JBL Studio 500 series on sale.

[Shanman]

And now the 590's are $499ea shipped on the JBL site...

 

[KEW]

And now the 590's are $499ea shipped on the JBL site...

Linky

PS - I "poked around" the JBL website and did not see any other speakers from the Studio 5 Series currently on sale.
The Studio 530's are listed as being back in stock 11/20/19.

 

[shadyJ]

Someone should just buy some for me, just so I can measure them. I have been very curious about the directivity effect of the Studio 500 series waveguide but not so curious that I am going to spend my own money to buy a pair.

 

[bigkrazy155]

Linky

PS - I "poked around" the JBL website and did not see any other speakers from the Studio 5 Series currently on sale.
The Studio 530's are listed as being back in stock 11/20/19.

Keep it quiet @KEW ! I'm hoping to snag a pair when they get restocked and go on sale again. I was told by a rep they are expecting a sizeable stock. I can't remember the exact figure I was given, so I won't try to quote it here.

 

[shadyJ]

Someone should just buy some for me, just so I can measure them. I have been very curious about the directivity effect of the Studio 500 series waveguide but not so curious that I am going to spend my own money to buy a pair.

Hmm a thought just occurred to me. What does everyone think about crowdsource funding measurements for speakers that the audio community is interested in? Some speakers do seem to catch a buzz, but the manufacturers don't send them to reviewers that do measurements. Certain speakers that I am curious about I would measure for free, but most others I wouldn't because of all the effort involved in measuring them. I don't know what I would charge, but probably not as much as the NRCC, and users would get a more thorough set of data than what the NRCC provides. Just throwing this idea out there...

 

[bigkrazy155]

Hmm a thought just occurred to me. What does everyone think about crowdsource funding measurements for speakers that the audio community is interested in? Some speakers do seem to catch a buzz, but the manufacturers don't send them to reviewers that do measurements. Certain speakers that I am curious about I would measure for free, but most others I wouldn't because of all the effort involved in measuring them. I don't know what I would charge, but probably not as much as the NRCC, and users would get a more thorough set of data than what the NRCC provides. Just throwing this idea out there...

This idea deserves its own thread in my opinion. For something like this though, would it be possible to review and return within the 30 day hassle free window?

 

[lovinthehd]

Hmm a thought just occurred to me. What does everyone think about crowdsource funding measurements for speakers that the audio community is interested in? Some speakers do seem to catch a buzz, but the manufacturers don't send them to reviewers that do measurements. Certain speakers that I am curious about I would measure for free, but most others I wouldn't because of all the effort involved in measuring them. I don't know what I would charge, but probably not as much as the NRCC, and users would get a more thorough set of data than what the NRCC provides. Just throwing this idea out there...

Would the speakers necessarily have to come to you for consistency's sake, or could you go on the road for a tour?

 

[shadyJ]

This idea deserves its own thread in my opinion. For something like this though, would it be possible to review and return within the 30 day hassle free window?

I can't guarantee a 30-day return on the item, but that should mostly be possible. I measure outside, and if the weather is continuously bad for 30 days, its just not possible. This year has been spectacularly bad for subwoofer measuring for me, as an example. Thankfully, the weather conditions needed to test loudspeakers in a free-air condition are much less prohibitive than subwoofers.

 

[shadyJ]

Would the speakers necessarily have to come to you for consistency's sake, or could you go on the road for a tour?

The speakers would have to come to me. My testing rig is far too cumbersome to haul around.

 

[KEW]

Hmm a thought just occurred to me. What does everyone think about crowdsource funding measurements for speakers that the audio community is interested in? Some speakers do seem to catch a buzz, but the manufacturers don't send them to reviewers that do measurements. Certain speakers that I am curious about I would measure for free, but most others I wouldn't because of all the effort involved in measuring them. I don't know what I would charge, but probably not as much as the NRCC, and users would get a more thorough set of data than what the NRCC provides. Just throwing this idea out there...

Start off saying where you are located!
I'd be willing to drive a couple of hours to let you review my 580's, but for some reason, I'm thinking you are in Fla. (I'm near Atlanta).
I would say a thread titled "looking for JBL studio 5 speakers to review in Orlando (?) area" Would likely find someone. I believe there are a lot of these out there. If these were their only speakers, it would be good if you had a pair to temporarily trade with them so they would not be totally without music.
If I had a pair of 530's, I would be willing to ship one way if you could pay for (or crowdsource) the return shipping.

As far as crowdsource goes, I could see a viable option where people invested in say 100 each, $10 increments to obtain the $1000 for a pair of 590's, then after you finished testing/review, you would throw names in a hat (or use a computer random number generator) to determine which of the $10 donors gets the speakers. They would then have to pay shipping to receive them. To clarify, if I donated $50 to crowdsource, my name would be put in the hat five times! I think that would make it a fun and interesting prospect for contributors to encourage participation.

