30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
Wireless can be done with only minimal cost.
These speakers are on the top of the 'not bad' scale. Considering the convience of the wireless system the downsides may easily be overlooked. Sound quality: Very Good. Wireless signal: Fair. If you have thick walls in your house - or want to use them outside without a clear view of the transmitter - you will be dissapointed. I have found that the speakers work much...
156 of 159 people found the following review helpful:
Nice sound, but MANY fatal flaws
Here's the good news: The sound quality is nice. The frequency response seems very detailed, and these diminutive speakers pack more bass than looks would suggest. No complaints about the sound quality.
Here's the bad news: These speakers have MANY very serious flaws that make them unusable.
1) The speakers have a timeout mechanism - they go into...
Here's the good news: The sound quality is nice. The frequency response seems very detailed, and these diminutive speakers pack more bass than looks would suggest. No complaints about the sound quality.
Here's the bad news: These speakers have MANY very serious flaws that make them unusable.
1) The speakers have a timeout mechanism - they go into a standby mode if the sound stops transmitting. That's fine, but the standby mode mechanism is very overeager: the speakers often enter standby if the music volume stops, or even if the volume just gets a little too quiet, for a short period of time - even as little as 5 seconds. So the speakers can go into standby even during a quiet section of otherwise loud music, and the wakeup process is not trivial: it may take 10 seconds or more to reacquire the signal once the music kicks in again. Worse, this quirk is hard-coded and not adjustable; you can't disable or adjust the standby mechanism.
In short, these $200+ speakers have a tendency to cut out the music for 25 seconds or more when it dips too low. That is a fatal flaw. And it's not the only one:
2) These speakers will SHUT DOWN your Wi-Fi network. I have a very recent 802.11g router (a Motorola SBG900), and when there's music streaming to the speakers, my bandwidth drops from a steady 200kbps to about 5kbps. Seriously. If I unplug the transmitters (which are 10' away from both the router and the receiving computer), my bandwidth comes to life; if I plug 'em in again, my bandwidth vanishes immediately. It's terrible.
3) JBL made some very strange choices with regard to the cabling. The cable from the right speaker to the left is about 25 feet long - a bizarrely long connection for such small speakers - and unless you want to splice it, you're going to have a rat's-nest tangle of excess cable hanging somewhere between or behind the speakers. Meanwhile, the power cable is only about 18" between the active speaker and the power brick; and the power cable coming out of the brick is only about 3' long. As a result, if you mount the speakers 6' high, you'll have a massive black brick with a glowing green LED dangling at about 3', and probably a hookup to a longer power cable about 1' off the floor. It's quite sad; JBL must not have tried to actually mount these speakers before they shipped 'em out.
4) Speaking of mounting: The speakers come with wall mounting brackets that look sturdy at first glance. However, the speakers are very boxy - about 5" deep - so they'll project noticeably from the wall. Much worse, the mounting bracket is very poorly designed. For example, the speakers mount on a ball-and-socket bolt that's *way* too long - you'll see an extra 1.5" inches of bolt projecting from the wall mounting, for no particular reason. (In fact, JBL doesn't seem to trust the integrity of the bracket; they include a camera-strap-like thing for fastening the speaker to the bracket, in case it fails. Creepy.)
5) Want to buy extra speakers and dial 'em in to the same channel? Of course you do; it's wireless, right? Well, not so fast. First, JBL won't sell you *just* the speakers, so you have to buy a whole 'nother set - including a second transmitter - at full price. Second, the wireless setup has a hard limit of two speaker sets per transmitter channel. I own three sets of these speakers, and only two connect to the transmitter at any one time. I don't know why; it's completely capricious, and it severely limits the extensibility of the system.
It's really tragic that JBL made such terrible ancillary choices, because the prime virtue of these speakers - the sound quality - is very nice. But the convenience and sound quality aren't worth the hassles... particularly at such a high price point.
Bottom line: Avoid. Avoid at all costs. These things are FATALLY flawed. JBL needs to recall them and fix them... and if they don't, I'm certainly never buying their equipment again.
- David Stein
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These speakers are on the top of the 'not bad' scale. Considering the convience of the wireless system the downsides may easily be overlooked. Sound quality: Very Good. Wireless signal: Fair. If you have thick walls in your house - or want to use them outside without a clear view of the transmitter - you will be dissapointed. I have found that the speakers work much better with a clear view of the transmitter and must be no more than 5 meters away (for the old folks still using the english system about 15 ft). Overall I'm happy with the - beats stringing wires around the house.
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This product seems ideal for a surround sound system or similar "In Room" application. The quality of the sound is good, and the installation is relatively simple.
I am using it to expand my stereo system to another room. People passing between the recievers and transmitters create some interference, and the speakers occassionally drop out.
The speakers are not portable, and require a wall outlet to function.
All told, I am pleased with the product, but it has limitations.
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For some reason, my idiot boyfriend bought these for 228, which is way too much. The instructions say the speakers need to be 35 feet from the router. So, unless you are using them in a business location, they echo. No, I don't mean they give you a clear surround sound effect, I mean they have about a full second delay from the TV to the speakers. They are not completely "wireless" either. The speakers are wires to each other, so you still have an awkward wire across the room. Plus the obvious cord to the outlet.
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These speakers are what I was searching for. They are small, sounds great and easy to setup. I used these while entertaining during the Holiday season. The transmitter is located in my small computer room at the front of the house, and the speakers are in a sunroom addition at the rear of the house. The computer room was loaded with kids playing X-BOX Guitar Hero and they did not interrupt the signal to the speakers. When I first set this up I was getting sporadic signal interruption until I switched channel settings for the best reception and I now get excellent sound. Anyone looking for 'stereo' wireless speakers that sound fantastic should look carefully at these.
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Made a lot of research before buying this pair of boxes. Most of reviews argued about having so many cables in a wireless system. Without cables you can not have decent audio.
Audio quality is perfect. Transmission range is also great without interference. And they have a LINE IN plug which is very convenient.
If you are thinking about buying wireless audio, don't waste your money go for these babies.
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I bought these as a gift for Christmas. The recipient is EXTREMELY happy with them and she is very hard to buy for! Installation is easy. If you are using them with a Bose Wave System, plug the wireless station into the headphone jack.
For the best reception, put them either high on the wall or on top of a bookcase if you can.
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I bought this product to replace a set of RCA wireless speakers that were unsatisfactory (besides the fact that it came with TWO LEFT speakers). I was pleasantly surprised with the build and design quality of this JBL set. Plenty of speaker wire was provided. The little remote works fine for me. I had to do a bit of tweaking of the transmitter antenna and the receiver orientation to avoid occasional dropouts. My sound system is centered on a Harman Kardon AV-745 receiver, which has an input for everything and an output for everything else, so the time-consuming part for me was configuring the receiver for multi-room operation. I had to go back and dig through the receiver manual to find out about setup. I'm now watching the Emeril on the HD Food Channel in the den, while the (hypothetical) dinner guests in the dining room are listening to an Etta James CD. Life is good.
For me, this product is an ideal complement to my sound system.
JBL was thoughtful to provide power cords for both 110v 50-60Hz and 220v 50 Hz operation. Not that I'm taking the product to Europe any time soon.
There's also a splitter cable that adapts a mini stereo jack to a pair of RCA plugs. The safety tethers provide a little extra assurance, but I don't need them for my floor mounting. I'm not using the wall mounts, but I note that the speakers are threaded for 3rd-party speaker mounts from either the back or the bottom. I like the wall mounts provided for the transmitter and for the receiver. There's a subwoofer connection too, but I doubt that I'll put a sub in the dining room. The owner's manual covers all sorts of possible configurations, including using an MP3 player to provide Line-In, in case you don't want to use the wireless feature for some reason. The remote allows one-touch source selection between wireless and local. I also like the fact that a blinking green LED indicates that the speaker is getting signals from the remote.
It's a nice product, overall. It's a good value if you want to supplement a complex sound system.
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Eventually, after many sound time-outs, I tried turning up the sound-level output to 7/10 from my MAC and the time-outs have gone away. This was after much trial and error and frustration.
Once I got it right - the system seems to work fine.
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Definitely would recommend these speakers. Great sound for the wattage and you can use 2 sets with one transmitter...put 4 speakers around the house if you like. Although not entirely wireless, you do get to eliminate one wire per set, and can use multiple sources of sound if you want. All in all, a good buy!!
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