JBL LSR305 Studio Monitor

So first off I'm sure everyone that owns this speaker would say that these have the best imaging of speakers ever. And they are right, and it's crazy on point imaging. I didn't believe in audio ******** before I bought these. I just thought that might as well since I get JBL stuff cheaper. Now I'm into audio and you can be sure these speakers made me. 
 
Now, next is audio. The highs are not sibilant at all. These are "pleasant". I know a lot of people do not like these audiophilic terms but whatever. You will want to sit down and feel the music. The highs get detailed but natural sounding. Pianos and Cellos sound wonderfully perfect like I'm at the concert, albeit still with some digital sounding artefacts. Bass is great. Sounds like a 6". Fast, accurate. It's  made of some hard ass material so it doesn't move a ton which means it has headroom for high volume without distortion, and many reviews have proven that with graphs and stuff. That's not my specialty Vocals are forward and clear, doesn't get mashed with the other frequencies. Honestly these sound too analytical when the music is badly mastered, such as my own piano playing, which sounds like each note is clearly a different note from each other which sounds weird when you want a full music piece instead of a note by note, but that's because I'm bad. On normal songs these are a masterpiece. 
 
One problem I initially encountered was a slight hissing. I disappeared in about an hour of playing so I'm not sure what is going on. Even if it did go on it's inaudible unless your ears are right next to it, which in that case the speaker would be pretty useless so I would count that as a FEATURE.
 
It's input is limited to 1/4" TRS or XLR inputs, both are balanced although unbalanced inputs doesn't seem to matter much to it, which is what I'm using. It comes with a quality and powerful amplifier and goes loud as F. Even without a DAC these sound awesome so the amp is very very high quality, although I got one just to test. There are two knobs, HF and LF trims. Turn the LF knob down if it's too close to the walls to prevent boomy ****ty bass. In normal cases leave them be or you will **** up the sound. It's great out of the box without any need of burn in, although I would still recommend it just to be sure.
 
This speaker is pretty much dollar for dollar best bang for the buck speaker in the world. For 300$ or less a pair you beat even the Audio Engine A5+ in terms of overall quality. The A5+ has bad imaging compared to these, and also with slightly better faster bass compared to the A5+ which retails for a lot more than the JBLs. I highly recommend anyone thinking of a desktop speaker to get these. You can also get it's subwoofer but I would recommend trying it without the sub first to see if you can live with the excellent bass these have. It's pretty much an easy decision for me so I hope this review makes it an easy one for you as well. The only powered speaker that beats these are the Vanatoo Transparent Ones which retails at $500, being the only other speaker in the <700 price range to win the LSR305.
 
DO NOT bother with the LSR308 for desktop because of it's sheer size, at least 2-3 times the size of these babies. I've also heard of port rattling and such problems related to it's bad structure and material in relation to it's size, but you can test it if you can.

 
 I owned the JBL LSR 305 studio monitors for some time now, they have quite a few useful features. The speaker drivers are design in an interesting way.  The wide guide designed supposed to let the center sound image come out clear and heard no matter where you are sitting at in the room, without effecting the rest of the sound so it can be produce accurately. I find this to be very true, no matter where I sat in the room or how close, far off to the sides, the center image was great, the rest of the sound still sounded really good. The lows on the studio monitor sound really good to my ears, It has enough bass for all my needs, Which I found to be very clean and clear. The sound really fill up the room as well the apt from a 3.5 volume setting which I use.
 
 
 

 
The studio monitors have many functions on the rear of the monitors. Two Input’s, power switch, volume knob, trim switches and the input sensitivity switch. The monitor’s has a TRS 1/4 and XLR connector both of them are balanced, I use the XLR connection myself. The trim switches let you control the high and low frequencies with +/- 2dB EQ for each. I will be using the default trim setting which is 0dB. The input sensitivity switch let you config the studio monitor’s for consumer level -10dB signals and professional +4 dB signals, such as sound cards, phones/tablets, external dac’s and pro audio devices. I use the +4 dB setting myself for my Gustard X12 Dac.
 
 
 Now the one flaw about the studio monitor’s is the placement of the Power and volume controls, it would been much better if they was on the front of the JBL 305’s instead of the rear. The only work around is using an external volume control box such as the emotive control freak passive volume box, which is used by plugging it between the studio monitor’s and the dac by XLR or a Pre-amp with XLR,TRS 1/4. If you’re using them unbalanced using a XLR to RCA cable’s then a pre-amp with RCA connections.
 
One thing you should know before you get these are, they are very source depended, if you have a poor source they will let you know. I don’t suggest you plugging these into your onboard audio unless you’re on broad audio happen to be the few of the good ones that out, even then I don’t suggest it. At least you can do is use a recording pro box, external dac or a decent or good sound card.
 
The Setup
For the review I will be using the Gustard X12 external dac, connected to the JBL 305’s thru XLR connections. The dac will be using the usb connections. I will use Music bee media center with it set to use Asio. The os I will be using is Windows 10 pro 64bit.
 
