Customer Reviews

JBL L820BE 6-Inch 4-Way Wall-Mountable Bookshelf Loudspeakers (Pair, Beech)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My theater room is 17 x 20 x 7 which makes it a decent size room. I was torn between buying these wall mounted speakers versus the tower models for fear the the L820's wouldn't be able to keep up. I am very suprized at how well these speakers fill up my room. I have four L820's for front left and right and surrounds. I also have the lc2 for center duties and the L8400 for sub duties.

With this setup I have all speakers wall mounted and all crossed over at 100 HZ. Honestly I don't hear anything missing in the mix. I hear the bass guitars full spectrum and snares and tom toms have alot of weight. These speakers four way design really sound awesome for critical listening. Voices, pianos, and guitars sound amazing.

I am completely satisfied with these speakers for a couple different reasons:
- Sound perfomance is amazing (especially for movies).
- Are wall mounted with all wiring in the wall/no speakers on the floor with unsightly cables.
- Powered them with a modest 50 watt harman kardon reciever. If you buy the towers you will have to shell out alot more money to buy and adequate reciever to power them.

With a proper positioning and proper calibration these speakers are an amazing deal for the money. There is always something better in every aspect of life, but seriously for the money I don't think there is a better deal.

Lastly I would like to add that Amazon has been nothing but a class act to work with and would encourage you to do business with them. You won't regret it!

Got a new pair of these for $200.00 shipped.(Crazy Deal)I've got these as my L,R in a JBL6.1 set up. Build quality is top notch and the old knuckle rap on the back of these is solid with no resonance. Because these are sealed they are very quick and tight for music but are still able to dip down for very good mid bass in HT. You will be amazed at the clarity of the highs on these. I'm hearing subtleties and nuances in my music and movies that I've never heard before. I'm running an Outlaw Sub with these and they blend perfectly with my Yamaha receiver's crossover set at 80 Hz. Now that this line is a couple years old they are truly a steal when you factor in the price to performance ratio. These "are" wall mountable, a must for me as I have little ones, but do take the time and care to mount them properly as they are 20 lbs each. ( By the way, this is my wife's profile as I don't have my own set up yet)

It's hard to buy speakers, retail stores have a limited selection and most of them sit on a shelf where it's hard to judge quality. In the passed 25 years speaker quality has improved greatly, good speakers used to be expensive, taking up a lot of space in a room.
These days there are dozens of compact systems for under $500. Usually you get what you pay for with speakers and the cheap ones are not worth having if you have a decent amp.
In 2007 JBL came out with a new line of speakers called the Studio Series. The L820s are part of this system. Compact and wall mountable they're as good as anything in their price range, and somewhat cheaper than the equivalent Bose models.
I have added a set of smaller surround sound JBLs with a sub woofer to get an excellent sound for music and TV. Having speakers off the ground like these wall mountable models offer makes a lot of difference.
Good speakers for the price.

It has been a long time since I have purchased any "Hi Fi" gear. It felt like I was starting over. After a fair amount of research I decided on the JBL L820. It was a little more expensive than others but the name "JBL" meant quite a bit to me, from the past, and the published specifications looked good. The speakers arrived and I am quite pleased.

I use it with a JBL 12" subwoofer and, together, they play "beautiful music". This was a little surprising to me because my previous system consisted of two 15" Electrovoice triaxial speakers, each mounted in a large (2ft x 3ft x 3ft) base reflex cabinet. The old system was outstanding. What surprises me is that the L820s / 12" subwoofer combination is even better -- and the JBL L820s are very compact. So is the subwoofer.

I am very constrained on where I can put the speakers in our house. Everything but the subwoofer has to go into a closet that is about 50" wide and the space for speakers is only about 15 inches high. The L820s fit very nicely in that space but one might think they would be too close together. Well, they are, really, but the physical design of the speakers is such that all of the higher frequency drivers are on one side of the speaker -- and one speaker is the mirror image of the other. This means they can be placed so the high frequency drivers are fairly far apart. Separation is quite good in this configuration.

I also use the speakers without the subwoofer, when watching TV or DVDs. The base is not as strong, of course, but it is very good.

The mid/high frequency response is excellent. The sound is clear and crisp.

A CD of Beethoven's 5th symphony played on these speakers and the subwoofer is truly amazing.

