Floorstanding loudspeakers — Jamo C119

The C119 is a passive tower speaker belonging to the Concert Series of the Danish brand Jamo, with styling credited to the industrial designer Kieron Dunk. Jamo dates the modern form of this series to 2014, when Dunk led a redesign that began with the C9 and C10 models and treated each speaker as a piece of furniture as well as an audio product. The maker lists the C119 at USD 3,490 per pair.

Key specs that matter

The enclosure is vented and divides the signal three ways among four drive units. Two 165 mm woofers handle the low range, a third 165 mm cone looks after the midrange, and a 25.4 mm positive dome tweeter covers the top. Crossover frequencies are 600 Hz and 2 kHz. The quoted bandwidth is 37 Hz to 20 kHz within 3 dB, sensitivity is 89 dB for 2.83 V at 1 m, and the nominal impedance is 6 ohm. Jamo gives power handling as 200 W rated and 400 W peak. The cabinet is 1100 mm tall, 235 mm wide and 424.5 mm deep and weighs 33.4 kg.

Engineering and use context

Both woofers and the midrange use cones of the type Jamo calls Hybrid Composition Conical Cone, or HCCC, each fitted with an aluminium phase plug. The woofers add a Long Displacement Surround, abbreviated LDS. According to the company, HCCC and LDS were introduced to lower distortion and improve transient behaviour. For the treble unit Jamo uses an Anti-Diffraction Waveguide (ADW) and Tweeter Distortion Reduction, or TDR. A rear-facing port handles the reflex loading. The finish is High Gloss Black, paired with MDF front baffles in a satin paint and chrome detailing. Twin pairs of bi-wire posts are provided, so the bass and the upper sections can be connected through separate cables or fed from separate amplifier channels. The Concert name itself goes back to the 1990s, when the Concert 8 and Concert 11 used magnesium cone woofers, Sonotex dome tweeters and copper phase plugs, and their black baffles used a proprietary low-resonance compound.

Pairing

Recommended amplification for the C119 is above 75 W. Any receiver or amplifier used should be rated by its maker for that nominal impedance. Within the current Jamo catalogue, the C119 sits alongside the C113 Bookshelf Speaker and the C910 SUB and C912 SUB subwoofers, which can extend a system based on the towers.

Alternatives

The Jamo C97 II Floor Standing Speaker is another floorstanding model from the Jamo Concert range.