It quickly became one of my favorite speakers.
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I just wish the grilles used magnets instead of annoying friction-based pegs.
Noteverythingneeds to be retro.
Unlike the L100 Classic, the L82 is a 2-way design with just a woofer and a tweeter.
This is thanks to a high-frequency knob which gives you fine control over the speakers upper frequency response.
Turn the knob down.
I wish more speakers would include physical controls like this.
Another way the L82 let you tweak sound is in how you position the speakers.
I preferred the outboard position.
Your mileage may vary.
The Sound
I have to admit, I was a little nervous going into this review.
After all, Ive listened to some amazing speakers since then.
My worries were misguided.
Second, an overarching sense of neutrality despite the retro looks.
And three, a toe-tapping sense of dynamics one rarely finds in bookshelf speakers.
But no these are speakers neutral enough Id be happy to use them as studio monitors.
Thats not to say they are completely devoid of character.
You should get useful energy into the 30 Hz region in-room.
I also like to think I can puzzle out most of the qualities of a speaker through listening alone.
Sometimes Im a bit off from the mark, but this doesnt seem to be one of them.
Yes, that is as tedious as it sounds.
The spinorama was actually developed by researchers at Harman, JBLs parent company.
This single graph is usually enough to separate the good speakers from the bad ones.
Heres my summary if you think the above lines might as well be rainbow spaghetti:
Got all that?
Lo and behold:
That isverysimilar to what I was able to achieve with my jerry-rigged at-home setup.
It shows JBL has nothing to hide.
The one quirk in the direct sound is a sharp dip and bump from roughly 1-2kHz.
Because of the asymmetrical tweeter placement, we have different measurements for each side of the speaker.
Next we have the measurements on the close side of the tweeter:
Mostly similar performance.
One more visualization heres what we call a contour plot or polar map.
The speaker is much better controlledbelowtweeter height, barely changing down to 15 degrees below my reference point.
The ER and PIR curves are particularly smooth, suggesting a great balance in a typical living room setup.
That the sound is slightly tweakable is just icing on the cake.
I hated having to send these back, and hope I get the chance to hear them again soon.
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