a bit smoother and less tiring this way.

In the bi-wire configuration, I noticed that I could squeeze in a slight improvement in the overall sound clarity from these speakers. Slight upper bass muddiness, which was sometimes observed with some music, was subdued and the transition region between mid-range and upper bass seemed to be better defined when compared to single-wire setup. Overall, the bass was also slightly more controlled in the bi-wire setup. Whether the slight improvements obtained with bi-wiring the speakers justifies the cost and effort involved lies in the ears of the beholder. But if you have an unused amplifier lying around, why not?

As mentioned, even though I did not have the complete JBL Studio package for the review, I used the Studio 290 to anchor the front channels of my surround-sound setup. Tonal matching aside, I felt that these speakers were really at home for such use. Big movie soundtracks could be handled by these speakers with no problem. Moreover, they possess sufficient dynamic and clarity to create a high fidelity home-theater setup.

 

Conclusions about the JBL Studio 290 Floorstanding Speakers

The JBL Studio 290 speakers produce well-balanced sound with good dynamics. They perform solidly for stereo music application with no glaring shortcomings. These speakers may not be the most refined speakers in their class, but they can definitely compete comfortably with other similarly-priced speakers. Moreover, they could step up to the plate convincingly in a double-duty music and home-theater system. With this versatility in mind, I recommend putting the Studio 290 in your audition list if you are in the market for sub $1250/pair full-range speakers.