JBL

BAR 1300X

JBL BAR 1300X

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Overall

#74 in

Soundbars

according to Reddit Icon Reddit

Sentiment score64% positive
9
1
4
Last updated: Oct 17, 2026

Reddit Reviews

Reddit Iconbeaatdrolicus
10 months ago

Ya I demoed The JBL 700 and 1300x and they were both excellent for music as well as movies. Bought the 700. I also listened to the Yamaha favorite, good for movies but fell down on music. My opinion.

Reddit IconCCornel7
6 months ago

I'll share with you what I shared to someone else with the exact same problem. I had an LG SP8YA w/ sub and surrounds to start. Hot garbage. Sub virtually did nothing (literally.) I got to hear a friend's sound system once, no idea what components he had, and it made me want so much more for myself. I played around with some stuff from Onn and Vizio, but all garbage as well. Because of this subreddit I upgraded to the Q990D. Huge improvement over the LG. I think if *all* you care about is value, and you're coming from TV speakers or a really basic soundbar, it's a freaking sweet deal and system. But I still just wasnt happy with the bass, or how the system *felt * I returned it and tried the JBL 1300X. HO. LY. CRAP. The subwoofer was absolutely unbelievable... That 12 inch downward firing driver had me giggling like I was a kid again. But everything else about it was meh. Surrounds barely did anything for me no matter what I tweaked, and the bar didn't sound as good as the Q990D either, which I already didn't love. Then, because of a reallyyyyy annoying mishap with a Best buy store, the manager helped me out and I ended up getting a 2nd Gen Sonos Beam, w/ a sub mini for literally a couple hundred bucks. I got some cheap random Sonos/IKEA surrounds off Offerup, a PAIR for $90. It...... *DESTROYED* everything is heard. The subwoofer was absolutely phenomenal, the surrounds were ACTUAL speakers so just so much more capable than all the little surround satellites kits come with, and even though the bar was small, it sounded much bigger, but more importantly, FELT great. Really really rich and warm sound profile that I loved. I bought a pair of era 100s to replace my cheap rears to add rear virtual Atmos since the beam 2 has virtual Atmos up front, and LOVED that system. Blew everyone that came over away. Since then I've moved that system to my inlaws, and myself have an arc ultra w/ dual gen 3 subs, era 300s, and used a 3rd party app to add era 100s as FRONT surrounds. The system literally makes people who come over say they would never go to a movie theater again lol my first Sonos setup already blew everything else out of the water, but my current setup makes the Q990 series sound like a toy. If you're a bass head, I recommend Sonos first overall. If money is no object, and for some reason you're opposed to Sonos (like you have a ton of physical blu ray discs so you require DTS), check out the nakamichi dragon, or you can also look at Klipsch. The flexus core 300 bar w/ 2 subs and their surrounds will be much better than the Samsung. If you're coming from TV speakers, but you love bass AND value, so you want the cheapest thing possible with crazy bass, unquestionably the JBL 1300.

6 months ago

I had an LG SP8YA w/ sub and surrounds to start. Hot garbage. Sub virtually did nothing (literally.) I got to hear a friend's sound system once, no idea what components he had, and it made me want so much more for myself. I played around with some stuff from Onn and Vizio, but all garbage as well. Because of this subreddit I upgraded to the Q990D. Huge improvement over the LG. I think if *all* you care about is value, and you're coming from TV speakers or a really basic soundbar, it's a freaking sweet deal and system. But I still just wasnt happy with the bass, or how the system *felt * I returned it and tried the JBL 1300X. HO. LY. CRAP. The subwoofer was absolutely unbelievable... That 12 inch downward firing driver had me giggling like I was a kid again. But everything else about it was meh. Surrounds barely did anything for me no matter what I tweaked, and the bar didn't sound as good as the Q990D either, which I already didn't love. Then, because of a reallyyyyy annoying mishap with a Best buy store, the manager helped me out and I ended up getting a 2nd Gen Sonos Beam, w/ a sub mini for literally a couple hundred bucks. I got some cheap random Sonos/IKEA surrounds off Offerup, a PAIR for $90. It...... *DESTROYED* everything is heard. The subwoofer was absolutely phenomenal, the surrounds were ACTUAL speakers so just so much more capable than all the little surround satellites kits come with, and even though the bar was small, it sounded much bigger, but more importantly, FELT great. Really really rich and warm sound profile that I loved. I bought a pair of era 100s to replace my cheap rears to add rear virtual Atmos since the beam 2 has virtual Atmos up front, and LOVED that system. Blew everyone that came over away. Since then I've moved that system to my inlaws, and myself have an arc ultra w/ dual gen 3 subs, era 300s, and used a 3rd party app to add era 100s as FRONT surrounds. The system literally makes people who come over say they would never go to a movie theater again lol my first Sonos setup already blew everything else out of the water, but my current setup makes the Q990 series sound like a toy. If you're a bass head, I recommend Sonos first overall. If money is no object, and for some reason you're opposed to Sonos (like you have a ton of physical blu ray discs so you require DTS), check out the nakamichi dragon, or you can also look at Klipsch. The flexus core 300 bar w/ 2 subs and their surrounds will be much better than the Samsung. If you're coming from TV speakers, but you love bass AND value, so you want the cheapest thing possible with crazy bass, unquestionably the JBL 1300.

