JBL Studio 530 and Studio 590

[glenn]

I just purchased a pair of the Studio 530 and 590 speakers to replace some aging 4408a that I bought new in the 90s. I have to say that who ever designed these speakers did one hell of a job. They just sound simply wonderful. In my little studio Im using the 530s with a Crown D75 and the 590 in the living room with a pair of Pass amp camp amplifiers. Couldn't be happier. If your looking for assembled jbl speakers in my opinion these are a great deal.
And no I wont stop building. But my wife is happier with the look of these over the folded horns. A story for another day

[AlanD]

I just purchased a pair of the Studio 530 and 590 speakers to replace some aging 4408a that I bought new in the 90s. I have to say that who ever designed these speakers did one hell of a job. They just sound simply wonderful. In my little studio Im using the 530s with a Crown D75 and the 590 in the living room with a pair of Pass amp camp amplifiers. Couldn't be happier. If your looking for assembled jbl speakers in my opinion these are a great deal.
And no I wont stop building. But my wife is happier with the look of these over the folded horns. A story for another day

They are a Greg Timbers/Jerry Moro design. I.E. Same team behind some of the most legendary JBL speakers...

[engineerjoe]

it's probably me, but my ears think they're missing something here, with my new JBL 500 series (2x530, 2x590s, 520? center and old JBL for rear surrounds.).
I think the (lower)mids aren't there much? Reminds me of Bose stuff.
The speakers were breaking in. So I can only go by what I had with my old ones.
The highs are nice but have taken some time for my ears to adjust.
For fun, I went downstairs and fired up the 3 way PA with all JBL, 2450s, 12"s, and 18"s with newer Crown DSR amps. I think they spoil me down there. I expected more out of these 500 series. I may go to a biamp set-up and see if it transforms them. I have them all hooked up to my Denon AVR 3313ci so the power maybe lower than optimal?
I think I may need more than most 2 way systems offer?

[AlanD]

it's probably me, but my ears think they're missing something here, with my new JBL 500 series (2x530, 2x590s, 520? center and old JBL for rear surrounds.).
I think the (lower)mids aren't there much? Reminds me of Bose stuff.
The speakers were breaking in. So I can only go by what I had with my old ones.
The highs are nice but have taken some time for my ears to adjust.
For fun, I went downstairs and fired up the 3 way PA with all JBL, 2450s, 12"s, and 18"s with newer Crown DSR amps. I think they spoil me down there. I expected more out of these 500 series. I may go to a biamp set-up and see if it transforms them. I have them all hooked up to my Denon AVR 3313ci so the power maybe lower than optimal?
I think I may need more than most 2 way systems offer?

The 590 is a 2.5 way.

The 530 measures well, so maybe it’s the amp. (audio science review measurement)

[Robh3606]

I have a pair of 590's as well. Sound fine to me.

Rob

[engineerjoe]

Wow, that's a pretty flat looking chart for what I'm hearing.
I may try and hook up the 590s to something else and crank them up. Just to see what they can do. Maybe at the least, they'll break in a bit more and quicker?
I have the 530s just for surround so the 590s are what I'm describing here.
I had JBL 830Ms on the floor in the living room. The surrounds rotted and I replaced them myself. I said at that time, I should replace them for their age. I was always pretty happy with their performance though.
I should also try swapping back and forth comparing them directly and not from memory.

[clwinbe]

I just purchased a pair of the Studio 530 and 590 speakers to replace some aging 4408a that I bought new in the 90s. I have to say that who ever designed these speakers did one hell of a job. They just sound simply wonderful. In my little studio Im using the 530s with a Crown D75 and the 590 in the living room with a pair of Pass amp camp amplifiers. Couldn't be happier. If your looking for assembled jbl speakers in my opinion these are a great deal.
And no I wont stop building. But my wife is happier with the look of these over the folded horns. A story for another day

I just received my 530 pair yesterday. Caught them on a good sale from JBL. My first listen was powered by a Hafler XL-280. Sounded thin, overly bright. Hmm. Put them in my bedroom system that’s powered with a 250 wpc Rotel separates and a pair of Citation 7.4 subs. It took a lightning bolt to get the open unrestrained sound. They are different for sure, but not bad. My normal pair for two channel are L-1. Went back out to get a pair of 590 but the sale is gone. They had the 580 60% off last week. Dang.

[clwinbe]

it's probably me, but my ears think they're missing something here, with my new JBL 500 series (2x530, 2x590s, 520? center and old JBL for rear surrounds.).
I think the (lower)mids aren't there much? Reminds me of Bose stuff.
The speakers were breaking in. So I can only go by what I had with my old ones.
The highs are nice but have taken some time for my ears to adjust.
For fun, I went downstairs and fired up the 3 way PA with all JBL, 2450s, 12"s, and 18"s with newer Crown DSR amps. I think they spoil me down there. I expected more out of these 500 series. I may go to a biamp set-up and see if it transforms them. I have them all hooked up to my Denon AVR 3313ci so the power maybe lower than optimal?
I think I may need more than most 2 way systems offer?

My 530 pair are really tough to drive. They didn’t sound good until I put them on a 250 wpc Rotel amp.

