We decided to check out the JBL LSR305 powered monitors for trance production since hearing a lot of good things about the pair. We were totally impressed by their amazing stereo field and balance and we wondered, if the first impressions would translate into a good mixing result and decided to produce a basic trance track with this nice looking pair of monitors.
And they didnt dissapoint, the delivery was great considering the price point of these monitors. JBL has managed to put great performance in these things for even for someone with a lower budget when considering purchasing home studio monitors.
The Looks and Technology
The LSR305 are good looking fancy pair of monitors, especially for their price point. Though the LSR305 may look like your ordinary studio monitors at first glance, a closer look reveals a fancy, very original desing around the tweeters. The design is cruicial to JBL´s image control (ICW) technology, that is designed to break sound frequencies to get expansive center image from any position the listener is at. Without compromising accuracy. We played around with various sound sources and studio templates and the performance was indeed, impressing.
Audio performance
Stereo image on these things is great. Centered tracks sounded precicely centered while panned instrument moved in the stereo field with accuracy and crystal clear precision. The soundstage even compares to some high end studio monitors, that you couldnt even dream to get on this price point. Listening position was easy and fast to set because of the clear stereo field, you knew exactly were to sit and how to point the tweeters. Instruments were clear and easy to set up for their own space in spectrum. You wouldnt expect so much bass for this sized speakers but the monitors really deliver considering the size. If id had to think of something to improve on these monitors, i would say the middrange could be just a little bit more bouncy and cut through.
Conclusion
These monitors seemed to perform surprisingly well in producing electronic music with several synth and bass layers to mix with. So we went on and produced two Cubase Tracks – Escapes Vol.1 and Escapes Vol.2 using the JBL LSR305 studio monitors. You can check out those Cubase templates from the lnks below:
Escapes Vol.1 Cubase Template
Escapes Vol.2 Cubase Template
More information on these monitors at the official JBL sitet: