Jamo S7-15B Review. (Insert Clickbait Here!)
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- Опубліковано 23 бер 2024
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This is my preferred format for UA-cam thumbnail + titles. No histrionics
Thank you for such a thorough review.
You know there's a real issue when Erin puts an arrow and "Holy crap." call out on a measurement graph. 😆
It's definitely an anomaly that you don't often see and never want to see, LOL.
Patiently waiting for that Tube Amp review lol
Just looking at the data I can see that thing will likely make my ears hurt with "Sssss sibilance" and "Tttt ting" mostly due to a slight "V" shaped mid range. Once you know what the color white looks like, well everything less than is just kinda grey. Excellent review as always. Cheers 🍻
Liking the live format.
The "dark cymbals" thing is likely the 4K bump masking/overshadowing the higher presence.
you really share a lot of knowledge in these videos. i'd love to try my hand at designing my own speakers one day but there's so many things that have to be considered and handled in balance. i need to read some books.
@vinylcabasse
A good start is:
"Vance Dickason - The Loudspeaker Design Cookbook" (latest edition).
Erin has also recommended it as well a few times.
@@bbfoto7248 I was going to recommend this one too. I'm an Electrical Engineer and this was where I started back in the late 80's/early 90's. It's not a long book but it's packed full of stuff you want to know. Compared to back then the design and measurement tools you have available for free or cheap is amazing. WinISD, Xsim, REW (all free design and measurement software) and calibrated USB microphone (UMM-6 or UMIK-1 for $80-$110) plus a DATS-V3 from Dayton Audio ($130) to measure drivers will get you very far down the road.
Can you have the software draw a thin dashed line on the impedance graph? Should make it easier to see the variations.
I can. I wanted to use thicker so it would be easier to see the graph overall.
Your reviews are at the top and best of the most thorough and complete of just about any audio reviewer I've come across in this hobby. Extensive, knowledgeable technical evaluation walkthrough with equally knowledgeable subjective experiences and insights interleaved. It really helps. Without this depth of reporting, it becomes a matter of flying blind. A guessing game. Randomness. It lifts lots of veils, myths, and claims. I started this hobby fixated on measurements. Then wasn't so much for a long time. But now, I realize that without the aid of measurement I spent a lot of time and money just at guessing and hoping that combinations of gear and rooms would work, all the while not having a good window into why things sounded the way they did.
Well, thank you for the kind words. I appreciate that. And thanks for watching!
There's the Monoprice Coaxial, I remember compression being fairly poor on those
Yep. Interestingly enough, the crossover distortion/compression is better on that speaker. But, that speaker is about 1/3 or 1/4th the size of this one so I wouldn't consider it a fair comparison. www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/monoprice_comp_thx_sat/
@@ErinsAudioCorner Ah yeah, definitely. Seems odd that the Jamo reaches fairly similar levels as something like the Monoprice coax while being much larger, I wonder why that is.....
Erin thanks for the video. Inexpensive speaker but there’s better available. Have you reviewed any Ascend Acoustics speakers? I’ve seen positive owner comments about their bookshelf speakers but not much from professional reviewers.
Hey, thanks. Yep, check this one:
NEW! Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1 V2 Review
ua-cam.com/video/XuLAkwYEdfY/v-deo.html
@@ErinsAudioCorner Would like to see a review of the Ascend CMT-340SE2.
What is crossover compression? Is it similar to when people talked about "scooped out" sound in some part of the frequency band?
@svalbard01
It's most often when thin wire iron-core inductor coils are used as well as cheap resistors and capacitors that all have low power-handling specs (Voltage rating).
Or when some type of cheap "tweeter protection" device is used to protect it from blowing up...such as a thin-wire glass fuse "bulb", tiny incandescent lightbulb, or a PTC thermistor (thermal resistor).
The magnetic field that Iron-core inductor coils produce will exhibit what is called "saturation" depending on the voltage and impedance. When cheap iron-core inductors experience too much power (A/C voltage) they begin to saturate and this also changes the properties or inductance value or "specs" of the coil. Air-core inductor coils are not nearly as prone to this "saturation" effect.
The iron bars allow manufacturers to use much thinner wire and and less overall windings to achieve the same inductance value compared to an air-core inductor.
You might think that the addition of the iron bars within in the coil would make them more expensive to produce, but using the iron is less expensive than using thicker and more expensive copper wire + additional coil windings/much more length of wire.