7 months ago

Because of this subreddit I tried a full setup from LG, then a Q990D, and then a JBL 1300X. Each was a progressive step up, but all pale in comparison to Sonos for me. My first Sonos system was the Beam Gen 2 w/ a sub mini and the IKEA symfonisk bookshelf speakers as rears, and even that was better than all the others lol Now I have an arc ultra, dual subs, era 300s as rears, and thanks to a 3rd party app, era 100s as front L/R and the sound absolutely embarrasses anything else that comes from a soundbar. You have the budget to get creative based off what you want and are willing to do. Knowing what I know and actually testing and owning all of these systems, if I was LITERALLY you and didn't want to go over $1500 right now, I would get either a Sonos Arc Ultra and a sub mini, and add the surrounds later... Or I would get the Sonos Arc Ultra and a pair of Era 100s and add the sub later. The second I could afford it, I'd add the missing link. If for some reason you NEVER want to spend over $1500, id unquestionably go used Sonos. Arc ultra for ~$800, sub mini for ~300, and a pair of Era 100s for ~300. $1400 NO TAX and you'd be set with no need to upgrade. If you want to buy from a retailer that has return window and warranty, then Sonos also has an official refurb section. A beam gen 2 is 400 and original arc is 450, sub mini is 400, and era 100 is $180 each. That means an arc, sub mini, and era 100s would be $1210. ($50 less if you go beam gen 2) All from Sonos directly, but if you went with a used arc ultra it'd be more like You'd have enough room to get another pair of Era 100s and the $3 sonosequencr app to use them as fronts, and again... It'll destroy anything else. And since you wouldn't have gone arc ultra this way, it's worth it to be the better dialogue. The arc ultra has much better dialogue but the front era 100s will help the arc sound better in that regard plus give you the enormous soundstage a bar on its own can't. Moral of the story is go with the best Sonos system you're willing to spend on.

Reddit IconD_rod94
10 months ago

I think soundbars are really only the solution when you don’t want/have room to have nice tower fronts and decent surrounds or running wires for each speaker throughout a room. They do provide a good bang for the buck for sure, but you end up paying more for a convenience factor for sure. I picked up a Nakamichi Dragon soundbar and the thing is awesome. If you have a room that will let the channels do their thing since the surround relies solely on bouncing sound off walls/ceiling. Have to keep that in mind for sure. The output is actually ridiculous, the stock quad 8’s do good for what they are but being a bass head, I had to change it up. Using their stock amps to send signal to a MiniDSP Flex, to a Behringer MIC2200V2, and one channel of a Crown XLS2502 is going to the 8’s running 200hz-70hz, and the other channel is going to a Stereo Integrity SQL15 with two Dayton Signature 15” passive radiators and ran DSP on both the channels. Took the sound from pretty good to surprisingly good. Room is a smaller like 15x15 I’d say, but watching movies it’s got stupid output. The surround actually does really good in a room like this, used REW to set the channel volumes through the soundbar and that helped a lot too. Think people tend to just guess with that stuff and ends up skewing their results. You’ll never beat the stereo separation for music that you can get from a good AVR and nice front speakers. I’ve got this bar tuned and EQ’d and now with the sub stage changed up and the 8’s acting as more of mid ranges, it’s really changed how it sounds. All in all it depends what your room setup is, if you want to run wires for all your surround speakers, ideally using in-ceiling speakers for your Atmos channels otherwise it’s the same deal that soundbars use with up-firing speakers just bouncing sound off the ceiling, and what you prioritize for your content. If you don’t listen to music much or aren’t a snob for certain things like immaculate channel separation for stereo listening, a soundbar is a good way to go until you want to upgrade and spend a good chunk of money to get a really nice AVR setup. I had the JBL 1300X before this and it was pretty good, heard a Q990D at a friends’ house in a similar room and he let me mess around with all of its settings, but the Dragon is leaps above those. I’d probably just stick with what you got, maybe see about adding an amplifier for your front stage if the ~95w/ch isn’t sufficient for what you’re looking for.

Reddit IconFinancial-Ad-3978
10 months ago

I second the comment above. I live in a downtown apartment and had the first generation 1300x. The 12-in sub is simply too loud for apartment living. The bar 1000 with a 10-in sub is still going to give all the boom and shake one could possibly want but perhaps is better defined. If it were me doing it again in an apartment situation I would do bar 1000 MK2.

10 months ago

I too purchased the 1300x MK2 and can't wait to get moved in and hook it up. I had the Bar 1300x and have read nothing but high praise on the improvements made for the MK2.

Reddit IconLevel_Airline_5957
11 months ago

Kup F jeśli szukasz koniecznie Samsunga . Przy odpowiednich ustawieniach jest super . Posiadam też JBL 1300X i również jest świetny (trzeba go tylko dobrze skonfigurować) . Teraz w Polsce już model 1300X jest ciężko dostępny ale pojawił się 1300MK 2 to jest dopiero sprzęt… niestety kosztuje ok 6500zl

Reddit IconMovieBuffMatt
11 months ago

I’ve owned the JBL 9.1 and two weeks ago I upgraded to the 1300x. Love them both. Great sound systems for those of us that can’t or don’t want to run wires.

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