[man00]

I thought the 590's blew my old JBL L100T's out of the water, can't say about the 530. I do have some 230's they sound great to me with my old Pioneer.
Not so great with my AVR

[engineerjoe]

I'm waffling here and just posting some random thoughts that will probably be best overlooked....

I know my opinion isn't too highly regarded here. I know now that the specs on this line-up seem very flat. I do know what I like.
I went away from my last post's response, bothered by the flat chart response thinking it must be me then!
I can only say from my experience doing live sound, that peoples ears don't always like every frequency running equal and flat. You attenuate things to enhance a live sound without pushing frequencies that are annoying.
These 590s that I have sound very bright to me. I tend to tone down something in the 2K range for example rather than boost it. (I'm just guessing at what seems to my ears to be attenuated.)
I guess I prefer something more like a jazz type live studio monitor sound. Some (low) mid frequencies get reduced making the sound tighter. It seems like the 590s already do that. However the tweeters seem to out shine the performance of the lows.
So sometime soon, I will power these with my crown rack and break them in. Maybe running bi-amp will also allow me to get the sound balance I'm after?
It maybe this Denon receiver's surround effects playing with my ears too. I am not happy with most preset settings so far. I adjust the subs and when I switch inputs, I need to start over?
It maybe that I just have the room set-up wrong. My wife did not allow me to place stuff where I thought best. She was intimidated by the looks and size of the 590s. So they got placed at the rooms end.
I am in no way bashing these speakers. At best, I'd just say to someone looking that they are very bright and accurate. It takes some adjustment coming from old soft dome tweeters.

I have JBL 2" drivers in use in the basement and like the sounds from them. I have full control of how they perform using outboard 1/3 octave eqs, on board eq, DBX limiters, and of course amp attenuation.
I tried using 1 1/2" (like JBL 2432) drivers and think they perform closer to these 590's tweeters. I am switching those out to 2453s (and maybe later to D2s) for lower weight from the big ol' 2" while trying to retain the same sound.
In my conclusion so far, I'd say that the 590s remind me of using newer, smaller JBL drivers on my PA wishing they were the 2" throat models. They are accurate and clean.

[NashSue]

I just purchased a pair of the Studio 530 and 590 speakers to replace some aging 4408a that I bought new in the 90s. I have to say that who ever designed these speakers did one hell of a job. They just sound simply wonderful. In my little studio Im using the 530s with a Crown D75 and the 590 in the living room with a pair of Pass amp camp amplifiers. Couldn't be happier. If your looking for assembled jbl speakers in my opinion these are a great deal.
And no I wont stop building. But my wife is happier with the look of these over the folded horns. A story for another day

I read your story and I'm incredibly jealous. Thank you for your advice. I will do as you do at home!!

[engineerjoe]

OK, now this is an apology of sorts.
I retested my system and got better results. Maybe some of it is that my ears have adjusted to horn type tweeters? I am happy now.
I did not move anything. I simply went thru my system's presets and different audio sources. My problem seems to stem from my dislike of some presets and certain sources.
I have a very small Sony Blue ray DVD player and noticed the system sounded a lot different?
So I put in some audio CDs and gave that a try. The surround sound is much more in front and the main vocals for example, are mixed down. I did not like that fully but I started hearing what sets these speakers above. They are very accurate and the harshness was gone.
So next, using audio CDs, I played with my presets and got the system balanced better. I think what happened is my main source that I watch the most is Direct TV. Even my girl said the system sounds weird.
The concerts I recorded all sound different from each other, and way worse than any CD. I would guess that from network compression and other things? I had grown accustomed to my Pink Floyd concert sounds for example with the old JBL speakers and a Yamaha RX-V675 surround receiver. I had that sounding pretty good and lost it when I got new stuff.
So now the Denon and the new JBLs, things are different. I still haven't got things right. Different sources seem to throw off any happiness I have with system balance. The radio for example lights the subs on fire. They actually get annoying and make the room very boomy. I have to change the preset sounds (from music) to lower the subs to balance the system.
The main problem was I never tried an audio CD as we just don't bother to play them much. I got four new CDs to get new music going and revive our fondness of music. She won't listen to Yes, progressive rock, or jazz, so I had to go country. Sometimes you have to make concessions. Even just for testing!

[clwinbe]

I just purchased a pair of the Studio 530 and 590 speakers to replace some aging 4408a that I bought new in the 90s. I have to say that who ever designed these speakers did one hell of a job. They just sound simply wonderful. In my little studio Im using the 530s with a Crown D75 and the 590 in the living room with a pair of Pass amp camp amplifiers. Couldn't be happier. If your looking for assembled jbl speakers in my opinion these are a great deal.
And no I wont stop building. But my wife is happier with the look of these over the folded horns. A story for another day

I missed the last sale. When I complained, the Harmon support folks said they couldn’t help, but gave me a 20% code. It was very kind of them. So I wander back to Harmon site this week and the 50% sale is going. Put them in the cart, then used the 20% off code, covered my eyes and hit the enter. And what a beautiful site, 70% off the 590 pair. They sent me the twenty percent off after I used a Monte Python quote from Holy Grail in the text window “You make me sad…..Patsy!” Thought I was funny. Nope. I guess they thought I was pissed off. It will be interesting. I really liked the 530, but sent it back in favor of the 590. Have a nice big amp to feed them from four channels.