Ever since the Grateful Dead made history in the 70s with their “wall of sound” utilizing almost 600 JBL speakers, the brand has become synonymous as a top choice for professional musicians. That is just one reason we’re so excited about the JBL 4329P powered speaker system.

This model is JBLs second powered speaker system, following up on the smaller, but equally impressive 4305P. To be clear, the JBL 4329P is not your typical inexpensive powered speaker, but is a true high performance luxury all-in-one speaker system.

How Does a Powered Speaker Work?

Powered speakers have been prevalent in the professional audio world for decades. The pros depend on total accuracy in sound. Powered speakers offer many advantages when the design is done well.

In the last few years, powered speakers have become much more popular in the home market. In that case, they offer the advantage of needing extra components for a great sound system. You just need them and a source, which could be as simple as your smartphone or computer to enjoy music.

JBL’s Powered Speaker System History

Two speaker models from JBL have become the defacto speaker for post production and recording facilities - the 705P and 708P. The first consumer JBL powered speaker system model, the 4305P was based on the 705P. As you might have guessed, the new 4329P is based on the larger 708P.

The 4329P is Next-Level

So what makes JBL powered speaker systems so good? First, JBL designs and manufactures all of their own speaker drivers, cabinets and components to achieve high-performance. Then, you have all the advantages a powered speaker offers over a passive one. Put simply, no amplifier needed for high-fidelity sound.

Most entry level powered speakers use just one amp that drives everything inside one speaker box and use passive crossovers to route the signal to each driver, which means they have to use devices to passively filter the sound out. When you have a separate amplifier for each speaker driver, as these JBL powered speakers do, you can use an active electronic crossover which is far more efficient. Both the 4305P and the 4329P powered speaker systems use digital signal processing, or DSP, perfectly set up for the specific drivers to extract the very best performance from the speaker.

How Do the JBL 4329P Powered Speakers Look and Sound?

The new 4329P powered speaker system has a larger footprint than its predecessor. At 20” tall, almost 13” wide, and 12” deep, the 4329P would be considered a large bookshelf speaker and can serve as a full high performance audio system in a large room.

Inside each 33+ pound cabinet are two power amps. The one for the woofer is 250 watts and the one for the compression driver is 50 watts. That's 600 watts of total power and twice the power of the 4305P.

Better yet, these use the exact same compression driver you find in the JBL 708P studio reference monitor. This is the patented JBL 2409H, 1-inch compression driver with their High-Definition Imaging dispersion horn. This compression driver is one step up from the already great 2410H that the smaller 4305P uses. The woofer is the JBL JW200P-4, 8-inch Pure-pulp Black Paper Cone Woofer with a cast-frame. The two ports on the front of the speaker give you more flexibility in placement than if they were in the rear. The 4329P measures down to 28Hz at 6db down. You can even add an external subwoofer, which will automatically engage the 80hz crossover; however, these produce such strong deep bass that most people will have no need for an additional subwoofer even in larger rooms.

A well crafted compression driver has a lot of advantages over a dome tweeter. Much more efficient, compression drivers are extremely dynamic and can achieve high levels of sound pressure with virtually no distortion. Combined with JBL’s waveguide, they offer a wide dispersion pattern that gives the listener a huge soundstage with consistent frequency response.

These speakers come in either a black or walnut finish with a full studio monitor look. You’ll get JBL blue grilles with the walnut and black grilles with the black version.

The rest of the tech in the 4329P is essentially the same as the 4305P. The internal Digital to Analog Converters are all 24bit/192k high performance DACs. If you connect the left and right speakers wirelessly, you will get 24bit/96k resolution as the primary speaker sends the signal over to the secondary speaker. For the vast majority of content, this is sufficient and most people will be shocked at how great this sounds. However, if you are a real audiophile or just want to squeak out the very best resolution, connect the left and right speakers together with an ethernet cable to move up to 24bit/192k resolution. JBL includes an ethernet cable in the box for these powered speakers.

What About the Connections?

You’ll get plenty of connection options with the JBL 4329P powered speaker system. You can tell from the connections these were made for serious audio performance versus most competitive products. First, they include a pair of pro level XLR and ¼” phono plug inputs. In addition to that, you get a 3.5mm analog input, a Toslink digital input, and an asynchronous USB input for use with computer audio. They have Bluetooth 5.1, which enables better resolution with lower latency and longer distances than prior versions.

