Customer Ratings & Reviews

Overall I’m happy with this receiver for a simple (and tiny) home AV setup. I’m using it only with two bookshelf speakers and a subwoofer for now. I may build out my system to a 5.2, but if I do, it would be down the road. For now I'm happy with this 2.1 setup, especially because my room is quite small. I found it easy to set up, although calibration will be a bit more involved because I don’t have an iPhone (more on that in a bit). It has all the HDMI ports I need (I’m using three out of the four), plus Bluetooth pairing. The interface is very minimalist. I’m a bit conflicted about how simplified it is. On the one hand, it looks very clean; on the other, having the input selection hidden within the left dial does require just a bit more attention than having input selector buttons. Calibrating the equalizer with the app-based EZ Set EQ is supposed to be easy right out of the box, but only if you have an iPhone. I don’t, so it’s not something I was able to do upon initial set-up. JBL can’t make an app to account for all of the potential Android phones and hardware variants out there like they can for the relatively narrow range of Apple iPhones, so they actually specify a particular mic (Dayton Audio iMM-6C), that I need to buy in order to perform the calibration, which means additional expense. I’ll eventually get it, but I don’t have the motivation to spend another $40 right now just to calibrate my setup to my room. For TV, movies, and console gaming, this lack of calibration doesn’t bother me so much. Even with zero adjustment to the bookshelf speaker levels and only very crude dialing in of the subwoofer crossover and volume, it’s a VAST improvement on my TV’s built-in speakers. For music, it’s a different story. I don’t know if the EZ Set EQ will provide more adjustment than the super basic treble and bass sliders that are available for manual adjustment, but no matter how I tried to tune these two sliders, the output isn’t better than what I can get out of my Google Nest Audio smart speaker. It's possible that the speakers are the limitation (though it would surprise me). For now, I’m fine with it because the main purpose for the receiver was for TV, movies, and gaming anyway, and for those uses, I'm very happy with it. I just hope the EZ Set will dial in something better than I can do myself for music.

This receiver is a great price for the cash strap buyer! I really love how this receiver takes me back to the days when I was a child, listening to music with my mom as we either clean the house, was just enjoying the music and the good days! I really love the old-school look up of this, with the modern updates! My recommendation would be, that if you can afford MA 9100, you definitely should get that instead of this one! But for the cash app people like myself, you can't go wrong with this receiver either. This receiver is perfect for my room in the basement, where my game system is located. I hooked up all three of my game systems and DVD player to my HDMI's in the back of the receiver and connected all the speakers that I had, and turned everything on. After setting everything up on my TV that I needed to do, and also adjusting all the sounds from everything that I played, I can honestly say I'm amazed! I really don't have the type of premium speakers that JBL makes, but if these speakers sound this good, I can imagine how good the higher end set up is! Everything that's on my shelf, looks like it's supposed to be there and made for that exact set up! I'm now looking to purchase some of the higher end speakers that's made by JL on the Best Buy website, and I believe that I am now a fan of JBL again!

I bought this a week ago to replace an older Denon. It looks great, the setup was super easy, the controls are clear, the sound is good. But, it doesn't sync completely with my fairly new Sony TV. Sound setting don't always change when the picture source changes from streaming to cable. The Geek Squad just left unable to fix the issue. I did learn of a work-around, but I'm a bit peeved that I need to do that. I'm considering returning it for another brand.

I love the flexibility and sound of this amp, but so far have been unable to update the firmware despite technical support from JBL. The MA310 is the only amp in this lineup that requires a manual firmware update via USB (the others update automatically via wifi connect). Because the amp is so new, the few minor software glitches I have encountered have not been fixable until I am able to update the firmware. If technical support is able to get this working I will likely keep the unit because I like everything else. If this occurs, I will update this review.

Not bad, my only complaint and it’s a big one, every time that you shut it off you lose all of your settings for mode, surround, volume etc and have to input all over again. You should be able to lock them in!!!