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- Engrossing, immersive sound
- Clever modular design
- Effective Night Listening mode
- Takes up a lot of space
- Rear speaker battery limitations
I’ve been looking forward to testing the JBL Bar 1300 MkII ever since it was announced in June. While less advanced entries in the brand’s new soundbar range have been available for a while, the flagship model, and successor to the JBL Bar 1300, has taken its sweet time to come to market.
After what felt like an age, I finally got my hands on one last month and have had it hooked up to a couple of TVs I’ve been testing ever since. Does it live up to the high expectations created when I heard it in action at an ears-on demo in Copenhagen in September? You’d better believe it.
What do you get for the money?
The Bar 1300 MkII is the jewel in JBL’s soundbar crown and commands a price tag befitting that title. It will set you back a cool £1,299 – more than most people typically spend on their television – establishing this as a product for those serious about creating an immersive audio setup at home.
The specifications further reinforce that. The JBL Bar 1300 MkII is capable of delivering an eardrum-shattering 2,470W across an 11.1.4-channel system comprising a soundbar, subwoofer and detachable rear speakers.
Such a comprehensive arrangement requires numerous drivers, and the Bar 1300 MkII has them in abundance, with the soundbar alone sporting eight racetrack drivers, seven tweeters, and four up-firing full-range drivers to handle Atmos and DTS:X height effects.
The total power output of the bar is stated at 970W, while the rear speakers, which house two racetrack drivers, a full-range driver and an up-firing driver apiece, add a further 2 x 180W to the mix. Then there’s the dual 8in sub, which can output a borderline absurd 1,200W.
Finding space for those drivers is no mean feat, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Bar 1300 MkII is one of the larger soundbar systems on the market. The bar measures 1,404 x 136 x 58mm (WDH) with the rear speakers attached, and it occupied almost the entire width of my IKEA TV stand.
Removing the detachable rear speakers reduces the width of the bar to a more manageable 1,030mm and prevents the ends of the bar from extending beyond the edges of a 55in TV’s panel. JBL includes curved side caps with speaker grills that slot over the exposed ends of the bar, to maintain the premium aesthetic.
The rear speakers measure 202 x 136 x 58mm, and each comes with a plastic cap that can be used to stand the speakers up vertically if you’re using them independently of the soundbar and subwoofer. When removed from the bar, the internal batteries can power the rears for up to ten hours, depending on the content you’re listening to and the volume it’s playing at.
The subwoofer, meanwhile, is a bit of a beast. It weighs just shy of 12kg and measures 315 x 275 x 27mm (WDH), meaning it’s not the kind of sub you can slip by the side of your TV stand. It connects wirelessly to the soundbar and rears, but does require its own power source, so bear that in mind.
On the connectivity front, the Bar 1300 MkII is very well-equipped. You’ll want to use the HDMI eARC output to connect it to your TV, but there are three additional HDMI inputs available for external devices, and they all support HDR10+ and Dolby Vision passthrough. There’s also an optical input and an Ethernet port. The USB-A port is reserved for servicing only.
To unlock some of its key features, the Bar 1300 MkII must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your TV and the device on which you’ve downloaded the JBL One companion app. That app is one of several ways to control the bar, and by far the most comprehensive.
A customisable seven-band EQ, volume controls for the rear speakers, streaming service integration for services such as Amazon Music, Tidal and Qobuz, and a selection of ambient sounds are just the tip of the iceberg. You can also switch between three sound modes – Standard, Music and Movie – or engage Smart mode, which shifts between them automatically based on the content you’re consuming.
There’s also PureVoice, which optimises dialogue reproduction, a slider for adjusting audio-visual syncronisation, toggles for Night Listening and Broadcasting, which I’ll go into detail about later, and a room calibration option.
The included remote provides access to the most crucial settings, with bass, treble and Atmos adjustments available alongside volume and source controls. On top of the bar, there are three touch-sensitive buttons for changing volume and switching sources.
What did we like about it?
A big, expensive soundbar system like this is ultimately judged on one thing: audio performance. And the JBL Bar 1300 MkII is a top-tier performer across every metric.
Let’s start with the soundstaging. As you’d expect from an 11.1.4-channel system with this much raw power, the Bar 1300 MkII goes big and then some. Regardless of what I was watching or listening to, I was consistently impressed, and often physically taken aback, by the bubble of sound it created. Harman’s MultiBeam technology helps here, directing and bouncing sound waves off your walls to create a wider soundstage.
I didn’t need to push the volume to find myself immersed in its presentation. I typically had volume set to around 10, which represents a fraction of the Bar 1300 MKII’s capabilities – it caps out at 32. For science, I cranked it right up to the maximum level and lasted all of about thirty seconds before deciding I was likely to do myself long-term hearing damage or receive a noise complaint if I held out any longer. Though the bar sounded slightly less composed at that volume than at safe listening levels, I heard enough to be convinced that it has the control to deliver on a much larger, grander stage than my bedroom.
In terms of size and scale, the Bar 1300 MkII has everything you could ask for from a multi-speaker home audio solution. But I was equally, if not more, impressed by how well the soundbar, subwoofer and rear speakers integrate. Together, they harmoniously deliver a believable and engrossing experience.
During the opening scene of the latest season of Stranger Things on Netflix, the detachable rear speakers immediately made their presence felt, sweeping the whistling wind and rumbles of thunder above and behind me so intensely that I found myself digging my fingernails into the sofa. As an unseen force circled Will’s wooden refuge, the subtle cracking of twigs and ominous footsteps were precisely positioned. When the Demogorgon revealed itself by bursting through the branches, my heart practically leapt out of my throat. Visceral really doesn’t begin to describe it.
