CE Pro June 2021 - 101

ary design, I think.
I placed the speakers in
my dining room, which is a
14-x-14-foot room with an
open-concept design. Facing
the speakers out toward
my dining-room table and
setting them off to the side, I
never once found the stereo
image to collapse during my
early listening sessions with
the speakers.
Immediately, the ability of the speakers to fill a
room impressed me, and it's
a testament to Harman's
engineering. Not only are the
speakers capable of creating
a big soundstage, but the
quality is very good.
My early listening sessions
were more of the background type admittedly.
I wanted to break-in the
speakers before doing any
serious listening. Dinner
time in my household is also
coincidentally music time.
Usually, I will choose the
tunes and lately I've been
listening to a lot of Rush.
Over the course of a
couple of meals, we listened
to " Permanent Waves " and

The C83 uses an 8-inch
woofer that includes a
1.5-inch voice coil.

" 2112 " and not once did I feel
like the sound diminished
due to the lack of a stereo
image. Even off to the side
as I mentioned, I still heard
a nice, full stereo image that
included well-detailed upper
midrange and lower treble,
and resolute lower midrange.

stage. These characteristics
affirm the high level of
engineering that went into
the development of the
Conceal product line, and I
would dare anyone in a blind
listening test - a staple
aspect of Harman R&D, by
the way - to tell the differ-

Facing the speakers
out toward my diningroom table and setting
them off to the side, I
never once found the
stereo image to collapse.
Running a few test tones
(C-weighted pink noise) I
thought there was a bit of
a hump around 100Hz to
125Hz. What I was hearing
were some acoustic issues related to boundary reinforcement, but otherwise I found
the speakers to provide a nice
and balanced tonality.
Using other test tones,
the C83s played comfortably
in my room down to 40Hz.
This means that listeners will
not miss any of the important information that is typically a part of rock, country
and jazz music.
Just as a note on room
placement, via their demo
kit enclosures I placed the
speakers up against my
dining room wall to replicate
in-wall placement as best as
I could.
More critical listening
sessions included music
from Paul McCartney, Robin
Trower and more Rush.
I was really impressed
by the overall clarity of the
speakers, and the fullness
and depth of the sound-

ence between the C83 and
a typical in-wall or in-ceiling
loudspeaker.
Backing up my enthusiasm
for the speakers, my family
never asked about or questioned the sound quality
of the speakers. To them,
the C83 was just another
speaker in the house that I
was using for work. I think
that's the biggest validation
of all - that the speaker
performs as well as it does,
while living completely out
of sight.
Analyzing these speakers in another way: I think
Harman and JBL are enabling custom integration
sales that may not have
been possible without the
combination of the aesthetic
and performance attributes
the Conceal Series offers.
They're supporting dealers
with expanded solutions to
show homeowners, designers and architects - those
who want unobtrusive,
minimalist system designs or
don't want to see loudspeakers at all.

JBL Conceal
Loudspeakers
SPECS
 onceal Series features
C
four models: C62, C83 and
C86 loudspeakers plus the
C82W subwoofer
C83 has 1-inch highfrequency transducer,
1.2-inch midrange
transducer, and 8-inch
woofer that includes a
1.5-inch voice coil
Designed to install into
walls and ceilings for an
invisible aesthetic
Compression-molded
baffles " skinned " with
Fidelity Glass acoustic
panels
Midrange and tweeters
directly attach to Fidelity
Glass panels to create
approximate 180 degrees
of sound dispersion
Flexible installation;
speakers can reside in
environments such as
bathrooms and outdoors
under eaves, JBL notes
jbl.com;
MSRP for Conceal C83
$1,000 each

CE PRO VERDICT
PROS: Products " mud "
into drywall to complement
minimalist designs;
immersive soundstage
doesn't collapse if you are off
axis from center; most amps
can easily drive the speakers
CONS: Naturally,
integrators will need some
level of construction/
drywall skills to seamlessly
integrate the speakers into
a home effectively

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C2106 pp100-101 Field Test.indd 101

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CE Pro June 2021

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