Page 60 - 2022-08-01 Sound & Vision

test report
JBL SYNTHESIS SDR-38 16-CHANNEL A/V RECEIVER
listening space, the main issue
I need to address is excessive
response from 100-200Hz, and a
combination of tweaking the JBL’s
bass control, adjusting the total
level of the subwoofers, and fine-
tuning the on-board EQ controls
of the SVS subs, achieved an
excellent measured result.
Following that, I began my
serious pre-Dirac listening with
Oblivion, a movie with a Dolby
Atmos soundtrack I’m very familiar
with. Following the opening
narration, the title hits the screen
accompanied by a huge musical
crescendo. The JBL didn’t disap-
point here, filling the room with
explosive power and immediately
validating that its onboard amps
were up to the task.
The hits continued throughout
Oblivion, and not only in the
loudest bits. Dynamic punch
was never in doubt, but it was the
quiet moments where the SDR-38
impressed me the most. To be fair,
I’ve never been disappointed when
watching this movie with other
good A/V receivers, but the result
here was certainly up there with
the best of them—and perhaps
marginally be er.
The Greatest Showman is
another frequent visitor to my 4K
disc player, and it sounded every
bit as impressive with the JBL,
though in a different way. Music
is a dominant element on both
these films, but while it’s heavily
atmospheric on Oblivion, it’s more
generic here. The musical numbers
sounded spectacular, with solid,
deep bass, uncolored vocals, and
silky, clean highs.
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60 August September 2022
A er finally achieving a
successful Dirac Live calibration
(plus some minor tweaking of the
JBL’s bass and treble controls),
I listened to some of my favorite
stereo music cuts with Dirac
enabled. Deep bass in classical
organ music, electronica of all
sorts, and percussion-heavy cuts
sounded consistently right at any
volume my ears could tolerate.
I won’t say that all (or even
seven) veils were li ed by Dirac
Live, but details I’d never noticed
before were revealed on some of
my favorite test recordings. (Yes,
that claim has previously been
made by too many reviewers in
too many reviews of too many
products.) But the masking of detail
in recordings by room anomalies
(most of them in the mid and upper
bass) is a real thing, and Dirac Live
succeeded in removing those.
Switching to movies, Oblivion
sounded every bit as good as
before and perhaps just a li le
more open due to Dirac’s precise
rendering of the midbass, while
the opening foot stomps from
the bleachers in The Greatest
Showman were deeper and tighter
with Dirac than without. In the
Jenny Lind concert scene, the
cha er of the audience before her
performance was now audible as
separate voices, and her voice was
clear and clean (though nothing
can save a 21st century pop tune
from sounding anachronistic in a
mid-1800s se ing!).
Blade Runner 2049 is among the
best Atmos soundtracks, if not the
best. Aided by Dirac, the crisp bass
transients in its opening scene
soundandvision.com
POWER OUTPUT: 120 /200 Wpc (8 ohms/4 ohms,
2 channels driven, 20Hz - 20kHz, <0.02% THD);
Specs 100/180 Wpc (8 ohms/4 ohms, 7 channels driven,
1kHz, 0.2% THD)
AUTO SETUP/ROOM EQ: Dirac Live
VIDEO PASS-THROUGH: HDMI 2.1/ HDCP 2.3 (up to
4K/120, 8K/60)
VIDEO INPUTS: HDMI (7)
AUDIO INPUTS: Coaxial digital (4), optical digital (2); analog line-level
L/R stereo (6)
VIDEO OUTPUTS: HDMI (3 including eARC and Zone 2)
AUDIO PREAMP OUTPUTS (RCA): 21 (including Zone 2)
WIRELESS: Wi-Fi, AirPlay 2, aptX HD Bluetooth
ADDITIONAL: RS-232, 15V trigger (4), Ethernet, Dante (2, on Ethernet),
headphone out (front), aux input (front), USB (rear, for updates), FM
antenna, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas
ON-BOARD DAC: Hi-res capable up to 24-bit/192kHz
DIMENSIONS (WxHxD, inches): 17.1 x 16.8 x 6.8
WEIGHT (pounds): 39.8
ra led the walls of my room and with the SDR-38: On my last day
continued as agent K went on his working on this review I made
mission to “retire” a fellow replicant. a final a empt at a Dirac Live
The atmosphere was enveloping, calibration using Wi-Fi, but his
whether K searched the bowels of time didn’t go past the microphone
an abandoned factory for a model setup page as I was merely
horse (accompanied this time by checking for a connection. But
a now groaning, ominous bass), later when I looked back at the
or fought another adversary in setup menus, all three of the Dirac
an old Las Vegas nightclub while calibrations I had previously saved
surrounded by an audio-video in memory (including the good
hologram of an old Vegas show. one) were gone! That’s something
One troubling flaw kept that shouldn’t happen.
cropping up both with and without
Dirac. The SDR-38 would mute CONCLUSION
the opening fraction of a second
of sound on the first track of a You can spend a lot less than the
recording, and a millisecond or so $8,550 JBL Synthesis charges
of sound would also go missing for the SDR-38 and get a feature-
if I manually selected a different packed AVR that offers admirable
chapter or track. Hopefully, this is performance. Also, the SDR-38’s
something JBL will be able to fix in a oddities and possible bugs need to
firmware update. be addressed before I can recom-
I had one other troubling issue mend it without reservation. Having
said that, when things were going
well, the SDR-38’s overall perfor-
mance le me deeply impressed,
and its Dirac Live processing
counts among the best room EQ
solutions available.
The Verdict
The JBL SDR-38 is expensive, but
offers exceptional A/V performance.
The effects of its Dirac Live room
EQ are rewarding, though the
setup process can be frustratingly
complex.