Floorstanding loudspeakers — JM Reynaud CANTABILE JUBILE

The CANTABILE JUBILE is a slim floorstanding column from JMR - Jean-Marie Reynaud, the French speaker maker founded in 1967. It was created for the brand's 50th anniversary in 2017 and is a complete redesign of the acoustic and electrical parameters of the original CANTABILE, a central model in the JMR range. It carries a small turned head on top of the main cabinet, and the listed price is 4,600 EUR, with stained cherry aniegre veneer and pearl white, satin black or anthracite grey paint as the four finishes.

Key specs that matter

Frequency response is 35 Hz to 25 kHz, and nominal impedance is 4 ohm. Sensitivity is 91 dB/W/m at 2.83 V, and JMR quotes a usable amplifier range of 10 to 120 W, with 90 W power handling and a 170 W peak rating. The overall height is 108 cm, with a depth of 20 cm and a width of 30 cm, and each speaker weighs 25 kg. Single-wiring and bi-wiring are both supported, and passive bi-amplification is possible.

Engineering and use context

Bass loading comes from a tuned triangular line that exits through a low-noise front port. It is made of 19 mm MDF with rounded edges, assembled under a press and lined with viscoelastic absorbers. Two 130 mm woofers with zamak baskets, double ventilated magnets, non-woven carbon and Kevlar cones and 25 mm Kapton voice coils are each tensioned by a stainless threaded rod bolted to the magnet core and the cabinet floor. The crossover is a 2.5-way design with 6, 12 and 12 dB/octave slopes. One woofer is rolled off at 600 Hz, and the second one covers the band up to 3 kHz, and below 600 Hz both work in parallel and in phase. The new 28 mm impregnated silk dome tweeter has a double neodymium magnet, no ferrofluid and a tuned rear chamber that sets its resonance at 700 Hz, and distortion is typically under 0.05 percent from 3 kHz to 25 kHz. It sits in a machined aluminium horn flare inside a solid beech head that rests on an oblong spacer with three fixing points. An RC network flattens the impedance curve. The hand-built filter has no circuit board, uses silver-soldered parts matched to 1 percent, silver-foil capacitors and ceramic resistors, and all internal wiring is JMR HP1132 silver-copper cable.

Pairing

JMR states that the generous efficiency allows good amplifiers that need not be powerful, and the brand names its HP216B cable as the best speaker cable match.

Alternatives

The EUTERPE JUBILE is another JMR floorstanding model, using a 170 mm woofer and the same 28 mm silk dome tweeter.