Games
Besides listening to music I am also a gamer, Games sound really good on the JBL 305’s, the game audio was very clear you heard everything that was going on in the game very cleanly. Because of the wave guide the mids was great, no matter where I was as I played games like Dragon ball XV, Borderlands TPS and Interstellar marines, the voices came out very nice and clean and in the center. When there was a character walking to the sides of me talking, I heard them moving to the location. The center image was very good.
The bass was powerful when I was firing a sniper rifle in borderlands while not out doing the rest of the game audio, which is great when coming from these studio monitor’s. I do not have a subwoofer at all. I fell I won’t need one and I happy with the performance that I am getting from the JBL 305’s. The sound field was very big, the sound of me punching goku in the face in dragon ball XV the force of the punches came thru, other npcs flying around the match was produced really well.
 
Music
When it came to listening to music, I had the same results, depending on the songs either it was like they was on stage singing to you or their voices spreading thru the room or singing directly to you.
The sound was very airly and spacious with the sound stage being big, I could hear each separated instrument playing clearly, and none of them was over lapping each other, my room was filled up with sound as it expanded throughout the room. The highs are detailed and are also clear, I didn’t have any problems at all hearing the high notes and they did not bother my left ear.
The JBL305’s was very accurate with the way it produced the different bass notes, I had songs that had bass that went very deep that was still clear and clean, others such as dub step that had hard hitting bass that didn’t skip a beat, Another song that had a soft bass note and another that was a mixture of different bass notes, that all came out perfectly. The drum and the snares was clean and very detailed, you could hear the way they was done in the recording.
These JBL305 let out a lot of volume, while playing music I went to another part of the apt and I still heard them nice and clear from a volume setting of 3.5, even on 3.0 I still heard them. I tend to use 3.0-3.5 anything higher than that, I would have the police called on me or worst.
 
 
 
Conclusion
Honestly these are some really good studio monitor’s that can be used for many types of audio, from music, games, movies and TV, with wide range of different devices as long you have the type of cables you need. These was the first good pair of monitor’s that I have owned, I have no regrets getting these. I can see myself using these for a very long time. I highly recommend theses.
 

I have a large home office and do most of my listening while doing the more brainless aspects of my work.  I have been through a very large number of computer audio set-ups over the years, including two different planar speaker sets.  I'm quite picky.
 
For a number of reasons even great studio monitors do not necessarily make good everyday listening speakers.  Monitors are explicitly designed to reveal flaws in the signal being fed to them, regardless of the nature of the flaw.  While most speaker systems are designed to deliver truth, one might say that monitors are built to provide brutal truth.  While this is also the case with the LSR305, the system does not come across as being overly analytical, as monitors often do.  It is, to my ears, as close to completely accurate and honest a reproduction as any smaller speaker I have heard.  The fact that it is explicitly designed for nearfield, desktop (mixing board) placement, is not a coincidence.  While I never tried them in another location, I would suspect that they would be a great deal less successful in any other sort of arrangement.  Mine are about 3.5 feet from my ears.
 
Used as intended, the 305s are a revelation.  They are simply great:  Detailed, smooth, balanced.  When you factor-in the price, they are otherworldly.
 
Even though they occupy a good deal of desk real estate, they still have only a 5-inch driver and as such can't be expected to plumb sub-bass depths.  They break no laws of physics.  I have been using subs (tiny and excellent Pinnacle Subsonic currently) in my desktop set-up for years and thus I don't need them to reach super low.  I am still tweaking the sub/monitor integration and have yet to decide if I'm going to run the LSR full-range and cross over the sub at 40 hz or use passive in-line hi-pass filters on the LSR and cross it higher up.  Both ways are working well.  The latter means I need the sub located between the speakers.
 
The 305 downsides are the relative large size and the rear ports being somewhat sensitive to boundary reinforcement (my desk is currently angled such that one speaker is closer to a wall).  Rear controls (including power switches) will be a negative for some.  Mine are plugged into a $10 wireless power switch with remote (Home Depot).  Done.  I may try a Midi USB audio interface such as the Focusrite 2i4  to see if it's outputs to feed sub unbalanced and speakers balanced, simultaneously, can improve anything.  I doubt it, and I'm not sure the DACs in such devices are up to snuff.
 
My set-up (modest compared to what I've had in the past):  Mac (50k ALC files), Auidioquest Dragonfly, splitters, unbalanced connections to sub and speakers.  I run Fidelia and various audio plug-ins (for parametric EQ, for example) in addition to iTunes.  Been running little to zero EQ since the JBLs arrived.  Me:  30-year audio enthusiast.  Past work in audio and consumer electronics industry.  Masters degree in a directly related field.
 
I could talk about the Waveguide technology and JBL's storied past in the studio but that's not what matters.  I bought a pair of the red version on close out for $99 shipped each.  Probably the best value audio purchase I have ever made.

If you listen to desktop speakers much you should at least try these.  I'm amazed every time I fire them up.