The JBL Bar 1300 MkII isn’t unrestrained or loose with its approach to scenes, however. The crossover between subwoofer and soundbar is seamless, and dialogue is layered expertly over the rest of the mix, remaining clear at all times, despite frightening levels of deep bass. Add in convincingly placed rear effects, MultiBeam tech bouncing soundwaves off your walls, and up-firing drivers pushing sound into the space above you, and the result is one of the most atmospheric home movie nights imaginable.
It’s no slouch with music, either. I fired up Replicant by Theydream, a trance track with an absolutely filthy bassline, to see how it handled music over Bluetooth. The sub is in its element with this kind of tune and reached right down into the depths to produce wonderfully defined, floor-shaking bass. There wasn’t a hint of muddiness to the bass reproduction, and I was still able to appreciate the less in-your-face aspects of the track.
That was with the entirety of the 11.1.4-channel system tackling a stereo recording. But the Bar 1300 MkII has a trick up its sleeve that separates it from most of the rest of the mainstream soundbar world: its detachable speakers. Not only do these function as rear speakers in a surround sound setup, but they can be used in other ways.
“Broadcasting mode” effectively transforms them into portable multi-room speakers, letting you enjoy whatever’s being played through the soundbar within a radius of approximately 15 metres, although the precise range in your home will be affected by factors such as walls, floors and furniture.
If you have a family and are called away from the sofa but don’t want to miss out on what other people are watching, or you’re keen to enjoy a shared playlist with your partner while working from different rooms (how cute is that?), this functionality may prove useful. However, my uses for it were pretty limited.
I found using the detachable speakers as standalone speakers far handier. You can enjoy mono playback on a single unit, but I gravitated towards using both on my desktop to enjoy stereo reproduction while working. Working my way through my Spotify Unwrapped, which very much confirmed I’m a kid of the ’90s, was a thoroughly pleasurable experience.
An eclectic mix of everything from The Smiths to Hear’Say and Arman Van Helden was well-balanced and detail-rich, though, once I’d heard the Bar 1300 MkII streaming music over Bluetooth with the subwoofer engaged, I was left feeling shortchanged in the bass department. Still, for casual listening, the speakers more than do the job, and if you’ve got the Bar 1300 MkII set up in your living room, you’ll be able to use them in the garden when the weather warms up, if you’re lucky enough to have a garden that is.
However, the best thing the detachable rears bring to the table is the new Night Listening mode, which is perfect for after-dark gamers such as myself. While some soundbars have a designated Night mode, which compresses the dynamic range to make loud sounds quieter and emphasise quieter sonic elements, here the soundbar and subwoofer are muted. All audio is then pushed to the rear speakers, which you can then pop on a surface nearer to your sitting position.
They worked perfectly well on the floor in front of me, and I even found them effective on either side of me on the sofa. While not as immersive as the full system, the pair manage to communicate a decent sense of three dimensionality and, most importantly, they do so discreetly.
Once I stepped out of the bubble of audio the speakers create, they became inaudible by the time I’d reached the other side of my bedroom door, a few metres away. While admittedly not nearly as immersive as using the full force of the Bar 1300 MkII, this became my go-to way of using the bar in the evenings.
What could it do better?
It would be unfair to say that the Bar 1300 MkII could or should be more compact. I’m sure JBL has made it as slender as possible while squeezing all those drivers in, and making it any smaller would likely negatively impact its sonic scope.
However, it would be remiss of me not to mention that this is a system you need to plan around to some extent. It may be stating the obvious to say you’ll want a TV of at least 55in to make it a viable option (ideally 65in and above), although realistically, only those with a large, fancy screen are going to consider pairing it with an 11.1.4-channel system. Even then, you’ll need to make sure your TV cabinet is wide enough to house such a big bar, and that you’ve got enough room to house the whopping great subwoofer.
There’s really not much else I’d change about the JBL Bar 1300 MkII. It doesn’t sound quite as clean and crisp when the decibels really start ramping up, but unless you’re in a vast home cinema room, you’re probably never going to touch the kind of volumes at which small cracks start to appear.
I’d have appreciated slightly longer battery life for the rear speakers. A larger battery would increase the size of the units, but remembering to pop the speakers back onto the bar to charge every couple of nights was something I consistently struggled with. That probably says more about my ageing brain than the soundbar, though.
Aside from those minor tweaks, I experienced one hiccup that I’m attributing to network issues rather than any fault of the soundbar, but I feel I should mention it. While testing the Night Listening mode, I experienced two or three brief audio dropouts, no more than half a second, but it was a long enough pause for me to notice. My home Wi-Fi does have hissy fits every once in a while, and given it’s an issue I was unable to reproduce, I’m not going to hold this against the Bar 1300 MkII.
Should you buy the JBL Bar 1300 MkII?
The case for buying the JBL Bar 1300 MkII is a compelling one. Yes, you’ll be forking out a hefty sum of money, but you’re getting what I’d consider not only the most immersive multi-speaker soundbar system on the market right now, but the most flexible.
Its detachable rear speakers work well as part of an 11.1.4-channel arrangement, individually as mono or stereo Bluetooth speakers, and as a pair for solo listening after hours. To say the subwoofer is muscular would be an understatement, and the overall package is more than the sum of its parts.
There’s one thing standing in the way of the Bar 1300 MkII, however: the Samsung HW-Q990F. It’s not as powerful, but it matches the MkII’s channel count, handles Atmos mixes superbly, and is available for under £900. It also plays extremely well with Samsung TVs, which, given the brand’s dominance in the space, is a sizeable advantage.
Given its current price, the HW-Q990F wins on value-for-money terms, but if you’re after raw power, immersion and a handy helping of flexibility, there’s no premium soundbar quite like the JBL Bar 1300 MkII.
