Intro
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Anyone talking about all-in-one speakers or Bluetooth speakers simply cannot ignore JBL. JBL simply owns this market. And rightly so: the JBL bluetooth ‘tubes’ simply sound impressively good. With the Authentics series, JBL puts a different kind of speaker on the market. We take a look at the big-boy: the JBL Authentics 500.
We genuinely don’t know how many Bluetooth speakers JBL has in its lineup. There are an incredible number of them. We estimate that the Flip and the Charge are the most popular models, though. And rightly so: they are relatively affordable and they just sound great.
JBL Authentics
With the JBL Authentics line, JBL has put a ‘retro’ speaker on the market that should appeal to the enthusiast who not only wants to play via bluetooth but is also looking for a slightly different ‘look’. More retro shall we say.
Looking at the front of the JBL Autentics 500, one cannot help but notice that the style is borrowed from the JBL L100. Is that a bad thing? No, of course not. It’s fine to use some authentic design elements. Brands do that in every industry. Look at the car industry, watch market or clothing, for example.
Looking further, we see a neat finish, handy buttons on top of the all-in-one speaker and at the back another Ethernet connection for a wired connection to the network and not to forget: USB. Don’t expect to play music from a stick: USB is for service. At least outside the US.
Many speakers
Now the JBL Authentics 500 is Dolby Atmos compatible. You won’t achieve that with a mono speaker. Behind the front are three 1-inch tweeters and three 2.75-inch mid-drivers. In the bass of the speaker there is a 6.5-inch woofer. A total of 270 watts of class D power is available. That’s impressive in a relatively compact cabinet.
According to JBL, the Authentics 500 should have a frequency range of 40 Hz – 20 kHz -6dB. With some help from a dsp and enough power, that should indeed be achievable.
Connectivity
As mentioned, the JBL Authentics 500 is not a Bluetooth speaker. It is an all-in-one with network connectivity (wifi and wired), bluetooth but also a 3.5mm analog input. The USB connection – except in the U.S. – is for service only. Perhaps other regions will get this capability as well.
App
We have to say: the app works well. Stable, simple and complete enough to get everything out of the speaker. However, we rarely use the app to play music. In most cases, we just work with the native Tidal app to use Connect. We also used Chromecast audio. That sounds good and works more pleasantly than from the JBL app.
Now bluetooth also works fine, but the compression is audible when compared to wifi. We also continue to find it quite annoying that notifications and phone calls interrupt the music. For example, if we are playing music via Roon Arc and we get a message, we hear the notifications over the speaker as well. That is obviously not a premium experience. In short: enjoy streaming over the network if you have the possibility. It sounds better and you are not bothered by those notifications.