JBL Northridge E80 3-Way Towers – Cherry, Bi-Wirable, Pair

A four-driver JBL tower in the Cherry finish, with a genuine bi-amp panel.

What it is

The E80 is the middle of JBL’s Northridge E Series floorstanders, and it is a three-way with four drivers rather than the two-way-with-a-second-woofer arrangement that most towers at this size settle for.

Two 6-inch PolyPlas woofers handle the bass. A dedicated 4-inch PolyPlas midrange handles the voice band on its own. A three-quarter-inch titanium-laminate dome sits above them in an Elliptical Oblate Spheroidal waveguide. The crossover hands off at 300 Hz and again at 4 kHz, which means the midrange driver owns the region where voices and most instruments actually live, and is doing nothing else while it does it.

That matters more than the driver count suggests. In a two-and-a-half-way tower the woofers are asked to produce the bass and the midrange at the same time, and the midrange is what suffers when the bass gets demanding. Giving the mids their own driver is the reason a three-way holds together on complex material.

The JBL engineering

The cones are PolyPlas, JBL’s own material — a cellulose-fibre base reinforced with a polymer, stiff enough for clean bass and internally damped enough to keep the midrange free of ringing.

The crossover is JBL’s Straight-Line Signal Path network, built on the principle that the less circuitry the signal passes through, the more of it survives to the drivers. The cabinet is ported with JBL’s FreeFlow flared design, which reduces the chuffing a straight-cut port produces when the bass works hard, and the front is a low-diffraction IsoPower baffle.

The connection panel

Dual sets of gold-plated five-way binding posts — four posts a side rather than two, joined by removable jumpers. That is a real bi-wire and bi-amp capable panel. Run them conventionally with the jumpers in place, and the option is there whenever you want it. The posts take bare wire, spades or bananas.

They are magnetically shielded, and they ship with both metal spikes for carpet and rubber feet for hard floors.

The finish

JBL offered the Northridge E Series in Black Ash, Beech and Cherry. Almost every E80 that surfaces is Black Ash. This is the Cherry — JBL gave it its own model number, the E80CH — and it is much the least common of the three.

At 8 3/8 inches wide and 36 1/2 tall these are a slim tower rather than a wide one, and in a warm red-brown they read as furniture rather than as home theatre equipment.

They retailed in Canada for around $1,200 the pair.

Condition

Very good. The cabinets present well and the pair is working properly.

Four drivers, a dedicated midrange, and a bi-amp panel most towers this size never had.

Available for pickup in Kanata, or shipped across Canada and internationally — we have sent equipment to fifteen countries in the past year, each piece packed in-house in 275 lb test double-wall boxes. Live shipping rates for your address are calculated at checkout. Backed by Radique Audio’s Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty and our Perpetual Trade-Back Program. Available for audition by appointment in Kanata.

JBL Northridge E80 Specifications

• Design: 3-way, 4-driver floorstanding tower, magnetically shielded
• Low-frequency drivers: two 170 mm (6 in) PolyPlas cones
• Midrange driver: 100 mm (4 in) PolyPlas cone
• High-frequency driver: 19 mm (3/4 in) titanium-laminate dome with EOS waveguide
• Crossover: Straight-Line Signal Path network at 300 Hz and 4 kHz
• Baffle: low-diffraction IsoPower
• Port: FreeFlow flared
• Frequency response: 38 Hz to 20 kHz (-3 dB)
• Sensitivity: 91 dB (2.83 V / 1 m)
• Impedance: 8 ohms nominal
• Power handling: 100 watts continuous, 400 watts peak
• Maximum recommended amplifier power: 200 watts
• Terminals: dual sets of gold-plated 5-way binding posts, bi-wire and bi-amp capable
• Supplied with metal spikes and rubber feet
• Cabinet: MDF, Cherry finish
• Dimensions: (Height x Width x Depth) 36.5 x 8.4 x 13.5 inches (927 x 213 x 343 mm)
• Weight: 42 lbs (19.1 kg) each

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