JBL - Stage2 260F 2.5-Way Dual 6.5-inch (165mm) Floorstanding Loudspeaker - Each - Espresso

I was impressed with these tall skinny towers of audio reproduction. I like how they look and how they appear to be designed to fit beside a TV in a typical home theater setup. They look good and feel very solidly made. The highs sounded clean and not harsh and the bass was low and tight. Not muddy. I’m not going to quote all the specs that are already listed in the product info, unless needed. Sound, setup and features are what I will be focusing on. It’s a good thing each speaker shipped in a box, within a box and covered in a cloth wrapper. They were also seated in plastic foam cushioning, top and bottom. Impressive packing and needed too, because there was a hole in one of them that went through both boxes and almost into the lower woofer. It wasn’t damaged, but if it were not packaged in 2 boxes, it sure would have been. Instructions are printed on top of the box that tell you how to remove the box in a box and the speaker. Also, inside is a booklet that has instructions on how to mount the speakers on the included bases, install the carpet spikes and magnetic grills. It also lists the other speakers in the series and their specs too. Again, these speakers feel solid and they are a bit heavy too. I used to top port on the back to help hold onto the speakers, when I was moving them and during setup. The bases come with 4 Allen head screws and an Allen wrench to tighten them up with. Also, 4 screw in spikes that go in to the bottom of the base for keeping them in place on deep like carpet. Optional, of course. There are 4 feet on the bases that are about 2 inches in diameter and have rubber on the bottoms. All of the connections on the back are 5 way binding posts. There are 2 for the speaker and 4 for the optional Dolby Atmos height speakers. You can place one on top of them. The extra connectors are simply a convenience for connecting the height speakers and keeping wiring neater. A nice touch. The 1 inch aluminum dome tweeter sits in a proprietary designed wave guide for high frequency imaging. JBL uses those on a lot of their speakers, including the 306P MK II powered monitors I use in my music studio. In fact, my 306Ps look a lot like these, but with an extra woofer. However, the woofer and tweeter used in the 306Ps are different. The woofers are made of a proprietary reinforced “polycellulose” paper pulp. The corrugated rings give the speaker extra strength. The surrounds look and feel like thin dense foam rubber. It feels strong and durable. The cabinet is a dark walnut veneer and a black front, “Expresso”. There’s also the “Latte” version with a white face and oak veneer. Bases match the face. Sound wise, they sound as good as they look. I played my usual music I like to test a system with. Steely Dan, Alan Parsons, as well as some classical to hard rock to classic country. Sorry, no metal or rap. The highs sounded really clean and, according to a spectrum analyzer app I have on my S23 Ultra, the highs went beyond the specs and what the app and phone could measure with a 48 khz sample rate. To put it another way, the hi-hats and cymbals sounded extremely clean. Not harsh or muffled, unless that’s the way it was recorded. That’s why I use certain artists and certain songs by them. I know what to expect. The bass is nice and tight. Not muddy and didn’t have any low roaring sound around 250 hz. Plenty low end that you can feel hit you when the volume is high enough. You can feel a good recorded kick drum. The frequency response is low enough for my taste as far as music is concerned. It has duel flared rear ports designed to eliminate speaker huffing and puffing at low sustained frequencies. More info in the features section of the product listing. If you like rap and movies that boom, rumble and shake your house, these speakers probably won’t cut it without adding a subwoofer. Compared to a couple of other notable speakers I have or have used in the past: Polk Audio Monitor 10B. I have had them for about 30 years and they were made in 1987. They a 1 inch poly dome tweeter, 2, 6.5 inch mid bass drivers and a 10 inch passive radiator. They still operate like new with no tears or holes in the speaker or radiator surrounds. Compared to the 260F, the 10Bs have a deeper bass response. Highs and mids are pretty similar, so is sensitivity. The 10Bs are shorter, but wider and deeper. A little heavier too. Bang and Olufsen Beovox S50. Made in 1980, I had those in the 90s until about 5 years ago. They have a 1 dome tweeter and 8 inch woofer. Those had super clean highs and decent bass. However, the pins in the covers broke. Modifying them and trying to get them to stay on was about useless. Not much comparison to the 260F, except in the tweeter department. But the 260F wins there too. Being 44 years newer, it should. But it also goes to show that the old stuff holds up pretty good against the new, if it was high quality to begin with. I think the biggest advances in speaker tech has been in the bass area. Conclusion: I think what you get for the price is an excellent value. They sound great to me. Especially for listening to the type of music I listed above.

