The humble soundbar has come a long way from being a band-aid for anaemic TV speakers. Flagship models these days have much grander ambitions, such as replacing your prized AV receiver, flooding your living room in Dolby Atmos audio and, if they’re really good, make you seriously question whether that dream home theatre is worth the expense after all. The JBL Bar 1300MK2 ( ₹1,49,999) lands squarely in that category. In a segment packed with heavy hitters from Sony, Sonos and Samsung, how does JBL’s soundbar hold up?
One look at that price tag—which is more than most people typically spend on their TV, let alone a soundbar—and it’s clear JBL needed to bring its A-game. And bring it has, with an astounding array of drivers spread across the entire soundbar. Across the centre-front section alone, you get a central tweeter flanked by four racetrack drivers on each side, with another tweeter on each side beyond them. On each end of the main soundbar sit two drivers angled outwards to bounce audio off your side walls for side-surround effects, while on top of the soundbar are a pair of angled drivers for the front height effects.
And then you have what I would argue is JBL’s trump card—the detachable surround speakers. These feature two larger racetrack drivers—one forward-facing and one side-firing—and a smaller driver paired with an upwards firing driver to provide rear height effects.
Finding space to pack in the 27 drivers is no small task, and so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Bar 1300MK2 is rather long and wide (55.3” x 5.4”), best suited to sit under a TV that is 65-inches or larger.
Build quality is expectedly premium, and it’s a good-looking piece of kit, and its all-black exterior leans towards the understated. The beefy 1200W subwoofer, with dual-opposed 8-inch drivers firing out from either side of the cabinet, is anything but. Its rounded exterior is easy on the eye, which is just as well for something that is large enough to become part of your living room décor, whether you like it or not.
Setup is done via the companion JBL One app, which makes short work of connecting the various speakers wirelessly, and calibrating the sound based on your room size and acoustics. Elsewhere, there’s an AI-enabled dialogue enhancer, which can select various sound modes and tweak the seven band equalizer, while also enabling a night mode with milder audio and softer bass.
The included remote provides access to the most-used settings, stuff like bass, treble and Atmos control, alongside volume and source controls. If you’re near the soundbar, you can quickly change volume and sources via three touch-sensitive buttons up top.
Connectivity options were solid, including Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, wired Ethernet and three HDMI inputs (each with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support). However, the omission of a 4K/120Hz passthrough or auto low latency mode (ALLM) is an odd choice, especially if you’re a gamer. But this is somewhat easily remedied by connecting your console to your TV directly.
Now, JBL isn’t the first to offer wireless rear speakers, but few others can boast of the level of versatility they offer. First of all, they operate as independent rear and height speakers, and the internal batteries allow for flexibility of placement, without being tethered to a power outlet. These speakers can give between 10-12 hours of use, recharge automatically when placed back on the bar, and can also be charged via USB-C at a pinch.
Each unit can operate as a standalone Bluetooth speaker, and they can be connected to form a stereo pair as well. A “Broadcast” mode lets you extend the TV audio so you can walk in and out of the room and not miss a word of the dialogue. That aforementioned ‘Night Listening’ mode mutes the front bar and subwoofer and routes the audio through the two detached rear speakers, an ingenious solution for playing TV at night without disturbing the rest of the household.
Yet, no matter how fully-featured a soundbar gets, it will ultimately be judged solely on how good it sounds, and in that respect, the Bar 1300MK2 delivers top-tier sound quality. The 11.1.4-channel system uses raw power and its MultiBeam tech to create a much wider soundstage than one would expect, and cranking up the volume beyond 15 (32 max) goes into unsafely loud territory! The Atmos height effects while watching latest season of Stranger Things had me looking up whenever there was a thunderstrike, and the way the sound of the wind swirled around me, from front to back, was sublime. Switching between the dog fights in Top Gun: Maverick and the docking sequence in Interstellar, the soundbar unlocked a deeply visceral response. It’s no slouch with music either, although the deep thundering bass that is great for movies might need to be EQ’d down for acoustic genres. I’m used to watching films and shows with subtitles on, but the voice enhancement tech had me turning off the subtitles for the first time in a very long while.
VERDICT
The Bar 1300MK2 is not subtle by any measure, and JBL has truly gone big in every respect with this soundbar. Even so, there are standout features like the exceptional voice clarity, the floor-shaking bass and the sheer ingenuity of the detachable rear speakers. This makes the outlay almost worth it, but it needs to be said that there are other soundbars in this category that provide better value (even if slightly). For those who pick this up, know that you’re buying something that’s more than the sum of its parts.
Tushar Kanwar is a tech columnist and commentator, and tweets @2shar.