JBL HDI 1600 Standmount Speaker Review & Comments

[Ed Selley]

The HDI Series is designed to bring some of the benefits of ‘big’ JBL speakers in a less dominating form factor. Does it work?
Read the review.

Write your own review for JBL HDI-1600

 

[Paul7777x]

They did a hell of a fine job ‘hiding’ that huge tweeter horn.

As you mention Ed, it’s obviously a JBL speaker, but subdued.

That’s a feat of impressive design all by itself. A fine looking speaker imo.

 

[Gasp3621]

I think JBL speakers are designed in the same Harman facilities with Revel speakers these days. @DLxP can probably confirm as a Revel owner.

HDI 1600 is measured by ASR in the NFS Nearfield Scanner (~100,000$) and looks great!

JBL HDI-1600 Speaker Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the JBL HDI-1600 two-way bookshelf speaker. They were purchased new and drop shipped to me for testing. The HDI-1600 costs US $900 for one. Note: my company Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman products such as JBL line (although we hardly sell...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[DLxP]

I think JBL speakers are designed in the same Harman facilities with Revel speakers these days. @DLxP can probably confirm as a Revel owner.

HDI 1600 is measured by ASR in the NFS Nearfield Scanner (~100,000$) and looks great!

JBL HDI-1600 Speaker Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the JBL HDI-1600 two-way bookshelf speaker. They were purchased new and drop shipped to me for testing. The HDI-1600 costs US $900 for one. Note: my company Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman products such as JBL line (although we hardly sell...

www.audiosciencereview.com

I don't know whether they're designed in the same facilities but I wouldn't be surprised. Certainly they're designed with the same principles and target response in mind, based on the same Harman research. In fact, before I bought the F206s I had the HDI 3600 * 3800s on my shortlist. From memory, the 1600s are the best measuring of the HDIs.

I've said before that I think the HDI series dropped the ball a bit by not having on-wall or dedicated surrounds. That's one of the reasons I went with Revel in the end (among many others). If they had dedicated surrounds the HDIs would have been a killer home theatre line.

 

[friendlyghost]

Really liked the review, now I'm really interested to see what you would think of the 3600!

 

[Cliff]

Thanks for putting the speaker sizes in inches and cm. Speakers to my mind will always be in inches.