JBL: what they publish

In this database2 headphones
Figures from their own material2 of 2
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This page does not review anything JBL makes. It counts one thing: how much of what this database says about their products came out of their own documents, and how much had to be worked out or left blank.

Where each sensitivity figure came from

ModelImpedanceSensitivitySource of the figure
Quantum One32 Ω95.0 dB/mWPublished per mW
Tour One M232 Ω117.0 dB/mWPublished per mW

Impedance is almost always printed. Sensitivity is the one that goes wrong, because a decibel figure means two very different things depending on whether it is per milliwatt or per volt — about five decibels apart at 300 Ω and eighteen at 16 Ω. The conversion is here.

  • Published per mW — 2: the maker prints a decibel figure per milliwatt, which is what the database stores

What they print, and what it is worth

ModelAs printedToleranceStandard
Quantum One20Hz – 40kHznot printednot printed
Tour One M210 Hz - 40 kHz (passive)not printednot printed
 10 Hz - 22 kHz (active)not printednot printed

JBL prints a frequency range for both models here whose sheets have been read.

Not one of those ranges comes with a tolerance in decibels. Without a ±dB figure a range says nothing about how loud the headphone is at either end of it, which puts JBL with the majority: of the 490 models across this database whose maker prints a range, 58 print the tolerance.

The rows are not even called the same thing twice: 2 different headings across 2 models (“Dynamic frequency response range (Hz)”, “Frequency response”).

No measurement is published here — only what was printed. The whole count, maker by maker, is in the frequency response audit.

What reaches 100 dB on all 2

The hardest of the 2 to drive is the JBL Quantum One: 3.2 mW and 0.32 V for a 100 dB SPL peak. Their impedances run from 32 to 32 Ω, which matters because the voltage a headphone wants rises with impedance while the power falls.

280 of the 280 sources here reach 100 dB on all 2, and the cheapest of them is the Apple USB-C dongle (EU) at $9. “Reaches” means the maker’s own published power figure is enough at that load; it is not a judgement of how it sounds.

Their lowest impedance is the JBL Tour One M2 at 32 Ω, so a source wants an output impedance at or below 4.0 Ω to satisfy the one-eighth rule on everything they make. 134 of the 169 sources that publish an output impedance manage that.

These counts use figures the source makers published themselves. A product that publishes nothing is not counted as a pass anywhere above, which is why the three numbers differ so much. The collection matcher runs the same arithmetic over whatever you actually own.

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