Looks

Extremely hard to listen to for more than 15-20 minutes

I bought these speakers after listening to them for only 10-15 minutes. I was quite impressed with what I heard -- excellent bass, accurate sound and good imaging.

After I took these speakers home I realized that after listening to these speakers for 20-30 minutes my ears would literally hurt. I tried this several times and each time I would have to switch the music off. I mentioned this problem to the dealer who suggested that these speakers take upto 100 hours to break-in. Not convinced, I decided to go back and listen to the dealer's broken-in 820s.

Back at the dealer, I experienced the same problem -- in fact, over time my tolerance for these speakers was getting less and less and not to mention extremely sore ears from the torture I had to endure. Further, I could not figure out why in the world I would face a problem such as this. As a result, I have decided to return these speakers and (after an extended audition) decided to purchase the Meadowlark Shearwater speakers. While the sound from the Shearwaters seems to have less definition than the JMLabs, they sound sweet and musical. More importantly, even after listening to them for a couple of hours, your ears do not feel the slightest bit of fatigue.

I guess the moral of this story is that if you are a serious audio enthusiast who likes listening to music for long periods of time, the JMLabs are the wrong speakers for you. Excellent build quality, furniture-grade finish, "the best drivers in the world" and seemingly "nice sound" mean nothing if you cant enjoy listening to the speakers for any length of time. However, if you are one of those people who would like to show off your latest big sounding "Made in France" acquisition, look no further.

Similar Products Used:

Meadowlark Kestrel, Meadowlark Sheerwater, B&W CDM 7NT

Listened to these this past weekend. Check out the review in the April issue of Audio Magazine - "A" rating. I think it pretty much hits the nail on the head. Compares favorably to the B&W 801, which, if I am not mistaken, is over 4 times the price! 4 and 1/2 stars, but I'll round up to 5.

suberb speaker for his price range...detailed soundstage,perfect high and mids respectable bass...overall musicality is excellent...

overall natural sound, great highs,mids and bass.
Also well-built / nice looking.

none

Hi there!

I used self-made speakers for about 10 years now, and I wanted / had to upgrade cause they got damaged.

I remember a nice review in a german hifi-test magazine.
(electra 905), so that´s how I came accross JM LAB.

After checking out the electra 905, beeing only a 2-way
speaker system, I wanted a 3-way speaker system, but the electra 915 / 920 were too expensive for me, so I thought,
the cobalt 820, the best "version" of the cobalt series
couldn´t be that bad - compared to the electra 905.
And reading all the nice reviews here on audioreview
convinced me - the cobalt 820 should be just the right ones for me.

(Got them for 400$ off the retail price.)

I plugged them into my own preamplifier / amplifier system
(Tube Preamp and HiFiAmp) - which I built completely myself,
and was really amazed how natural and nice the sound was.

Can´t wait to check them out with my new "high-end" amplifier "HiFiAmp Millenium", which should be ready in some weeks.
(battery-supplied)


So anyone looking for good speakers: you won´t regret the

cobalt 820s.

bye and greetings from germany !

-Stefan.

nice looking,sweet mids and higs,respectable bass,dynamic response,clarity,musicality

noticable reflex port noise at ~40 hz..

excellent sound quality for the money..sound like 4500-5000$ product...a few brigth for some taste but with a warm pre-power amp combination (like classe ca-200,arc ls15)sound became incredible...overall detailed sound....perfect....

Similar Products Used:

b&w 802,paradigm ref 100,b&w cdm7se,cobalt 815

Excellent highs, mids, upper bass, sound stage. The sound sits back, reaches behind the speaker: excellent spousal feature.

Light on the low bass

Overall, excellent. The Cobanlt's accuracy, subtle sweetness and clarity just seems to flow, rather than being forced. And, the sound sits back, so they are very good for a smallish room, and for spousal influences who want good sound, but not in the face.
Big difference between 815 and 820, although I would definitely try 815's for rears.
Because the sound sits back, I've turned the volume up 10-15%. These also have very good sound at low levels, so, when turning up the sound to louder levels, the sound doesn't improve dramatically, opening up like some speakers do.
I'm using low cost yet decent speaker wire, Kimber 4VS, but am setting out tomorrow to audition some Tara bi-wires, which the Cobalt sales person thinks will improve things even more. Ain't it great!!!
Pricing is fine, not great, so only 4 stars. Qaility at the approximate pricing is top notch, 5 stars.
Oh. Break in was 2-3 weeks, but improvements were audible at 4-5 weeks as well. Big, big difference from the start. If auditioning a pair, I'd want to know how long they've been used before deciding.

Similar Products Used:

NHT 2.9s