Customer Ratings & Reviews

Though I purchased the JBL 500 and gave it a 5 star review after only two days of ownership(in exchange for a $10 certificate), I now need to change my review to 1 star. The BB website will not let me revise the review down to 1 star so I am writing this review on the 300 page. I can not in good conscience leave up a 5 star review that would otherwise mislead the buying public. After two weeks, the sound is very suboptimal, for example the bass seems distorted and stereo separation is non-existant. Furthermore the system totally glitches and stops playing music until you unplug it and reset it. I have tirelessly been trying to get help from BB and JBL without success. Be warned---DO NOT BUY the Authentics family of speakers. Others have complained of similar unreliability for the 500 on the large competitor website. Best Buy suggested I write this revised review.

Great stylish speaker from JBL that has great sound!

Great deal on open box. Classy looking, made solid.

This speaker packs a punch and sounds great plugged in and wireless!

Great speaker. has massive bass and blew away my expextations

Amazing speaker. Sounds great covers a lot of area also very clear

Great Speaker! Highly recommended for quality & display

Excellent product this is my best purchase,I recommend this

Excellent product.best sound for this price. 100 recommend

Worth every penny plus some. Great quality sound eithiut the huge price tag

Cant go wrong with JBL sounds great for any room or office

Good quality and best speaker i ever had.Thanks jbl

Best sounding speaker I’ve ever had, had a deep bass I use it every day

Awesome speaker. Sound is clear and bass is punchy.

The JBL Authentics 300 Smart Home Speaker falls squarely in the middle of their 2023 release of three new home speakers. What distinguishes this speaker from the other two from JBL is the inclusion of a handle, which in my opinion makes it the best balance of size and portability. The initial excitement of the 300 comes when unboxing the speaker and discovering its really cool design, modern but with a retro vibe. From a distance, the speaker grill appears to be made of black foam often found in speakers back in the day, giving it that retro look. It turns out to be a firm material that serves to protect a 5.25-inch full range speaker and two small 25mm tweeters. Overall, it’s a decent size speaker with some heft to it but because of the handle, it is easy to tote around from room to room. Much of the handle and exterior of the speaker is clad in black grained leather-like material . Metal trim has a sandblasted light bronze pewter look which perfectly complements the rich leather grain appearance. What matters most is the sound, and the JBL Authentics 300 delivers high quality sound with deep solid bass, clear mid-range, and bright crisp highs. Bass is accentuated from a tuned passive speaker located on the bottom of the unit For such a relatively small speaker, it puts out bass that you can feel. The entire speaker has a solid vibration-free sound. Even the speaker’s rubber feet give it a soft landing on any hard surface and prevents any rattling at higher volumes. One thing to be aware of though, is that this is a single source speaker system and thus cannot produce stereo sound. One must move up to the JBL Authentics 500 to get Dolby Atmos and take advantage of adding a more immersive dimension to its sound experience. The Authentics 300 works perfectly as a stand-alone speaker with controls for volume, bass, and treble that have continuous LED lights encircling the dials to indicate their individual settings. Of course, a smart phone or tablet will most likely be your source for playing music and the 300 provides streaming music using Bluetooth, built-in Chromecast, and is WiFi-enabled for Apple’s Airplay. It even has a RJ-45 jack in the rear of the speaker to connect directly to your wired internet service. A switch in the top rear of the speaker allows use of Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa to become a smart-enabled home audio device to do everything from control its music, listen to podcasts, and even turn on the lights. Even better, battery life with the Authentics 300 is about 8 hours and comes with an AC cord if you want to leave it plugged in or to charge the battery. Speaking of smartphones and tablets, JBL provides the JBL One app that can further customize some of the speaker’s many features and includes a 3-band equalizer. I’ve used JBL products for several years now and have come to recognize them as leaders in audio quality and workmanship. The audio system in my Toyota Highlander features JBL speakers, and I also own the tiny JBL Go3 Portable Wireless Speaker that my wife uses to listen to her audio books. It’s easy to see JBL's proud lineage in the Authentics 300 home speaker, down to the quirky sound it makes when it powers on and off. I whole-heartedly recommend this speaker as a very high-quality product, and the top notch sound quality it produces is what I’ve come to expect from JBL.

Outstanding full sound. App eq allows for tailoring sound to your liking. Couldn’t be more pleased with this unit. Save $100 buying it on sale.

Great sound and such a beautiful built. Would definitely recommend

This is a well built speaker and I really liked it because there’s so much going on with it. It got loud and was really clear highs!

Amazing all around sound that was loud, clean and crisp.

This speaker is great for streaming music. Nice punchy bass and it fills a room with sound. With any bluetooth device ibstill find it a little tinny sounding even when adjusting EQ. We also linked it up to the tv for movies and it sounds pretty good. The only knock is that when plugging in a wired auxiliary there is a delay by about a second. Due to that I was not able to also use this as a portable guitar amp or a PA Speaker like i was hoping.