Introduction: I am an audiophile and a videophile. I love music and movies. I have spent quite a bit of time setting up my home theater and listening room. It’s not magnificent, with rows of seats, but for a small living room, it looks and sounds great. I am currently running Bowers & Wilkens 685 S2 bookshelf speakers on B&W stands, a B&W a ASW608 sub, and an HTM5 center speaker. I use custom speaker cables from Tributaries Cable in Orlando Florida. When I got a chance to review the JBL Stage 2 260F floor speakers, I jumped at the chance because I like JBL, and I need a set of speakers for the bedroom. My 1st set of JBL speakers were the L62 bookshelf speakers installed on a set of steel, spiked stands filled with sand. I was always happy with them. First impression: My first impression of the JBL Stage 2 260F Speakers is that they are solid, very well made, and extremely well packaged. Each speaker came double wrapped in thick, sturdy cardboard, with Styrofoam top and bottom caps and a center brace. They are quite heavy, and the packaging held up nicely. The base is heavy and solid, and everything went together perfectly. The hardware is high quality, and the included Allen wrench makes installation tool free from my end. What’s in Each Box: • 1 x 260F Speaker • 1 x Plinth • 4 x Mounting Screws • 4 x Floor Spikes • 1 x Allen Wrench • 1 x Speaker Grille • 1 x Safety Sheet • 1 x Quick-Start Guide Technical Specifications: • Speaker Type: Floorstanding • Enclosure Type: Ported • Peak Power Handling: 225 watts • Impedance: 6 ohms • Minimum Fqcy Response: 40 hertz • Maximum Fqcy Response: 25 kilohertz • Sensitivity: 90 decibels • Tweeter Type: Dome • Woofer Type: Cone • Number of Tweeters: 1 • Tweeter Size: 1” • Number of Woofers: 2 • Woofer Size: 6.5” • Speaker Connectivity: Wired • Wireless Multi-Room Audio: No • Speaker Wire Connector: Binding posts • Outdoor Use: Indoor • Product Height: 40.8” • Product Width: 12.2” • Product Depth: 14.3” • Product Weight: 43.3 pounds • Color: Espresso Setup: Setup for these speakers is done by careful placement. These are ported speakers, and the distance from the wall makes a serious difference in quality of low frequencies. And my viewing room is small, so I also need to point them inwards some to get the correct balance and imaging. This took about two days of trial and error. Once I found the placement, I pressed down on the speakers so that the spikes pierced the carpet and made a good connection to the cement floor. Performance: For this review, I used Apple Music for audio, and Netflix for video. I also turned off the subwoofer so I can only hear these speakers. Let me start by saying these speakers are efficient. It doesn’t take much power for these speakers to really open up. And they sound amazing regardless of what I feed through them. Of course, the quality of the source makes a big difference, but apples to apples, these speakers sound great. The first step was streaming from Netflix. We streamed multiple movies, finding movies that had full range, and chose some movies that I knew had deep and punchy bass. In every case, the audio was full and clear, and the lows had punch and were tight. The lows filled the room but did not dominate it nor did it waffle or distort. The mids and highs were clear and crisp. Next was the audio. I spent quite a bit of time listening to various genres of music to get a full picture of these speakers. I listened to easy listening and instrumental music to hear how precise and clean the speakers sounded. I listened to rock and metal to hear how the speakers could handle grinding guitars and punchy drums. I listened to hip-hop and funk to hear how well the speakers can handle a wide range of bass, and I listened to EDM to see how well they handled digital punchy music in a wide range of frequencies. In every Genre, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to these speakers. The audio coming from these JBL’s was magnificent. But the real surprise was the quality of the sound while listening to instrumentals. It was difficult to believe that they were the same speakers that were shaking the room watching explosions from movies a few days earlier. Conclusion: The JBL Stage 2 260F floor speakers are a set of really good sounding speakers. They work consistently well over a wide variety of music and movies, and never once let me down. Having used high-end speakers for a long time now, I was pleasantly surprised at these. I’ve always liked JBL products, but it is apparent that they are entering the high-end market at a reasonable price. For my home theater, they just replaced the 2 B&W bookshelf speakers, which are now going in the bedroom. If you want a set of efficient, great sounding speakers for a reasonable price for the quality of sound you get from them, I highly recommend the JBL Stage 2 260F speakers.