However, what sets these apart from many power speakers is that they can play lossless CD quality or higher resolution music over your network using Apple Airplay2 or Google Chromecast using your phone, iPad or computer.

Don’t worry - we have a setup guide showing you how to best set up your powered speakers and how to easily stream. These powered speakers made it incredibly easy to stream. You also get a remote or you can access inputs and volume right from the front of the speaker.

Most powered speakers like these have one primary speaker - it’s usually the right speaker. That speaker has all of the connections and streaming capabilities in it. Then you connect it to the other speaker either wired or wireless. What’s cool about these speakers, and also true of the smaller JBL 4305P powered monitors, is that you can flip the switch to set the primary speaker to either the left or the right speaker. This can be super helpful if the left speaker is closer to your other equipment. They also have a boundary control, which will reduce the deep bass output by 3db if they are close to walls.

Speaker Performance - How Did They Sound?

We tested the JBL 4329P powered speaker system in multiple environments. First, we put them in a living room on the matching JS80 speaker stands. These stands are low profile and put the speakers at the perfect height and at a great angle for a typical sofa or listening chair.

We have these stands in our stores and online and highly recommend them as a great option for the 4329Ps. These speakers are incredible. Unlike many powered speakers, these are true high-performance audio products and they perform like the combination of a streamer, a great integrated amplifier, and a terrific pair of speakers all in one.

I decided to use Roon to stream lossless versions of a few songs from the Audio Advice Live playlist on Qobuz. I started by playing “Shape of You” from Judith Owen. These speakers did an incredible job imaging Judith’s voice in the center, while all of the other instruments filled the stage. When I say incredible imaging, I mean it. With the horn design, these speakers have a lot of flexibility in placement and can be placed at greater than a 60° angle from the listening position, facing straightforward with no toe in and still provide pinpoint imaging.

We then moved the JBL 4329P powered speakers to an exercise room that includes a Peloton bike. If we connected these to my Peloton, would it allow for a hard workout and great music? In short, yes. These speakers made our reviewer feel like he was in the studio with Robin Arzon or Christine D’Ercole and one of their legendary cycling playlists.

The Peloton audio track was compressed compared to a Roon stream, but hearing the music clearly reinvigorated the workout. Our reviewer even unplugged the 3.5mm connection to test the Bluetooth connection from the Peloton to the speakers. The primary concern was around latency. Basically, would the Bluetooth connection on the JBL 4329P powered speakers lead to the audio too far behind the video to enjoy a ride? There are some extra milliseconds of latency when you switch to Bluetooth, but not enough to change the workout or diminish the fun of the playlist.

Next, our reviewer switched from the bike to some free weights. Streaming Apple Music from the phone, he chose “Kashmir” by Marcin to stream losslessly to the JBL 4329P powered speakers. This song has detailed guitar tracks counterbalanced with super deep bass tracks. This setup played this song like systems we’ve reviewed before, but are double the cost. In particular, the bass capability of these speakers blows away other powered speaker systems. Also,moving around the room, the speakers maintained superb imaging as the compression drives and matched high definition imaging horns produced great frequency response in a wide, but controlled, manner. The bass was so strong that we elected to turn on the room boundary control feature to reduce the bass response by 3db. Spotify also streamed flawlessly to the speakers as well.

Are There Any Drawbacks?

Sadly, the JBL 4329P powered monitors do not have an HDMI input. If your primary use is to connect them to a television, then these are likely not your best choice. You certainly can connect to your television via optical, but that means you need to use the remote to turn the volume up and down. Whereas, an HDMI-ARC connection would have allowed the television remote to control the volume. Clearly, JBL decided to put the money they would otherwise have spent on the HDMI ARC connection into getting the very best sound possible. Fair warning - these are not cheap speakers. They are a real investment.

However, if you are looking for an all in one speaker system designed with high performance in mind and has the physical build to deliver, the JBL 4329P powered speaker system is a fabulous choice. If you love the concept of these speakers, but they are outside of your budget, you should definitely watch our video or read our review of the JBL 4305P powered speakers, which are the smaller version of these speakers. Same concept, design and tech, but with a step down on the compression driver and smaller woofer.

Honestly, our reviewer bought a pair for his exercise room after finishing the demonstration. Why not have a great soundtrack to fuel your workout?

If you get these or any speakers from Audio Advice, we have a team of audio experts in our stores and online who love to answer questions about speaker placement and fine tuning. We’re here to help whenever you need us.