JBL introduced a spread of vintage-looking hi-fi components at CES 2023, it all hearkening again to the logo’s Sixties-70s heyday when beefy knobs and wooden side-panels had been the norm. However the brand new JBL providing that the majority captured my consideration – that hard-to-ignore Bluetooth-enabled, orange-plattered turntable apart – was once the 4329P Studio Track Powered Loudspeaker.
The 4329P is a bigger, extra full-range follow-up to the 4305P Studio Track the corporate introduced in summer time 2022. Like that providing, the brand new type was once designed to appear to be JBL’s antique audio system, with a large cupboard that on this example homes a horn-loaded 1-inch compression motive force and 8-inch paper cone woofer.
However the unfashionable sides of the 4329P’s design finish there. The brand new JBL is an absolutely lively speaker, with a integrated 300-watt amplifier supplying 250 watts to the woofer and 50 watts to the compression motive force, with electronic sign processing used to optimize the crossover between the 2 along side energy dealing with.
Just like the best wireless speakers, the 4329P can circulation audio over Wi-Fi, with Chromecast, AirPlay 2, and Bluetooth aptX all supported. Its 24-bit/192kHz digital-to-analog converter can deal with all high-res audio codecs, together with ones that use MQA (Tidal tune provider streams, basically).
At the side of its wi-fi streaming options, the 4329P has a lot of hardwired ports to hook up elements, with the listing together with USB and optical electronic plus 3.5mm and mixture balanced XLR/TRS phono analog connections.
How does it sound?
I had a chance at CES to hear the 4329Ps in a quiet, enclosed room with high-res tracks streamed by the use of Chromecast from the Qobuz tune provider.
Song sounded easy at the JBL audio system – even at a moderately loud degree there was once a dynamic personality that indicated the audio system weren’t even breaking a sweat. Digital tracks like Past Ideals by means of Ben Böhmer conveyed a large soundstage with plentiful intensity, and the bass was once robust and tightly managed.
And deep-reaching as neatly: whilst the 4329P’s smaller 4305P predecessor was once a bass-limited bookshelf type, the brand new type was once designed to hit frequencies as little as 25 Hz. I may just pay attention that bass extension in my demo, with the sound having the total high quality you in most cases get when audio system are paired with an exterior subwoofer.
The 4329P will probably be to be had in spring with a prompt worth of $4,500/pair in each furniture-grade black walnut and herbal walnut end choices. Each glance nice, however chances are you’ll wish to cross herbal to get that antique glance, which is able to completely fit every other retro-designed JBL tools you purchase.