The JBL Stage2 260F’s are JBL’s new entry level entries into the floor standing speakers/home theater market. Meant to be complimented by Stage2 245c center and 240b’s in a surround setup, they’re more than capable as a stereo setup. The speakers themselves are fairly large, measuring just under 41” with the base installed (discounting the spikes since they sink into the carpet anyways). The spikes for carpet are optional, and do give it the bite it needs to be stable. They’re packaged securely. Inside the box you’ll find a manual, base, speaker grill, and screws+wrench for installation of the base. The spikes simply screw in and you’re ready to rock. The speaker construction is black and espresso, with the face of the speaker sporting and all black look. The dark espresso will blend in with most setups, but the white model is available if you’re going for a different aesthetic. They have dual flared ports on the back, along with 3 sets of banana plugs (technically 5 way binding posts, but I use bananas): 1 for the speaker, and 2 for the Dolby Atmos channel pass through (so all your wire is on the floor essentially). The Stage 2 240h height speakers compliment this use case. The front speaker grills are a pretty standard fabric affair, but connect with magnets instead of posts. While JBL likes to point out this is a ‘premium’ feature, I’ve seen this on fairly cheap bookshelf speakers as well. Without breaking open the towers, they sound pretty solid on the top half. The bottom half where the port is sounds a bit more hollow, but the speaker enclosures themselves seem made of good quality MDF. The cones are pure pulp - i.e. paper. Paper cones are usually found in high end speakers, as they offer that perfect combination of rigidity, and light-weightness required for great sound. They’re ribbed to offer additional rigidity, and feature rubber surrounds. The dust caps match the speaker material and the overall driver aesthetic is subdued. Two of these cones adorn the front of the speaker, along with a 1” aluminum dome tweeter. The tweeter boasts a next generation HDI waveguide horn to keep highs even on and off axis usage. One interesting feature of the 260f is its half-way crossover design. The internal design of the crossover blends the top woofer with the tweeters output to create a mid-range dynamic that is more cohesive than a traditional crossover. The effect is subtle, but both woofers are more than happy to make noise down to 45hz or so. Internal electrics are said to include mylar capacitors, laminate core inductors, and additional electrolytic capacitors. These are surprisingly easy speakers to drive, at a 90db sensitivity rating. Ok, so how do these speakers sound? Well in a word: powerful. They lack the low-end that I’m sure their bigger brother (the 280f) can muster, but they hit like a ton of bricks. Turned up, they’re clear and can hit hard enough to feel it in your chest. Given a good stereo amplifier, I pushed these speakers up pretty loud, and they didn’t disappoint. They lack the deep boom you’ll get from a subwoofer, but for music listening they are sublime. Listening to pop music with my daughter or appreciating some Pink Floyd, these have wonderful mids, and crisp highs that aren’t overly harsh until you push them to ear-bleeding volumes. In the context of movies, I found I could distinguish a lot more detail compared to my older fronts that featured similar drivers. I did some A/B comparisons, and while I need to also purchase a center channel to match, I found dialog was clearer. Listening to the gunfight scene in the Matrix I could distinguish each gunshot and brass hitting the ground, where my older speakers would muddle these together at higher volumes. JBL makes some of the best equipment on the market, and these floorstanding units are no exception. While overshadowed by their bigger brothers 8” dual cones, the 260F’s offer a nice compromise in size while still offering extraordinarily clear mid’s and highs. From a technical listening standpoint, they’re very flat in frequency response and sharp without being overly harsh. All in all they were an excellent addition to my home movie theater, and I’m sure will excel at their role for many years to come.