JL Audio has been one of the most respected names in subwoofer design for decades. If you've ever seen their flagship Gotham sub in person, you already have a sense of what this company is capable of when budget and ambition are both set to maximum. But for years, the question among audiophiles has been: when is JL Audio going to bring that same obsessive engineering to a full high-end stereo speaker system?

The answer is here. It's called the Primacy, and Audio Advice is proud to be among the first dealers in the world to have it on the floor.

Two Speakers, One System

The Primacy line consists of two speakers: the T6 tower and the S3 stand-mount. Both are fully active designs, meaning the amplification lives inside the speaker itself rather than relying on an external amp. That distinction matters because when you design a speaker and its amplifier together from the ground up, you can tailor every parameter of the amp to the exact drivers it's powering. There's no guesswork about what amp a customer might pair with it down the road.

The T6 is the full-size tower. It runs four 5.5-inch aluminum-alloy woofers covering 29 to 250 Hz, a 5.5-inch polypropylene midrange handling 250 Hz to 3 kHz, and a 1-inch carbon fiber dome tweeter for everything above that. Total power on board is 1,000 watts: 600 watts for the woofers, 200 for the midrange, and 200 for the tweeter. The T6 stands just under 49 inches tall and weighs 272 pounds per speaker.

The S3 is the compact option. It uses the same 5.5-inch polypropylene driver, but here it serves as a combined woofer and midrange, covering a wider 37 Hz to 3 kHz range. It pairs with the same 1-inch carbon fiber tweeter as the T6. Total power is 400 watts, split evenly between the two driver sections. Optional matching stands are available if you want to go that route.

Both speakers use Class D amplifier channels built around DirectFET surface-mount technology, a triple-core DSP running at 32-bit/192 kHz resolution, and a Zobel filter to reduce load effects and clean up transient performance. The enclosure itself starts with a sand-cast aluminum-alloy inner core machined to tolerances of plus or minus one-thousandth of an inch. This is not a speaker cabinet built to a price point.

The Centerpiece

Each Primacy speaker can run as a standalone active speaker using RCA or XLR inputs from an existing preamp or preamplifier. But the system really comes into its own when you add the CS Centerpiece, which is the optional hub JL Audio designed to go with it.

The Centerpiece is a streamer and preamplifier in one box, and it connects to the T6 or S3 over Dante networking via Ethernet. That keeps the signal path fully digital and high-resolution from the Centerpiece all the way to the DSP inside the speaker. On the streaming side, it supports Spotify Connect, Qobuz Connect, Tidal Connect, Chromecast, and AirPlay. If you have a TV to connect, there's an HDMI input with ARC/eARC support. You also get three optical inputs, a USB-C digital audio input, and two pairs of analog stereo inputs.

One of the more notable inclusions is the built-in phono stage. It handles both moving magnet and moving coil cartridges, and all loading adjustments are done through software. If the Primacy is going to be your all-in-one system and you have a turntable, the Centerpiece covers it without needing an outboard phono pre.

On the analog side, JL Audio kept things clean: no op-amps, no coupling capacitors in the signal path, and ESS analog-to-digital converters at the input stage.

The system also ships with a physical remote that controls volume, source selection, and playback. A companion app is available for smartphone control as well.

P.A.R.O. and User Profiles

One of the most interesting engineering decisions JL Audio made with the Primacy is how they handle room optimization and user profiles together.

The Centerpiece includes P.A.R.O., which stands for Primacy Automatic Room Optimization. It uses a calibration microphone to measure and correct the system's performance for your specific room and listening position. Scott Newnam, Audio Advice's CEO, has been through a lot of room correction software over the years and puts P.A.R.O. in the same category as the best systems out there, including Dirac Live.

What makes the profile system worth paying attention to is that you can save multiple optimizations and switch between them. The practical use case is straightforward: run one profile for pure two-channel listening with the room in its normal configuration, and run a second profile for movie watching with the subwoofers engaged and the room acoustics changed by closed curtains and window treatments. Each profile can also shift the stereo image so that someone sitting off-axis still hears a convincing center stage without being in the primary sweet spot. If you regularly listen with a partner, that's actually useful.

Profiles can also control the LED lighting at the top of each speaker, which is a minor detail but worth knowing if you care about the look of the room in different situations.

Finish Options

Out of the box, both the T6 and S3 ship with piano black cosmetic panels. Those panels are replaceable, and JL Audio offers a range of finishes including multiple wood tones. There's also a custom paint option if you want to match a specific color in the room or, as Scott put it in the launch video, your Ferrari.

Pricing

The T6 towers are $90,000 per pair. The CS Centerpiece is $15,000. A complete T6 system with the Centerpiece comes to $105,000.

The S3 stand-mounts are $35,000 per pair, and with the Centerpiece, that's $50,000. Add the optional stands for another $3,500.

These are not speakers for everyone, and they're not trying to be. The Primacy is built for a customer who wants the best performance available in a compact, clean system without a rack full of separate components to manage.

Hear Them at Audio Advice

Audio Advice is one of the first dealers in the country to carry the Primacy line. We have several world-class showroom locations and this is exactly the kind of product that rewards a proper listening session. If you want to experience the profile switching or hear what P.A.R.O. does to a real room, come in and we'll walk you through it.

You can also see JL Audio at Audio Advice Live, August 7th through 9th in downtown Raleigh. It's the largest home theater show in the world and the second largest audio show in the country, and JL Audio will have a full presence there.