What's that I hear? Another sound bar review,
and it's got some kind of weird gimmick to it? Well, you know me.
I love a good party check. Hi, I'm Chris with World Wide Stereo,
and this is the JBL Bar 1300X, complete with soundbar,
wireless subwoofer, and rechargeable wireless rear speakers.
This soundbar may be the perfect solution to getting
surround sound where you never thought possible before.
So tag along with me as we find out exactly what makes
this soundbar so unique. If you've been following
our YouTube channel for the past few years, you may have
seen us talk about some of JBL's other audio gear.
From Bluetooth speakers to party boxes to the previous
incarnation of this soundbar in front of me. They are no stranger to high-quality audio,
and with almost 100 years of experience to back that up, I had high hopes for the 1300X.
When I first got to take the 1300X home for testing,
I was immediately interested in experimenting with the
wireless surround speakers, and we'll get to that later, but I have to say,
I felt like a kid on Christmas, opening up a shiny new toy.
While unboxing the soundbar, there were a few things I noticed right away.
The sound bar itself is small enough to fit under a
55-inch TV, and the subwoofer is massive. We also have the two wire wireless
surround speakers here, and a plethora of
accessories, mounting brackets, power cables, HDMI cable,
and documentation for quick setup and warranties. We also get a remote and a pair of AAA batteries.
Lastly, there are also these little covers that cap
onto the ends of the soundbar when the wireless speakers are pulled off.
Everything you could possibly need to get started is in the box.
Keep in mind that if you keep the wireless speakers
attached to the main segment of the soundbar for charging, it is wider than a 55-inch
TV and may hang off your TV stand.
I personally ran into that exact problem myself. Stylistically, JBL kept things simple,
easy-to-read buttons on the bar, sub speakers, and remote, and everything that standard
color of AV grayish, black. No special party lights or black center channel or
anything of that sort. Most people that I
work with want their sound equipment to disappear. And next to being truly invisible,
I think this is the best job a soundbar could do while
packing in 16 discrete channels of audio. The subwoofer has a 12-inch
down-firing driver and a rather large flow port in the back.
I would recommend keeping this guy at minimum, a foot off the wall for best performance.
The sound bar and rear speakers have a total of 11 audio channels for the front surround and surround
rear channels, while on the top of the bar and surround
modules, we have four channels for Atmos overhead audio.
So in total, we have an 11.1.4 channel
Dolby Atmos capable soundbar. On the top side of the bar,
we have volume up and down and input selection. On the front of the bar, hidden behind the grille,
there is an LED display that will give you visual feedback on volume level, power state,
and source selection. Moving around to the back of the bar,
we have what I would say to be a generous amount of IO
for a soundbar. Moving from left
to right, we have the AC power input, a USB port used for charging or MP3 file playback,
an Ethernet port for hardwired Internet connectivity,
three HDMI ports for video passthrough, and an HDMI ARC/eARC port and an optical port.
I would say that all bases have been fairly covered by JBL here.
With all those ports, it can be kind of daunting to know which
to use and when. The USB port will
most likely never be used by most people unless you were desperate
for a USB power supply or had a lot of MP3 files
you wanted to play back off of a flash drive or something.
The Ethernet port is a good to have, but not 100% required.
If you have a strong enough and reliable enough Wi-Fi
connection where the 1300 would go, I would probably stick to using that.
The Ethernet connection ensures a reliable and stable
connection to the Internet for those of you with spotty WI-FI.
The three HDMI ports for video passthrough is a really
nice feature to have. If you are like me
and have multiple gaming consoles, streaming devices, computers, and Bluray players,
you may find yourself limited with the ports on your TV.
It's nice to have a few more options for connections
with what is essentially a 4K 60Hz HDMI switcher built
into your soundbar. Lastly, you have two options when
connecting to a TV for audio. I would strongly suggest
that you pair this soundbar with a TV that supports Enhanced
Audio Return Channel, or eARC for short.
eARC is the best way to get Dolby Atmos playback on
most home theater sound bars like the 1300. Optical connections are at this point a legacy
connection for supporting old TV sets that simply lack
ARC compatibility altogether and will deliver a subparse surround sound experience
when compared to the full capabilities of eARC.