A similar effect will happen when the capacitors and resistors are subjected to too much power, and over the long term the cheap capacitors and resistors may fail from overheating.
What these effects result in is the Crossover Power Compression that you see in Erin's measurements. IOW the power available or passed on to the individual drivers is reduced significantly by the crossover at higher voltage/higher SPL conditions...sometimes to protect the drivers from blowing up.
It's obviously a cost-cutting measure. The solution is to use higher quality air-core inductors, polypropylene metalized-film capacitors, and wire-wound resistors that also have higher voltage specs.
You don't need overly expensive "exotic" or "audiophile" crossover parts, you just need to use "good" parts that have the appropriate specs and tolerances. Paying a lot more for exotic or "audiophile" crossover parts rarely result in significant or audible improvements, and the law of diminishing returns applies.
But you DO need to use decent, well-spec'd parts to guarantee good, consistent performance with good longevity.
@@bbfoto7248 Great explanation. Much appreciated 😎
It almost looks like a desktop speaker, with the angled base and designed not to play too loud. Could it work that way?
It could. It'd be a pretty large one, IMHO, but if you have the space I think it could work that way.
Is it possible that these speakers are close fied monitors? They are tilted, maybe close field reflections are not the issue.
They are advertised as home theater speakers.
“Enjoy your favorite movies, TV-shows, soundtracks and games with high-resolution and room-filling sound. Our engineers have used top tier components expertly voiced and validated with countless hours to offer you an incredible listening experience.”
I saw there’s some gen 2 Presonus 4.5-5” would love to see your tests on those. I had bad quality control on gen 1 (they died) but I thought the sound quality was amazing.
Personally, I have had similar poor experience with Presonus lower and mid-tier products in terms of both SQ and longevity. I would look elsewhere.
What speaker cables and power cables do you recommend. Have you seen Passion for sound's recent videos on cables? How good does your hearing have to be to hear the difference between a budget cable and an expensive cable.
To be blunt, I don’t believe any of the talk about hearing differences in cables unless it is proven by a blind listening test. But no one ever does that.
@@ErinsAudioCorner thanks. I agree
Hey Erin. The psb alpha 3 and 5 seem like good value desktop speakers. That's the general opinion but of course, would like to have yours. If you ever can get a hand on these, it'd be nice! Keep it up!
I've had the PSB Alpha 3 / nice little speaker, subdued high end. For surrounds, not bad at all but Polk made a similar design way before PSB - they were called " TSI 100 " series, and my honest opinion - the Polk's sounded way better than the PSB.
@@Audiomainia2310 and those polks were the same size? (as the 3s) Those seem harder to find though. The psbs you can still find for sale, new.
@@JoseFerreira-zb7wh that's why I said " made " - the TSI series has been discontinued. But I have maybe the last new pair Amazon had on the shelf last year, and for $100.00 I couldn't say no.
@@Audiomainia2310 i know. I said harder to find thinking of the used market mostly. I went for a search 😀 i remember thinking of buying a 3 way polk back in the day and i think it belong in those series.
For us designers, what causes crossover compression? Thanks Erin!
@alexw890
This is a "copy & paste" from my reply to someone else with a similar question:
It's most often when thin wire iron-core inductor coils are used as well as cheap resistors and capacitors that all have low power-handling specs (Voltage rating).
Or when some type of cheap "tweeter protection" device is used to protect it from blowing up...such as a thin-wire glass fuse "bulb", tiny incandescent lightbulb, or a PTC thermistor (thermal resistor).
The magnetic field that Iron-core inductor coils produce will exhibit what is called "saturation" depending on the voltage and impedance. When cheap iron-core inductors experience too much power (A/C voltage) they begin to saturate and this also changes the properties or inductance value or "specs" of the coil. Air-core inductor coils are not nearly as prone to this "saturation" effect.
The iron bars allow manufacturers to use much thinner wire and and less overall windings to achieve the same inductance value compared to an air-core inductor.
You might think that the addition of the iron bars within in the coil would make them more expensive to produce, but using the iron is less expensive than using thicker and more expensive copper wire + additional coil windings/much more length of wire.
A similar effect will happen when the capacitors and resistors are subjected to too much power, and over the long term the cheap capacitors and resistors may fail from overheating.
What these effects result in is the Crossover Power Compression that you see in Erin's measurements. IOW the power available or passed on to the individual drivers is reduced significantly by the crossover at higher voltage/higher SPL conditions...sometimes to protect the drivers from blowing up.
