Denmark may be best known for savory hams, sexy design, and bipolar royal heirs, but it's also a land of loudspeakers. Jamo (pronounced yah-moe) is doubtless heartily sick of being called "the other Danish audio company" (design-trender Bang & Olufsen being the other other), but hey — it is what it is.
Jamo's probably equally weary of having its not inconsiderable speaker engineering and manufacturing chops upstaged by its own stunning design and finish — which everybody expects of anything that says "Denmark" on the box anyway — but that is what that is, too. The Glyngøre-based firm's new Concert C 80 Series incorporates advanced driver tech such as tweeter waveguides, distortion-reducing double-coiled midranges, and an aluminum-cone sub, and it's included a true dipole surround speaker — but many will notice only its elegantly curved surfaces, unusual "dark apple" woodgrain vinyl (black ash is also available), and glossy lacquered tops. I noted that the Concert cartons are quietly labeled "Designed and Engineered by Jamo, Denmark/Produced in PRC" — that's China, mate — but they're manufactured with obvious care and quality (although the woodgrain vinyl is fairly synthetic-looking). And, in any event, many major speaker vendors now build in China.
I laid out the Danes in my usual locations: sub behind and left of left-front; center just below my 50-inch Samsung's bottom edge; surrounds on high, side-wall shelves. The C 80 CEN includes a novel hard-rubber base-pad, curved to match the speaker's bottom panel, that holds it securely on a stand or shelf while allowing stable but precise vertical aiming — idiotically simple, yet very slick. And all three models provide unusually heavy, multiway terminal posts. The C 807 tower's acoustical center proved to be quite low, so despite my fairly low seating, I still found that raking them back a good few degrees opened up the mids and treble noticeably.
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The Short Form
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| Price $3,894 (AS TESTED) / jamo.com / 877-456-5266 |
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Snapshot
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| This musical, handsome system, with an above-average subwoofer and strong dipole surrounds, is a real Danish treat. |
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Plus
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•Very nice musical balance •Good deep-bass sub extension and power •Dipole surrounds great on film effects and concert recordings |
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Minus
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•Center tonal match good but not perfect •Sub a few dBs short for big-room, full-cinema playback •Woodgrain vinyl won't fool many woodpeckers |
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Key Features
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C 807 ($1,598/pair) •1-in dome tweeter, 7-in cone midrange, 7-in cone woofer •39.6 in high; 62.4 lb C 80 CEN ($499) •1-in dome tweeter, (2) 6-in cone woofers •19.6 in wide; 25.6 lb C 80 SUR ($798/pair) •(2) 1-in dome tweeters, (2) 6-in cone woofers •11.5 in high; 16.5 lb C 80 SUB ($999) •(2) 10-in aluminum-cone drivers •17.8 x 15.4 x 17.8 in; 55.1 lb •Dark apple or black ash woodgrain, black knit grilles |
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Test Bench
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The C 80 system measured mostly flat and showed ex-tended low-end capability. The C 807 tower suffers from the usual upper-bass floor bounce notch, but no other significant errors, and delivered output below 40 Hz. Likewise, the C 80 CEN suffered from some off-axis lobing but was flat on-axis, and the C 80 SUR curve was typical of dipoles. The C80 SUB had unusually good dynamic uniformity, hitting 104 dB or greater SPL from 32-62 Hz and max SPL of 107 dB at 62 Hz. — Tom Nousaine Full Lab Results |
Jamo's center speaker matches the 807 towers excellently visually and competently, if not quite as completely, aurally. Across a range of speaking (and singing) voices I found a moderate but consistent change in tonal character, the C 80 CEN sounding at once a bit thinner in the low midrange (less "chesty" on some male voices) and a shade less "airy" on some females, or hoarse or raspy males, than the towers. Off-axis consistency of tone was reasonably good over a lateral window of about 30 degrees, but tonality shifted audibly if I moved much farther. Still, this is adequate for most two- or three-across seatings; dialogue was always clear and unstrained, and I never heard obvious "ducking" or jerking on lateral panning effects.
My preference for dipole-type surround speakers is well established in these pages, spanning movies and most natural-acoustic music recordings. So I was pleased to find that the C 80 SURs did what good dipole surrounds do, which is to make film-sound ambience and surround effects natural and lifelike and concert-hall or club acoustics realistic and believable, without intruding upon the upfront action or sound. The below-decks scenes in King Kong (the Peter Jackson edition) depend on plenty of creepy creaking, sloshing, and banging — in fact, was there ever a movie with more continual, varied, and high-grade sound effects? The Jamo surrounds displayed these to great effect, enhancing immersion into time and place without once catching my ear per se — exactly what you want from movie surround sound.
Kong is also an object lesson in why you still need a subwoofer, even with a pair of main speakers whose response is solid to 40 Hz or so. Sure, the C 807s reasonably conveyed the film's many bass effects and provided satisfying sound from most music. But when I went back and re-auditioned the same sequences with the C 80 SUB in the mix, what a difference! The large, barrel-sided Jamo dual-10-inch sub kicked out plenty of true bottom on material like the sonically powerful but painfully CGI-looking dino-bowling sequence. Dialing in a touch of its Boundary Control (this flattens the typical subwoofer response-peak, at the cost of a bit of ultimate output) audibly increased bottom-octave solidity.
The Jamo sub showed real guts, but it couldn't quite equal my everyday sub, a high-powered single-12 about twice the price, which produced just a little more solidity in the lowest octave at even moderate levels. The C 80 SUB also revealed its limit with some modest dull clattering perhaps 6 dB earlier than did the bigger sub (despite its Motional Feedback technology, which Jamo pegs as helping to control cone movement). Still, the SUB has plenty of whomp for most needs; only if you demand near-cinema-reference levels in a room approaching 3,000 cubic feet would I expect you to feel the need for more woof. The Jamo excelled at musical bass as well, adding a last bit of realism to jazz standup bass, which had already impressed me via the 807s alone.
BOTTOM LINE In a crowded field, this Jamo Concert C 80 Series home theater speaker system stands up as another very musical, dynamically able, highly pleasing option, one with more going for it than mere Danish-modern looks. There's no shortage of $4K, tower-based systems out there: Many are strong performers; some give you real wood finish, but with plainer design; others offer smaller subs or simpler surrounds. And, of course, performance varies widely. You pick your poison. But with its strong subwoofer, well-done dipole surrounds, and overall musicality, Jamo's example suggests that we owe it to ourselves, when searching this field, to reconnoiter it thoroughly.
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