 

[lovinthehd]

Start off saying where you are located!
I'd be willing to drive a couple of hours to let you review my 580's, but for some reason, I'm thinking you are in Fla. (I'm near Atlanta).
I would say a thread titled "looking for JBL studio 5 speakers to review in Orlando (?) area" Would likely find someone. I believe there are a lot of these out there. If these were their only speakers, it would be good if you had a pair to temporarily trade with them so they would not be totally without music.
If I had a pair of 530's, I would be willing to ship one way if you could pay for (or crowdsource) the return shipping.

As far as crowdsource goes, I could see a viable option where people invested in say 100 each, $10 increments to obtain the $1000 for a pair of 590's, then after you finished testing/review, you would throw names in a hat (or use a computer random number generator) to determine which of the $10 donors gets the speakers. They would then have to pay shipping to receive them. To clarify, if I donated $50 to crowdsource, my name would be put in the hat five times! I think that would make it a fun and interesting prospect for contributors to encourage participation.

I like the idea but getting 100 people here to contribute (50 @ $20 ea maybe?)....that might be a reach. Shadyj is in the outer burbs of Chicago IIRC.

 

[KEW]

I like the idea but getting 100 people here to contribute (50 @ $20 ea maybe?)....that might be a reach. Shadyj is in the outer burbs of Chicago IIRC.

I'm not thinking to make it so rigid as 50 @ $20 each. The idea is you pay $10 for a 1 out of 100 chance to win the speakers. Thus I could pay $20 for 2 chances and you could pay $50 for 5 chances - it would be up to the donor to decide how much to donate. It is like buying raffle tickets - you can buy more than one!
Hopefully, crowdsource has the ability to halt donations when the objective ($1000 in this case) is reached to avoid confusion!

 

[lovinthehd]

I'm not thinking to make it so rigid as 50 @ $20 each. The idea is you pay $10 for a 1 out of 100 chance to win the speakers. Thus I could pay $20 for 2 chances and you could pay $50 for 5 chances - it would be up to the donor to decide how much to donate. It is like buying raffle tickets - you can buy more than one!
Hopefully, crowdsource has the ability to halt donations when the objective is reached to avoid confusion!

Gotcha, was just thinking getting 100 people here to do it would be tough. 20 guys doing 5 chances would be more like it. Heck, I'd do it....590s as surrounds might be nice

 

[shadyJ]

I like the idea but getting 100 people here to contribute (50 @ $20 ea maybe?)....that might be a reach. Shadyj is in the outer burbs of Chicago IIRC.

Yep, Chicago Burbs.

Start off saying where you are located!
I'd be willing to drive a couple of hours to let you review my 580's, but for some reason, I'm thinking you are in Fla. (I'm near Atlanta).
I would say a thread titled "looking for JBL studio 5 speakers to review in Orlando (?) area" Would likely find someone. I believe there are a lot of these out there. If these were their only speakers, it would be good if you had a pair to temporarily trade with them so they would not be totally without music.
If I had a pair of 530's, I would be willing to ship one way if you could pay for (or crowdsource) the return shipping.

As far as crowdsource goes, I could see a viable option where people invested in say 100 each, $10 increments to obtain the $1000 for a pair of 590's, then after you finished testing/review, you would throw names in a hat (or use a computer random number generator) to determine which of the $10 donors gets the speakers. They would then have to pay shipping to receive them. To clarify, if I donated $50 to crowdsource, my name would be put in the hat five times! I think that would make it a fun and interesting prospect for contributors to encourage participation.

Interesting idea, but eventually I think the idea of raffling off the speakers would end in acrimony. I think there are a few more stable ways to handle this, maybe. I am just tossing out ideas here off the top of my head, so I haven't thought through any of this. One possibility is that if someone actually owns the speaker that everyone wants to see measured, that part of the funding is used for shipping to and from the owner. The shipping would be insured shipping, of course.

If the speakers have to be purchased, maybe I could just resell them as a part of my fee for measuring, and contributors get a first chance at buying the measurement units? Or maybe do closed bidding for those who contributed only?

Another thing, I am not offering a full review here, only full measurement set. An actual review takes a long time to complete. I might offer comments on how the measurements correlate to the sound character, but that wouldn't be extensive.

 

[shadyJ]

Something else to keep in mind, the fee I would ask for a full measurement set wouldn't be very cheap. I would have to think about it. There is a lot of labor and time involved. There is running the actual measurements, there is time needed just to deal with shipping logistics, there is processing the data and then graphing the data. It's a full day. I can pretty much only do one speaker per day as well.

 

[KEW]

Yep, Chicago Burbs.

Interesting idea, but eventually I think the idea of raffling off the speakers would end in acrimony. I think there are a few more stable ways to handle this, maybe. I am just tossing out ideas here off the top of my head, so I haven't thought through any of this. One possibility is that if someone actually owns the speaker that everyone wants to see measured, that part of the funding is used for shipping to and from the owner. The shipping would be insured shipping, of course.