When it comes to my impression of the sound quality and
immersiveness of the 1300, I was impressed by a lot of
things and only let down by a few things.
Number one, the actual surround sound and overhead audio effects were astounding.
Most Dolby Atmos soundbars create the illusion of speakers in places where there
are none by bouncing and reflecting sound off of your walls and ceiling.
I set this up in my bedroom with the sound bar below
my TV, subwoofer to the side, and surround speakers on my nightstands
on either side of my bed.
I was really blown away at how realistic overhead effects sounded.
The combination of four Atmos drivers and excellent
room calibration played a big part of this. I was also able to tune the volume
level using either JBL's companion app
or the remote control to fit my needs in terms of intensity of
those effects depending on the time of day I
was using this as I didn't want to disturb my neighbors too much.
Something I would really like to see JBL add is more
granularity of control over those volume levels. The subwoofer, for example,
has five levels of volume. Sometimes level one was not enough bass,
but level two was just way too much. The same goes for the
surround speakers and Atmos channels. You only get three distinct levels for those low,
medium, and high. I would prefer to have
independent volume sliders for all of what I just mentioned,
plus the master volume control. Maybe I'm just nitpicking here,
but at times dialogue was a bit difficult to hear and
the inclusion of an adjustable speech enhancement feature would go a long way.
JBL does have a speech enhancement algorithm called
Pure Voice, but with no manual adjustments that I could find.
I'm happy JBL gives us the amount of control that we
get already, and using the app or remote makes it very
easy to make adjustments on the fly. Maybe just a smidge more
customizability would make a big difference though.
A few things I have yet to call out that I need to mention though.
Number one, thank you so much JBL, for adding support for charging the wireless
speakers over USB-C. While these little guys do
have up to a 10-hour battery life while being used,
it sucks to have to remember to snap them back onto the
sides of the bar to charge them at the end of the night.
What if you forget in the middle of movie night and you
have to miss out on all the sweet action happening behind you?
Well, now you can charge and use them at the same time, provided you have access to an
outlet and a long enough USB-C cable.
Seriously though, massive improvement over the situation so many people found themselves
in with the JBL Bar 9.1.
More cool trick with these little fellows is that they
are fully independent Bluetooth speakers as well. So if you wanted to take one
with you out on the deck for a little music playback while you fire
up the grille, you could. You could even set them up
as a little miniature stereo pair. How many people are going to use this function is
anyone's guess, but it's really cool that it's included.
Music playback is incredibly simple with the 1300 as well.
JBL has built-in compatibility for all the major casting options: Apple Airplay 2, Chromecast,
and Alexa Multi-Room Music. And in Bluetooth 5.0 support and you have all your
bases covered for getting your favorite music to playback on the 1300.
I've mentioned JBL's companion app a few times now.
It's called JBL One. It has a ton of control options for the soundbar,
as well as a multitude of other JBL products. You can run room calibration through the app,
make adjustments to the volume levels of the speakers,
and initiate firmware updates using it. The app doesn't give you
greater control over volume than you already have via the remote,
but it's does give you a fancy UI to mess with. The JBL Bar 1300 comes in at $1,699.95,
comparable to giants in the soundbar world like Sonos and Sony.
You get a lot of sound and maybe one of the best all-in-one box systems for an easy-to-use
surround sound setup. The flexibility alone with true wireless surround
speakers is a leg up on anyone. Put them up when it's movie time,
take them down when it's over. No wires to run, an easy-to-use companion app,
and reliable functionality. This is the perfect
soundbar for people looking for surround sound in complicated situations.
Bedrooms, open-concept living rooms, multipurpose basements...
basically anytime that you want surround sound some of
the time, but not all of the time. Flexibility is key with the JBL bar 1300.
And since no room is perfect for surround sound, flexibility is also king.
Thank you so much for joining me for our review of JBL's new soundbar, the Bar 1300X.
You can learn more about this online at worldwidestereo.com or if you're in the area,
you can stop by our showroom in Ardmore or Montgomeryville, PA.
We offer 60-day returns, free shipping on all orders,
and we're authorized dealers for everything we sell.
If you have any feedback or questions, leave them in the comments
section below or you can call or email us at any time.
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This is Chris from World Wide Stereo. Thanks for tuning in.
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