JBL Chose the Worst Room to Showcase Its New Soundbar, Yet It Somehow Worked

JBL Chose the Worst Room to Showcase Its New Soundbar, Yet It Somehow Worked

JBL has officially launched the BAR 1300 in Australia, a new 11.1.4 soundbar with surround speakers, multibeam tech and the much sought-after Dolby Atmos.

Alongside the BAR 1300 ($1,999.95), JBL also has the BAR 1000 ($1,499.95), BAR 800 ($999.95), BAR 500 ($749.95) and the BAR 300 ($529.95). The BAR 1300 is of course the standout, so we’re going to focus on that in this ‘initial thoughts’ review.

JBL BAR 1300 soundbar

The BAR 1300 soundbar offers 15 surround channels with six up-firing Dolby Atmos drivers and DTS: X.

The angles for the Atmos drivers are very specifically positioned to try and get as many different beams as possible at the correct angle to create the right soundscape. There’s also additional tweeters on the side. Left and right height acoustic beams, four side beams (the BAR 1300 adds two extra side horn drivers over BAR 1000).

JBL BAR 1300 soundbar
Image: JBL

Dolby Atmos is probably the most incredible element to this new soundbar. Over here you’ll find a detailed explainer on why the inclusion of Dolby Atmos in new speakers/soundbars is so significant and why it may herald in a new way of listening. To attempt that here would do it a disservice, but it was phenomenal to see that in action (more on that in a sec).

With the BAR 1300 soundbar, JBL has removed one of the biggest barriers to entry – they’ve removed the reliance on cables. The two speakers that pop out of the soundbar are battery-powered and wirelessly connect back to the soundbar. Depending on your volume, you’ll get 4-6 hours out of them. If they die, you can always pop a USB-C into them and plug it into the wall. You can also use both speakers as portable Bluetooth speakers.

A review, of sorts

To show off the new BAR 1300 soundbar, JBL invited media to Studios 301 in Sydney, arguably Australia’s most iconic music recording studio, the place where many global artists have recorded, most recently Post Malone. Anyway. Aside from the whole experience being fun to this music fiend, it was also a great way to showcase how good a new soundbar can sound.

The first room JBL took us into was the recording studio. It was an interesting choice as, by design, a recording studio is meant to absorb sound, not reflect it. In your loungeroom at home, you get a perfect listening experience when your speakers/soundbar is sending sound all around you, beaming off walls and other furniture to give you the best experience. The recording studio was also just…way too big and the ceilings were more than double than they are in my apartment. It was far bigger than any room you’d put a soundbar in. But, JBL made it work.

JBL BAR 1300 soundbar
Studios 301 recording room. We were seated in the area artists record (top left & top right), JBL sub (bottom left) and one of the two BAR 1300 soundbar’s removable speakers (bottom right). Image: Asha Barbaschow/Gizmodo Australia

In front of us was the BAR 1300, with the two removable speakers placed either side behind us and of course a sub in front. Quick side note – JBL said calibration of the entire room took 1-minute (and that’s in a room that’s not meant to be alright for this stuff). The mics for calibration are built into the two removal speakers and it’s all performed through the JBL app.

JBL BAR 1300 soundbar
The JBL BAR 1300 soundbar, not the prettiest product pic we’ve ever taken. Image: Asha Barbaschow/Gizmodo Australia

The sound was clear, and deep and filled the room much better than I thought it would. The Dolby Atmos was distinguishable – I felt the tapping of the appropriately named Thumper calling the worms in Dune move all around me like it was coming from bottom right, then top left, in front of me, then below – everywhere it was meant to be, it was. The volume was up full, but the only complaint from the crowd was that it was maybe one notch too high. In a normal room, it would of course more than fill it and you would not have the volume up so high, causing a tiny bit of distortion or even vibration.

When it comes to showcasing audio, the demonstration was Top Gun: Maverick, specifically a scene where they’re wearing helmets and masks, and obviously flying, too. In such a scene, it’s super hard to hear what they’re saying. The dialogue was coming through the JBL 1300 soundbar almost perfectly, and we were still in the same super-sized, soundproof room. I could hear missiles shooting past me and the sound from the stopwatch was also isolated to a single part of the screen. Atmos is freaking cool.

There’s a reason JBL chose Studios 301 – they mix in Dolby Atmos here. So for the next demo, we headed into the mixing room.

The Dolby Atmos mixing room. Image: Asha Barbaschow/Gizmodo Australia

This room was built specifically for mixing and mastering, no glass, no windows, no nothing. Except a 12-month-old $200,000 speaker system. The white cones you can see in the pictures are Studios 301’s Dolby mixing speakers. The bar-looking thing front and centre of the above pic is the BAR 1300 and the little rectangle on top of the speaker on the left (below) is the removable side speaker of the soundbar.

A close up of the JBL BAR 1300 soundbar (left) and one of two speakers sitting on top of the Studios 301 ‘normal’ speaker. Image: Asha Barbaschow/Gizmodo Australia

The sound engineer played us a track he had mixed in Dolby Atmos via the $200,000 system and then the JBL BAR 1300. The former of course sounded exceptional – I’ve genuinely never heard anything so perfect in my life – but the sound from the soundbar system wasn’t $180,000 worse. It was actually really good still. There was a little bit of vibration from the speaker sitting on top of the other speaker, and while it wasn’t as perfect as the expensive system, I could still hear sounds moving around me like I could with the more expensive setup.

I left with my jaw on the ground.

JBL’s hardware can’t make that happen, they can only enable it with their tech and I feel they’ve done a pretty impressive job of it for a very affordable price.


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