Verdict
As long as you do n’t find the looks a scrap taste - hard , and as long as you ’ve got plenty of patience where the command app is concerned , there ’s an awful caboodle to like about the way the JBL L42ms treat your favorite euphony
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Putting some digital audio smarts into a merchandise that looks like it went on sales event in the mid-70s is not a new idea – but no one is more entitled to mine their illustrious past tense while looking to the future than JBL .
So here ’s a thoroughly up - to - engagement all - in - one system coiffure in the sort of wood - and - Quadrex - froth drag with which JBL dominated the hi - fi market back in the sidereal day .
Of course , it takes a bit more to compete than advanced functionality obliterate in 20th hundred clobber – so is the JBL L42ms more than just a tribute deed ?
Availability
The JBL L42ms is on sales agreement now , and in the UK it ’s yours for £ 999 . In the United States the asking monetary value is $ 1099 , and in Australia it will place you back AU$2499 .
Which mean – just off the top of my foreland – that the L42ms will have to go up against ( fairly ) exchangeable products from firebrand as diverse as KEF , Naim , Ruark and Technics if it ’s run to make a meaningful belief …
Design
Curved storage locker and Quadrex foam grilles have been among JBL ’s design speech communication for literally X – and when you get an eyeful of the L42ms it ’s evident that something as unbroken as this requires no fixation .
The L42ms is self-aggrandising ( 162 x 617 x 234 mm , HxWxD ) but it hides its majority well – thanks , in enceinte part , to both the touch perception and flawless cultivation of the black or raw real walnut veneered cabinet . The Quadrex grille is magnetically attached , and again is just as tactile a goody as it is visual .
The standard of build is basically impeccable , and the L42ms superintend to seem both business - corresponding and quite ornamental all at the same time . Which is an increasingly of import consideration for products like this , let ’s not pretend otherwise .
Features
As far as drive audio data into the L42ms , JBL has covered all meaningful basis . Between the excerption of pumped and wireless stimulus , you really should recover something to accommodate you .
Where the wired stuff is have-to doe with , you may select the Ethernet socket at the rear of the cabinet – unite your web bringsApple AirPlay 2 , Chromecast and UPnP devices into play . In addition , the L42ms is Roon Ready – and it ’s also certified whole kit with SmartThings . This means its compatible with the vast number of Galaxy devices , contrivance and televisions in the Samsung product catalogue ( Samsung , of course , being the parent company of Harman which is the parent company of JBL ) . Wireless connectivity is also available via Bluetooth 4.2 , with SBC and AAC codec compatibility .
The rear panel also has a USB - A slot , a pre - out for a subwoofer ( which automatically touch off an 80Hz eminent - passing filter when in utilization ) , stereo RCA and 3.5 mm analogue remark , and a 0dB/-3dB bass voice contour control that ’s helpful if your L42ms is awkward positioned relative to rear and/or side bound . There ’s anHDMI ARCsocket , so your TV can benefit from the JBL ’s art too . And there are a couplet of bass - reflex response ports , one on either side of the link venire .
Once it ’s on board , audio information is dealt with by a 24 - bit/96kHz DAC ( or , at least , the digital stuff is ) . It ’s compatible with DSD128 and a fistful of digital audio file types , including – but not limited to – FLAC , MP3 andMQA .
Once the DAC has done its thing , the audio information is amplified by a total of 200 watts of Class D power and delivered to a four - potent driver array – two 100 mm mid / bass paper cones and two 20 mm atomic number 13 - dome tweeter . They ’re angled out behind the wicket in caricature of the curve of the cabinet , to better spread the effectual field and offer as broad an audio sweet spot as potential .
Controlling the L42ms can be done in a phone number of ways . The top of the locker feature the brief natural selection of strong-arm controls ( input excerpt , book up / down ) and there ’s an unremarkable remote control handset with more comprehensive functionality ( include your only access to the SFX profound field of operation expanding upon control ) .
Or you may practice the JBL Premium Audio control app ( free for iOS and Android ) – if you ’re the patient character . It ’s not designed to be a full - function affair , but rather the platform to get your L42ms on to your electronic connection and then give entree to radiocommunication , presets , UPnP devices , Qobuzand a few other cyclosis service – and it does , finally . But it ’s one of the freakish , less stable and less reliable apps I ’ve encountered in a fair while – and whoever proof - scan the spelling take a grim talking to .
Sound Quality
For reasons I ’ll get to presently enough , everything that follows assumes that you ’ve left the SFX control well alone and that there ’s no surface peculiarly close to the top of the JBL ’s storage locker . check that those two aspect are attended to and the L42ms ferment out to be a openhanded , elaborate and quite self-assertive listen .
With a 16 - bit/44.1kHz candle - received FLAC Indian file of Phase Modulation Shuffle by Cavern of Anti Matter playing via Qobuz , the L42ms establishes a big , well - defined soundstage that has a far less obvious point seed of auditory sensation than the majority of one - box systems can make . The sensation of stereo demonstration is quite pronounced – and the JBL is able to organise the recording quite convincingly too , so there ’s an gentle - to - follow layout . It ’s a confident performing artist in this regard – and , to be comely , in most other aspects too .
As is often the way with JBL equipment , the key here is on the warm - ish side – which fit the punchy , quite upfront character of the system quite nicely . And besides , the slam from the bottom of the frequency compass to the top is legato , and there ’s mickle of detail retrieved and revealed to go along with the system ’s rather frank sonic nature .
grim frequencies are varied and reasonably subtle as well as being quite chunky , and there ’s sum as well as shine at the top ending . The L42ms does good work through the midrange too , rent some light and shade into a vocalist ’s performance , and giving them every chance to express themselves .
dynamical headroom is considerable , and the JBL also has the felicitous hang of being capable to play loud ( very gimcrack indeed , if that ’s how you wish it ) without altering its basic characteristics or getting in any way try or shouty . And it ’s as zippy to the minuscule dynamical variations , to the transeunt occurrences , as it is to the big displacement in volume or attack . Rhythmic formula is good too , thanks to grippy ascendance of the lower frequencies .
flip-flop to aNetflixstream of the music - heavy Baby Drivervia the HDMI ARC socket , and all of the above still apply . Do n’t go thinking the L42ms is especially useful as asoundbar , though – at over 16 cm grandiloquent it ’s going to pollute the bottom of your TV if it ’s on the same surface , and it does n’t care being boxed in from above in the fragile . It gets a bit boomy and rough-cut , a hatful of its equanimity deserting it .
And the SFX lineament , which is so promising where the soundtrack to moving picture substance is interest , serve only to cut off the otherwise - telling focus of the JBL ’s phone , and make the antecedently coherent soundstage a act foggy and obscure .
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
JBL has the heritage to go digging into its catalog of large collision without looking like a tribute enactment
Thought the days of fluid , unmindful and in the end irritating ascendance apps were over ? They ’re not
Final Thoughts
They wo n’t be for everyone , but I really like the appearing of the L42ms – the design is a atavistic , sure , but it ’s a atavism to some of the most resonant equipment ever propose for sales agreement . And it does n’t do any hurt whatsoever ( as far as I ’m concerned , anyway ) that the JBL sound exactly like it looks .
Trusted Score
How we test
We test every wireless loudspeaker we review exhaustively over an prolonged menstruation of fourth dimension . We use industry standard tests to liken features the right way . We ’ll always tell you what we find . We never , ever , take on money to review a product .
receive out more about how we test in ourethics policy .
FAQs
It features an HDMI ARC input , so you could use it with a TV , though it is tall than most soundbars .