It's obviously a cost-cutting measure. The solution is to use higher quality air-core inductors, polypropylene metalized-film capacitors, and wire-wound resistors that also have higher voltage specs, and/or just better drivers.
You don't need overly expensive "exotic" or "audiophile" crossover parts, you just need to use "good" parts that have the appropriate specs and tolerances. Paying a lot more for exotic or "audiophile" crossover parts rarely result in significant or audible improvements, and the law of diminishing returns applies.
But you DO need to use decent, well-spec'd parts to guarantee good, consistent performance with good longevity.
@@bbfoto7248 thanks!
I have a pair of Jamo surround speakers but I don't know how to identify the model. They are on pedestals and black in color. What do I have? Does anyone know ?
Interesting..i learned something today. I bought a pair of the Polk R700 awhile back. Didn't like em at 1st. Tried them in a couple rooms & seemed like a different speaker in each. Could just be because they are huge and need space as well as distance from sweet spot though. I still have a pair of old Jamo Cornets on back patio. Low watt tube amp & i find them enjoyable. Think i paid $10 for them at Goodwill 😀
Yah I like to say go in your closet and clap your hands and see how that sounds with your clothes dampening everything. Then go in your rooms and clap your hands. Huge difference right? That's my best way to see how a room affects the sound.
23:37 you say losing; but it shows that you are getting an enhancement - so does this mean you are getting nice sharp resonant peaks when you turn it up?
And hence you getting less multitone compression - because there is free output from that resonance effect of the single frequency at 2kHz, 3kHz
Considering these are 4 ohm impedance, not recommended for an AVR,correct?
You know, it's hard to say for sure. I powered them with the little WiiM Amp and the Fosi ZA3 and they held up fine.
@@ErinsAudioCorner but the Wiim and Fosi are both class D amps - big difference than powering up a 100 WPC class A/B amp I would naturally assume.
Erin is right... that's a crossover issue. I'm betting there's a PTC thermistor in the tweeter feed, to protect it. (As it heats up, it's resistance increases, causing compression)
But tweeter could also a cheap POJ - the distortions seem to indicate that
Do people really do that!? 😮 I've seen fuses but PTC OMG.
I just can't figure out _why_ you'd do it that way...
@@pliedtka
Also a possibility.
@@Audio_Simon
It could be worse ... you could have an older JBL speaker with a lightbulb in the crossover. 😳
It's done to limit current at high power, preventing a clipping amplifier from frying the tweeters. It also lets them put a 10 watt tweeter in a 100 watt speaker...
wow those are actually spendy for not looking or sounding very good! some great powered studio monitors options less than those: jbl, kali, presonus, yamaha, adam…if bass is something u like past 100hz
I would definitely look at something like the Kali LP-6 v2 for that price, especially when they go on sale AND for a nice, simple bedroom setup. They are available in white or black. The only caveat is that they do not have grills, just like the Jamo. So if you have little ones with pokey little fingers you might want to pass.
I use the Kali IN-8 v2 in my bedroom connected to an iFi ZEN Blue v2 Bluetooth receiver with 990kbps LDAC and am a very happy camper.
Is there a possibility that the pair that you received were damaged?
For both to be damaged (internally only) is something I wouldn’t imagine.
@@ErinsAudioCorner I was just remembering the review of the Focal alpha 65 EVO by Amirm in which the first unit had elevated distortion in the high frequency but no aparent external damage so he tested a second unit and the problem was gone. Its posible to cause those especific problems to both speakers it there was a inappropriate use of a amplifier by the original owner?
@@danielezzet8870 If I'm not mistaken, these were shipped directly from Amazon to Erin by the purchaser for the review, so it's not likely an amplifier overpowering situation occurred. Could be wrong, tho'.
I had been curious about Jamo speakers for some time and after listening to a few, I'm glad you confirmed some of my suspicions when I listened. I thought they all sounded like shat. Very piercing shat. I'm honestly not sure why some other reviewers praise these and the 803's (I think). They just don't work. For my ear anyway.
Why you never test omnidir. speakers? like german physisks, MBL, B&O? too expensive?
Send me some and I’d be happy to!
@@ErinsAudioCorner Can I send you speakers made by myself?
Ouch, listening in square-ish room equals bad!
Sure, but A LOT of homes and people have these types of rooms, so it is valuable information to have!
