JBL AUTHENTICS 500 SMART HOME SPEAKER REVIEW

JBL is part of the Harman group and is a long-established name in the audio world. They’re well known for their portable Bluetooth speakers but have decided to re-enter into the home audio world with their Authentics range of components. 

The Authentics range comes with a retro look, yet inside they boast all the latest streaming tech, along with solid design behind the integration of the audio components. The Authentics 500 is the largest speaker in the range and comes in at £559, this is well priced against competitors but does it live up to its price point? Let’s find out. 

BUILD QUALITY AND FEATURES OF JBL AUTHENTICS 500 SMART SPEAKER

The Authentics 500 is bigger than it looks, yet somehow it manages to fit into a home interior space rather easily. The look is retro yet unassuming and the classic look blends in well – it’s not something that draws too much attention to itself. The outer coating is a textured leather-like vinyl wrap with the signature Quadrex grille. I think it looks quite classy and fairly understated for JBL. 

On the top you have a few controls for playback, volume, bass/treble adjustment, and voice assistant – along with a programable favourites button. On the back there is a single 3.5mm aux-in port, a network socket and a power socket. It can also be set up to stream wirelessly with dual-band WiFi built in as well as Bluetooth 5.3.

In terms of the driver configuration, this is a 3.1-way speaker with three 1-inch tweeters, three 2.75-inch midrange drivers and a 6.5-inch down-firing sub-woofer. The speaker is rear-ported and supports Dolby Atmos Music too. The rear ports mean that you can slightly tune the bass response by placing it closer or further from a rear wall and the bass EQ adjustment on top gives you even more control over this aspect of the sound. The internal amplifiers are rated to 270w output giving this speaker plenty of oomph, even in slightly larger rooms and with a rated frequency response of 40Hz – 20kHz (-6dB) it digs deep for its size. 

Being a home lifestyle speaker, the Authentics 500 is designed to fit into most spaces with ease, so you don’t have to take too much care when placing it where you want it, as long as it is firing music in the correct direction.

There is an app that works with the speaker and allows you to adjust the EQ parameters, check the firmware is up to date, change network settings and configure the voice assistants – both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are available on this speaker. There are the usual streaming options (Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Roon Ready) along with Airplay compatibility and Chrome-Cast. You can also log in to streaming services within the app and stream right to the speaker, or you can connect to the speaker via Bluetooth or Aux input – it’s fairly versatile. 

Being a Roon user it made sense to stream via Roon. Using Qobuz within the app was easy and I connected it to the JBL Spinner BT turntable with which it paired easily and played music just fine (albeit with a little latency). All-in-all it’s a feature-packed, well-designed, and well-built home streaming speaker; the controls are nicely laid out, and I found it really easy to set up right out of the box, which is a huge bonus in my opinion. 

SOUND QUALITY

Once you’ve found a suitable spot for the Authentics 500 and you have set it up ready to play, it pumps out a big sound for its size. I found it to be an easy speaker to live with for casual around-the-house music playback, offering up all the quality I felt was needed for normal music playback. It’s not designed to rival a good separates setup, instead, it’s a good everyday speaker to provide decent sound in a compact-ish chassis. It’s intuitive to use, the app is responsive and it’s also very easy to tune the sound to your preference. 

With the EQ set to flat, I did find the sound to err on the v-shaped side of things with a bit of boosted bass and treble. In fact, I found the bass to be a tad overbearing where my speaker was setup – but this will depend a little on placement. Luckily JBL has included bass and treble adjustment knobs on the speaker itself so it is super easy to get it to sound how you like it. I usually tend to leave everything flat but, for this review I did use these to tune it to the space I had it set up in. The speaker wants you to use these knobs to fine-tune the sound, and I’m glad they work to great effect. 

I toned down the bass and treble a notch and the sound became quite a bit more balanced, yet still had a fun factor that made this a blast to listen to. This isn’t supposed to be a reference-sounding speaker, it’s a lifestyle product designed for general listening yet, it still managed to impress me with a good level of detail retrieval and extension on both ends. The depth of the bass was most impressive for a device of this kind. 

Bob Marley – Exodus came on and the groove is well controlled yet has great body and articulation. The bass is not “one note” on this speaker and that 6.5” woofer really does work wonders here. Likewise, the vocals cut through with good clarity and the treble is smooth and detailed, and with good extension. It’s a speaker that wants you to move along to the beat. 

Up next was Linkin Park – Lying From You. The bass drop at the beginning of this track was really impressive and the way the speaker handled the heavier chorus was great. The duet of vocals was cleanly articulated and separated with only a hint of sibilance. However, it is a bit raw and lacks a bit of refinement/composure when the music gets complex at higher volume. Overall, though, it is a fun speaker to listen to and it handled this track well. 

Red Light Doors Are Secure by Arctic Monkeys was great through the Authentics 500! Guitars had good bite, the bass line was prominent yet not over the top, and the overall sound was quite clean. The tweeters do a great job at producing a crisp and well-extended top end without harshness and those midrange drivers work wonders with vocals. 

Being an all-in-one speaker the soundstaging is a little limited, but the angled drivers mean that there is a wide sweet-spot and the sound easily fills a smaller room. Still, I found the separation at normal listening levels to be very good – everything is well placed within the soundstage and instruments had space around them. Only at higher volumes did the speaker start to lose a bit of composure and sound a little congested.

QUIBBLES

Slight congestion/lack of composure at higher volumes and the bass is a bit too boosted with EQ set flat.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I think JBL has done a really good job with the Authentics 500 speaker – it’s got all the features a good home lifestyle speaker should have, whilst looking great and having an enjoyable sound to back it up. 

This is not going to replace your big HiFi setup, it’s not meant to, yet it is good fun for casual everyday music listening. Also, for those who don’t necessarily want a proper system, it’s a good gateway speaker into the world of HiFi. It has a big and bold sound for its size, the bass is mightily impressive for its size and the treble is equally crisp and extended.

For me, it’s a great speaker to have in your living room or kitchen to blast out some tunes when you’re doing things around the house. 

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality And Features:

Fully compatible with most streaming services along with Bluetooth and aux-in

Great app for setup and controlling the speaker

Sound Quality:

Big and bold, slightly v-shaped EQ out of the box

Easily tuneable via the app or bass/treble knobs on the top of the speaker

Value For Money:

For £559.99 you get a lot of sound for your money, it’s well designed, easy to use and overall fun to listen to

We Loved:

Ease of setup and use

Big and bold sound

We Didn’t Love So Much:

Lack of composure at higher volume

Bass is a bit too much on stock EQ setting

Elevator Pitch Review: If you are looking for a home streaming speaker that’s fun to listen to yet easy to use, the Authentics 500 fits the bill nicely. It’s got a real groove to the sound and is easily tuneable via the onboard EQ, this means easy placement within your room and the angled drivers mean a wide sweetspot for all listeners.

Price: £579.99

Oscar Stewart

SUPPLIED BY JBL

SUPPLIED SPECIFICATION

Sound system

3.1 & Dolby Atmos Music

Power supply

100 – 240V AC, ~ 50/60Hz

Total speaker power output (Max @THD 1%)

270W

Transducer

3 x 25mm aluminum dome tweeter + 3 x 2.75″ midrange + 6.5″ subwoofer

Frequency response

40Hz – 20kHz (-6dB)

Audio inputs:1 Audio in, Bluetooth/WIFI, Ethernet and USB (USB playback is available in US version. For other versions, USB is for Service only.)

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