I went with these in part for the WAF (Wife Approval Factor). If you're trying to set up something for sonic perfection, you'll want monitors on stands or towers, either of which need to be several feet away from the walls. I knew that no matter what I got, they were going to be pushed right up against the wall, because it looks neat and orderly.

It's hard to find bookshelfs that are not ported. With 6 inch woofers, these are the biggest sealed speaker that I saw that seemed to have reasonable quality without being excessively expensive. As a result, they have tight, quick responding bass with no boominess like a lot of bookshelfs seem to have. If you like low bass, you'll definitely want a subwoofer. This seems to transition well with my sub crossed over at about 80 Hz, though it could be crossed over lower.

I bought these through amazon, so I didn't have a chance to demo them compared to a bunch of other speakers. I compared them to my old Bose 4.2 speakers, and these are much more accurate sounding. There were guitar notes that sounded like a single note on the Bose that you can clearly hear as three distinct notes on the JBLs. At first I thought that they sounded a bit thin compared to the Bose, but there were two factors at play there. First, the JBLs are a little less sensitive than the Bose, so at a given amplifier setting, they sound a bit quieter. It's not significant. I'd say I maybe had to turn the volume up 10-20% for an even comparison. Second, the bass is more boomy on the Bose because it has a slot port on it. When I compared the accuracy, though, JBL was far better sounding. When I stopped swapping back and forth to compare and just listened to the JBLs and my sub (Polk DSW Micropro 2000), they sounded very very good.

Bottom line. You really should have a sub with this. I would probably say that about all but the largest of towers. If you are looking for absolute sonic perfection, you can probably find a few flaws in this. If you are going to be putting this speaker somewhere that it fits well, I think that lack of ideal placement will overshadow any differences between these speakers and a $4000/pair bookshelfs.

PS I think the supertweeter on this is absurd. I can't hear anything about 18 kHz (nor can most adults). For whatever reason it was put on the speaker, it doesn't hurt anything. It's just a little embarrassing if my friends who know anything about speakers ask about it.

So if you've read some of my reviews (TXSR607 or PSW505) you will remember that I do Marketing/Audio for a local bar. So I went with the TXSR607 as the receiver and decided to try out these JBL's. I've used JBL's in the car for audio upgrades, so I was already sold on the brand. When we installed these......WOW! I though I liked the BOSE that we had...these L820's have such rich High's, it feels like the artist is performing right in from of you! The mid-range keeps the sound 3Dimensional, and the added 6" sub extremely rounds out the sound where you may experience dead spots using a sub.

I was trying to get the Owner of the bar to go with 2 pairs as opposed to 1 pair. After he heard the difference, even his frugal judgment was convinced! GET THEM, GET THEM, GET THEM!!! When first picked up the speakers you will find them to be rather heavy, but let that not be a negative, as the added materials developed in the fabrication allows a rich, well rounded, NO DISTORTION, sound!!!

Replaced some big old bass reflex speakers with a pair of the JBL L820 speakers driven bi-amp. What a difference a speaker makes. Despite the compact size they handle the output of the Onkyo TX-NR809 with ease and sound crisp as can be. A second pair serves as the surround speakers and together everything is awesome.

This set paired with the LC2 creates a great balanced front surround set that reproduces music tracks clearly too. The response of these speakers is very crisp and clear, a very good, flat response that allows for good music and movie viewing experience. These are a huge step up over the old Mitsubishi towers that I used for music listening before. I can definately hear frequencies and suble differences that I didn't realize were there before.

I have had a pair of these as my main front channel speakers in my Home Theatre system for a few months. I am very glad I splurged and got these, the sound is smooth, accurate, and tight! I am using them with a Harman Kardon AVR 1600. I have the ES series JBL center channel speaker and for the four satellites, I use the JBL Northridge wall mount indoor/outdoor speakers. The accuracy of sound and detail blew me away with these front channel speakers immediately. They have a slender enough profile so that they fit on my mantel, which is what I was looking for. Most of the speakers on the market are just a little wider than these, so would not have fit the mantle. Also, they look great up there, while sounding great! I would most definitely buy these again, and I am looking forward to spending many years to come enjoying this pair.

These fit my room to a tee. Low profile for my bookshelf's. Sound is great on the front 2 speakers and not as room consuming as 2 floor standing speakers. I first bought the center and immediately knew I needed the 4 more for my front and side speakers. I used the original Onkyo 6100 fronts for the rear and the whole thing just works.