The S7-15B speakers are intended to be surround speakers in their home theater package featuring the S7-17Bs as the front speakers. The entire HT package is around $1,100. Your review should probably be on the 17Bs instead of the smaller surround speakers. For those who like a more subdued Jamo sound, the HT package would probably be a better buy than the surrounds at $400. Thanks for the review on these Jamos. Buyers need to be aware that the room configuration will have a significant effect on the sound at the listening position.
Agreed. But especially with their tilted/angled base, a lot of people might want to use these in a desktop setup, where the S7-17B would be too large.
Ouf, that vertical dispersion was BAD. Way too much energy in 2-5KHz vertical range, a thick carpet to dampen the floor reflection might be the solution here. Or eq down that same area.
that instantaneous compression made me cringe
I am waiting for the KEF Blade Meta review.
... Jamo be there...
....uop aiyahe 🎶
@@VolkerTrue 🤣🤣
Had some small Jamo's . They sounded dead boring. No Dynamics bland tonality. Just bad.
Agreed, based on a C601 I used to own. Solid cabinets, beautiful cast frame drivers, decent looking crossovers and fr rather flat on axis (no significant holes or peaks iirc). The resulting sound though was decidedly meh 😎
I had their concert 507 and the large concert 11, they are amazing speakers
Blade is 100x the price lol. Hilarious to realise that.
I don't hate Jamo, but then again I dont mind a bit bright. Perhaps it's age-related hearing loss 😂
I'm opposite, with time I appreciate more laid back response. Definitely the 4kHz would stand out way too much for me.
Erin my man! I know you are much more hifi stereo these days, but would love some home theater content from you, if possible ❤
Would love some recommendations for home theater speakers with good dynamics and high output for larger rooms. Something that doesn't compress at references levels. I once sent you a superchat with this question in a livestream of yours, but you never made it to the question 😢
Sorry for missing that!
In my opinion, there are many speakers that can work for both Stereo and Home theater. It’s rare that there is an overlap. Even something in this price range could work. I guess my question would be what specifically are you looking for?
@@ErinsAudioCorner no worries!
Well, as stated, something that doesn't compress at reference levels in a medium/large room at approx 4 meters distance. Directivity is also important, so that the speakers are easy to EQ for multiple seatings. Doesn't have to dig deep, since they will be paired with subs.
Hmmm. Well, I think pro audio might be the answer there. Even the ones targeted for home theater (like Arendal) might not check all those boxes. Still, some of them come close. Like this one.
www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/arendal_1723_thx_monitor/
@@ErinsAudioCorner gotcha. I'll look into it, thanks!
As requested, no comment!
It's Jam-oh. Rofl
What did I say!?!? I said don’t comment on it!!! 😂😂
Jamo S7-15B is more a surround speaker the Jamo S7-17B is a bookshelf speaker. The frequency response is to high on this surround speakers.
Long live the “Klippel Gang”
lol I saw that video too!
@@richardbixler
Same. 😛
He even used a small "TM" at the end, as in Trademark, LOL.
interesting..
I never liked Jamo anyway.. Some men that want "cheapaudio" speakers seem to love them😁
That channel jumped the shark when he recommended $125 cables and claimed he heard a difference with them. He got called out on a live stream. That stream was deleted a few days later lol
I've never heard a good Jamo speaker. Ever.
@@ec6843 that's funny.
I didn't know that..
I followed him for a while because I thought he was entertaining and he wasn't really saying anything bad, even though I knew he wasn't technical enough to really be doing that job justice, but then he really got very salesman oriented as every product was the new best gem, and it started to rub me the wrong way, so I unsubscribed.. I know he has to support his family, but I think his of adding value for the "poor" audio enthusiast are behind him. I expected his technical expertise on audio to improve over time, but apparently that wasn't a priority. He now makes significant income from YT, so I don't feel sorry for him.
bc only men buy speakers
@@ec6843 that's funny, I did not know that .. well it sounds one would deserve flack for that. There's no high priced cable that will make a modest system sound better if you're already using short runs of a reasonable gauge of actual copper wire. There's so many believin' that junk is true, but you and I know it isn't, and the same goes for some of the "endorsers" as well. 😉
100 times the cost, not 10....just sayin'.
I was just seeing if you all were paying attention. 😂
You might want to consider not spending time with this brand. Seems like trash to me as I watch every review.
Maybe if they engineer a proper speaker they can mail it to you and try to redeem themselves but thus far I would toss everything into the dumpster fire.
The new stuff isnt good indeed. But i had the older concert 11 and the 507 oval shaped one. Both really good, the 507 actually measured really well too.