If the speakers have to be purchased, maybe I could just resell them as a part of my fee for measuring, and contributors get a first chance at buying the measurement units? Or maybe do closed bidding for those who contributed only?

Another thing, I am not offering a full review here, only full measurement set. An actual review takes a long time to complete. I might offer comments on how the measurements correlate to the sound character, but that wouldn't be extensive.

Well, if I were buying a pair, I could see having them delivered to your address then paying to have them sent to me (but would welcome any assistance on the shipping cost to me since that would be pretty expensive for a pair of 590's)!
Raffles are done all of the time. Where do you see the acrimony coming from?
Maybe Gene would chip in a little something? It seems like it would stir up traffic on AH since when these speakers are deep discounted there is plenty of interest.

 

[KEW]

Something else to keep in mind, the fee I would ask for a full measurement set wouldn't be very cheap. I would have to think about it. There is a lot of labor and time involved. There is running the actual measurements, there is time needed just to deal with shipping logistics, there is processing the data and then graphing the data. It's a full day. I can pretty much only do one speaker per day as well.

My last post was before I saw this!
Yes, you would need to figure out what your fee would/should be.
I still like the raffle model, but instead of $1000 (assuming the 590's), include the cost of your measurements on top of the cost of the speakers in determining the crowdsourcing $ objective. This makes for a good test. I believe it is easy to return the money if you don't meet the objective, but you would be prepaid when you started testing, so there would be no concern on that count.

 

[shadyJ]

Well, if I were buying a pair, I could see having them delivered to your address then paying to have them sent to me (but would welcome any assistance on the shipping cost to me since that would be pretty expensive for a pair of 590's)!
Raffles are done all of the time. Where do you see the acrimony coming from?
Maybe Gene would chip in a little something? It seems like it would stir up traffic on AH since when these speakers are deep discounted there is plenty of interest.

The problem with raffles is that someone could get angry with the outcome and accuse me of rigging the game. Something else that is more specific to your tickets idea, the person who bought the most tickets would have much higher odds of winning the speaker, so it would almost be like buying the speaker at a very steep discount. Maybe its better if I just sell it and use the money to subsidize measurement fees somehow. I don't know if that sounds fair, you tell me.

I don't know what Gene would think, I haven't mentioned this to him since I just thought of it. I am not sure if he would even want Audioholics to be involved. The problem is if I measured a speaker against manufacturer wishes, they would have their beef with Audioholics more than me personally. I don't want to land Audioholics in a problematic situation, and maybe Gene would rather avoid that drama. We can always ask him what he thinks, of course.

 

[Pogre]

These speakers are like a bitter/sweet memory from long ago that keeps coming back to haunt me...

 

[KEW]

The problem with raffles is that someone could get angry with the outcome and accuse me of rigging the game. Something else that is more specific to your tickets idea, the person who bought the most tickets would have much higher odds of winning the speaker, so it would almost be like buying the speaker at a very steep discount.

That makes no sense! For simplicity, let's stick with the idea of $1000 (which includes your cost/fee) raised using 100 ea. $10 "tickets".
If I buy one ticket, I know my chance of winning the speakers is 1 out of 100. Whether the other 99 are bought by 99 people or only one person doesn't change my odds. In the case of one person buying 99, I would be actually impressed that the other person is obviously very interested in your measurements (since he is also paying 99% of your fee).
Yes he is very likely to win the speaker, but he also has more skin in the game. but statistically everything is absolutely fair and unlikely as it is, the prospect of me ending up with the speakers is a real possibility!

Maybe its better if I just sell it and use the money to subsidize measurement fees somehow. I don't know if that sounds fair, you tell me.

That is a difficult question. I don't know how many hours it might take you to measure them.
One speaker I would like you to measure is the Infinity R162, but it is a $200/pr. (on sale) speaker. Is that fair to you?
I would also love to see comprehensive measurements on the Canton A45 Anniversary model, which costs $4000/pr. Is that fair to you?
I think it needs to be a set fee rather than based on resale value of the speakers!

In one of your posts you said it would take a full day for everything. If a full day is 8 hours and we are talking $1000 speakers we are talking you are being paid $112.50/hour (if we look at it that way).
More reasonably, we might consider that you should be able to sell the "used" speakers via classified ads for 60% of their value ($600), so you would be getting paid $75/hour. $75/hour is over $150,000 a year, so I don't think most here would feel good about that (just being practical, because the first thing anyone would do is compare what you are making to their own salary).
Moreover, you are in a situation where you are gambling your paycheck on resale value which I think you would want to avoid. In some cases you are apt to get screwed over (and it may be your own measurements that do it)!

So a 50-60% devaluation of the speaker is likely when you resell them, however, most people here would (if they won the raffle) see it as winning 100% of the value of the speakers (less the cost to ship them).

The good thing is I believe there is no risk to present one of these scenarios on "Go Fund Me", etc and just see what type of reception you would get.