Jamo Studio Series S809 Floorstanding Speaker
What do you get when you combine good looks, lots of drivers, and big sound at a low price? Apparently, you get the Jamo Studio Series S809 Floorstanding speaker we are going to review today. I had seen the Jamo S809 in a setup last year and thought the speaker looked great, I added it to the list of speakers I wanted to test this year, but I knew nothing about it. Little did I know the company’s dumb pricing policy would have thrown me off because, for the real price, you can actually buy these online they have to be one of the best buys in audio right now.
The Concept
Jamo was created 54 years ago by the carpenter Preben Jacobson and his stepbrother Julius Mortenson. They are what I would call a very well-rounded audio company that focuses on a combination of sound, style, and pricing to deliver products that surprise you.
The S809 is a large 4-driver (per unit) speaker with a very nice aesthetic design. It has a built-in base and some unique touches we will discuss later in this review. It comes in 3 different finishes (Wood, Black, and White).
The thing that always irked me, however, was the studio lines’ pricing. This I have seen for years is heavily discounted. However, it’s not really discounted it’s just that price or thereabouts. A quick search of Amazon will show prices slashed to usually over 50% off. That gives the conundrum do I evaluate them at their retail price and make comparisons with speakers at that level? Or do I evaluate them at the price I bought them for and know most people will pick them up at?
I mean, come on 2 years ago, they even won an award that they proudly display on their website for the best speaker under $500 when its official price is $150
I decided to do the latter, but before I get fully into this review, I will say that if Jamo was to stick with the retail price of the S809, which should be $749 for the pair, I wouldn’t still be recommending them. However, when I see them listed at $290, they fall into a category somewhere between “this is damn good value” and “how the hell can they possibly sell a speaker like this for so low.”
Specification
Frequency Response: 37Hz - 26kHz (+/- 3dB)
Sensitivity: 90dB (2.83V @ 1m)
Power: 120W / 240W
Impedance 8 Ohm
Drivers: 1x 25mm (1”) Soft Dome Tweeter + 3 x 127mm (5”) Polyfiber Woofers
Enclosure Material: MDF
Colors: Black, Walnut, White
Dimensions: 1042mm x 191mm x 252mm 41“ x 7.52” x 9.9”
Weight per Unit: 30 lb (13.6 kg)
Aesthetic Impressions
My goodness, Jamo really know how to make stunning-looking speakers. With three colors to choose from, as usual, I went with the light option; in this case, white, and in person, it looks even better than in the pictures. It looks fully modern, and with Scandinavian design touches throughout it just looks really clean in any situation.
Standing over a meter tall without the inclusion of the bass, they look slim, elegant, and minimalist to an extent.
What is unique is the shape and location of the bass reflex port. It is mounted on the front at the bottom, just below the Jamo logo. Instead of venting the cabinet with the usual round port Jamo uses an oblong design that seamlessly fits in with the lines of the speaker. Placement here is not only an aesthetic choice, but it seems they also wanted to place it on the front, allowing listeners to position the speaker closer to the walls without negatively impacting the sound.
Up top, the three main woofers are beautifully inlaid into the cabinet, creating a smooth and concise design language in which no parts of the speaker protrude from the cabinet itself; everything bar the logo is inlayed.
The tweeter gets a nice touch as on the black and white models; it’s inlayed in a separate wood finish.
Finally, something we really don’t see on speakers at this price but something so important in the creation of a clean-looking speaker is the utilization of magnetic grilles. There are no clamp holes or anything to get in the way of the style, and it’s a premium feature on a budget speaker.
Build Quality
For the purpose of this review, we looked at the external build quality factors and found them to all be to a very high standard. There were zero imperfections on my test unit, and the finishing really is similar to speakers up to the $1000 mark.
Beauty can be only asking deep, as they say, so we wanted to have a look around inside to see what was going on. Poppin of the base and the lower woofer to have a look was no easy task but threw up no nasty surprises. The internals was well made with no excess glue, and the cables were even covered to reduce reflections.
Internally, the bracing was sufficient and more than we expected to see, given the price.
Sound
Ok, so price aside, the S809 is a fine-sounding set of speakers. They just performed well for me over a wide range of test tracks. Nothing was too much stress for them, and the sound never degraded until you were pushing the upper boundaries of what is an acceptable listening volume.
The easiest way to describe the sound is one of natural tonality with no real emphasis on one side of the sound spectrum or another. It sounds decently spacious and wide, and while they might not have detail retrieval on par with ribbon or electrostatic speakers, they have decent clarity.
Jamo obviously designed the speakers to work as a multi-use workhorse capable of being warm and natural enough to do well when using them as part of a home theatre system. If they were to have gone for the more audiophile approach, I think they would have lost a lot of versatility, so given you can use the speakers in combination with the other speakers in the Jambo line, this was a good choice for tuning.
The Jambo sound impactful and room filing with the three woofers displaying good quantity in the bass while still remaining punchy. The bass is not overemphasized, and I’m happy to report Jamo tuned them in line with the 6.5-inch driver’s capabilities.
The highs are smooth and unobtrusive. They do a good job of displaying detail but are far from sibilant at the same time. This is tuned to suit the masses but gives audiophiles hints of that airy top notes they like. It has decent sparkle but not really enough to convey a wide sound field; in doing so, it never seems to offend the ears.
Final Verdict
The Jamo Studio Series S809 performed well in all our sound tests; it is, by all means, a great sounding speaker under the $500 mark, as they claim. Yet something really did stand out in this review. The design is simply gorgeous, and the finishing is on par with much more expensive speakers. If this is your first foray into floor-standing speakers, or you just want to try something that looks good and doesn’t break the bank, then this is for you. I say all this with a caveat, do not ever pay the full RRP on these, they are discounted everywhere, and when bought at the right price, I think they are almost unbeatable.
Official Website of Jambo S809 Speaker: www.jamo.com
