Eagerly we unpacked them, unbeknown to the surprise that was to great our eyes. Photographs of the JB3 looked very promising, but sometimes advertising shots don't quite meet our expectations once we actually set eyes and get a feel for a product.
The first thing you notice about the JB3F is the diminutive size at just 75cm tall, even though these are floorstanders these are some of cutest wee speakers we've seen, they are also extremely slim. These will for sure be wife pleasers as they have a very high WAF, goody goody! The next thing you instantly notice is that tiny wideband driver, it's tiny, I mean really tiny, these reserved speakers don't shout out, "hey look at me, I'm gonna shake the walls with earth trembling bass" forget it, your just not going to get it. In fact you might even start to get a few niggling doubts creeping in wondering if these diminutive sized speakers are going to make any kind of worthwhile sound at all.
I've always found that JohnBlue's range of speakers work perfectly with Musica from Japan amplifiers, so naturally I partnered the JB3F's with the Music int60 amplifier. Another vital and very important factor to keep in mind is that JohnBlue's widebanders sounds absolutely rotten straight out of the box, when you first switch everything on and start listening you are greeted by a horrid sound, they sound compressed, thin, hard, all pretty yucky, so take this on board, JohnBlue speakers need a lengthy running in period, if you go to a dealer and you see they are fresh out of the box, forget it as they sound like previously described.
Lets skip forward a couple of days.....You really start to notice that sound has changed remarkably, the sound has opened up remarkably, where the sound was confined to the speakers in the beginning, the sound now breathes freely from the speakers, I love a holographic sound where the speakers sonically disappear and sound is left hanging in front of you and behind the speakers, this what I am now experiencing.
The JB3F excel in the midrange, I've found this with all of JohnBlue's speakers so this comes as no real surprise, the tone is very pure and realistic sounding, they really excel with natural real sounding instruments. The soundstages width isn't the widest you are ever going hear, but even though it is more compact in it's width, it is extremely well focused making it is very easy to differentiate each individual instrument, there is no blur where all the instruments become muddled in there sound, instead you can hear very clearly each individual instrument, these are definitely speakers that prefer natural sound i.e "real" instruments.
Remember I mentioned about the very small size of these speakers?, this makes them very appealing for those who have small rooms, close neighbors, but for others they make take one look at their size, another look at the size of the main driver at start to snigger, they wont believe these speakers can produce any kind of bass, let me tell you now that you will surprised at what they can actually achieve. OK, they wont thump you in the chest with hard hitting bass, or get your trousers flapping, but the bass is there, it's tuneful and very easy to follow, I hate speakers that produce to mass bass or it's a boom and bloom type of mess, the JohnBlue's to me strike a very nice balance.
The more I am listening to them, the more they are opening up and sounding better, I'm finding very little to critisize here, I'm sure some will love these at first site, I am also sure some will just ignore them due to their size and the full range driver size, but to me these sound really quite wonderful and breaking in, listen to their strengths and I'm sure you will just love them.
Strong points:
Great looks.
High WAF.
Dont take up real estate.
Charming Sound.
JohnBlue JB3F
