Jamo S 803 Dolby Atmos® Expandable Bookshelf Speaker

[MrBoat]

They're certainly potent enough, especially for their size and can handle some power. Also work without a sub for most music. The bass from the little 5" woofer is commendable, in that it sounds larger. more along the lines of an 8". Somewhat revealing yet forgiving enough. They fill my 12' x 20' room with good sound, handily. They want to be a little bright but seems as if they were designed to play thru the magnetic, sort of tweed like grilles that come with them. Other than that, they don't have much in the way of distortion and I am playing them quite loud. That's one thing that I could not find in the literature was power handling spec. I had to go to their website to look it up. I could have missed it elsewhere, I suppose. Specs are here.

Definitely worth the $200 I paid for them. I have a lot of other great speakers and should also mention that there isn't much with modern audio that really excites me any more than say, 20-30 years ago. Still, they manage to contend with other speakers I have heard and I am constantly reminded it ends up still being more about the source, than the speaker, by 2018.

I also have to consider again, that I am listening to these without sub woofers and the bass is actually pretty impressive.

They have actual binding posts so it was just a matter of plugging them in, so that was good. The cabinets are narrower at the front baffle by .5" in 9.5" per side, which roughly translates to about 3 degrees. There is receptacles in the top for the addition of an atmos speaker.

Do I like these more than the JBL LSR305? Big hmmmm there. They sound larger and would be more of a competitor for the LSR308, perhaps.

These would be awesome for a budget system in a bedroom, or apartment. They can get away from you, meaning, they are clear enough to cause you to creep the volume up until you walk out and back in the room and realize they are loud.

Only issue I am having is, I already have too many good sounding speakers and I didn't need these. If I had been without for awhile, these would have been quite welcome.

 

[MrBoat]

After owning these speakers for 3 years, now, I realized that I never listen to them. I ended up getting tired of them pretty quickly but had so much new audio stuff going on with so many different types of speakers that I really didn't care, one way or the other. I revisited them recently after spotting some less than favorable reviews online. I reckon I have gotten pretty much spoiled since, with much better speakers.

Recently I disconnected my DIY Paul Carmody Speedsters and decided to give these a whirl again in their place. Such an instant comparison really put these Jamos in their place. I don't care for them at all now, comparatively. My Paul Carmody Classix2s trounce them as well. Somewhere in around getting the Jamo, I had come to the conclusion that 6.5" was my absolute minimum. The Jamo was/is yet another 5-ish" speaker trying to be more than it is.

My JBL LSR 305 are my only active speakers. The issue I was having with them was input. I really didn't give them a chance with a potent enough source. Once I hooked them up to a decent preamp, they really surprised me. I always liked the sound of the LSRs, but they weren't powerful enough. Comparing them with the Jamo now, there is no contest. The JBL are so much better and paid pretty much the same price for both. The most telling comparison being, I am still listening to the JBL every day. The Jamo s803 has been parked pretty much since new. At work, a certain song will come on and the LSRs will make me take notice, at least.

So, would I recommend these Jamo now? Nope. I think my old, under $200, complete Sony 3-way shelf system that I got from Kmart 20 years ago sounds better than these. These have been a good lesson in what to look out for with budget speakers. The only salvation with speakers like these to someone like me who has grown up with some really cheap and crappy audio? They don't have any noticeable mechanical distortion like the realistic, panasonic Montgomery Ward type stuff my parents used to get back in the day came new out of the box with. I still have flashbacks from then, so sometimes a speaker just not having that, is good enough.