JBL Authentics 500 Speaker Review

The JBL Authentics 500 is a retro-style smart speaker. Its look is inspired by classic JBL speakers like the L100. It's mostly black with gold accents. There's a waffle-like Quadrex grille in the front of the speaker that makes it stand out from other models.

This wired-only speaker is meant for home use. It's on the larger side, so you'll need both hands to carry it from room to room.

The speaker is well-built overall. The metallic gold accents and faux leather wrapping give it a premium feel. In the front of the speaker, the plastic Quadrex grille is covered in tight-knit mesh, which helps protect the drivers inside. It's elevated on rubberized feet to give the subwoofer space. The plastic on the back isn't as high-quality, but you aren't likely to see it much.

The controls are simple and easy to use. On top of the speaker, you find a couple of dials to control the volume, the bass, and the treble. They're backlit, too, giving you a visual indication of the bass/treble/volume levels as you adjust them. The volume dial doubles as a play/pause button for your audio, and you can also press it to skip to the next or the previous track. Between the dials, there's a Bluetooth pairing button and a heart-shaped Moment button, which you can use to quickly access a preset playlist set in the app. The microphone mute button is on the back of the speaker.

• JBL Authentics speaker
• Power cable (6.5 ft / 1.98 m)
• Quick start guide

Like many premium speakers on the market, the JBL Authentics 500 comes with a room correction tool to optimize its sound based on your room's unique acoustics. Its Self-Tuning feature activates automatically each time you connect the speaker to power and start audio playback, so you don't need to press any buttons to start it. The process takes about three minutes. It works as long as the microphone is turned on.

This speaker brings extra emphasis in the high-bass to low-mid range, adding some warmth to the mix. The rest of the mid-range is fairly even and balanced, so voices and lead instruments are clearly reproduced. You can adjust the speaker's bass and treble as well or use the graphic EQ in the JBL One app, which is handy. Overall, it's suitable for listening to many different music genres, though, as our users have pointed out, some low-level static is audible when the speaker plays audio. It persists after updating the speaker's firmware and completing a factory reset. You notice it most on lower volumes, though it goes away after a few seconds on most sources, such as Bluetooth, AirPlay, and Google Cast. On Spotify Connect, however, the faint sound of static is present as you pause your music.

This stereo speaker has a front-facing design. You don't get consistent sound all the way around the speaker since it lacks a 360-degree design. Still, it's more than suitable if you place it on a shelf or a countertop, with the back side of the speaker facing a wall.

This speaker supports Dolby Atmos content over Wi-Fi streaming with compatible apps like Tidal. This feature brings a wider, more all-around feel to audio tracks. In general, voices are pushed back a little in the mix when you listen to music, but the trade-off is worth it if you want a more immersive sound.

This speaker gets more than loud enough to fill larger rooms with sound. You notice some compression as you push it to max volume, though, especially in the bass range.

While there's no battery, the speaker does feature an auto-standby mode that activates if the speaker is inactive for ten minutes. You can wake it up by pressing a button, playing music, or plugging into an input.

This speaker has built-in support for both Alexa and Google Assistant, and you can use both voice assistants simultaneously. Both assistants can easily pick up your commands from further away. Alexa does better in noisy environments, though.

The JBL One app is a handy way to control the speaker from your mobile devices. In the app, you can control music and voice assistant settings. There's a graphic EQ to switch up the speaker's sound. You can also link a playlist from a compatible streaming service to the Moment button. You can also connect to other compatible speakers to spread audio throughout multiple rooms in your home. Check out a video of the app here.

You can wire devices to the speaker over an AUX connection. It also has an Ethernet port. You can use the USB port to charge other devices or playback audio from a USB storage drive, though it doesn't let you playback audio from a device like a computer.

You can connect the speaker to up to two devices simultaneously via Bluetooth. Its range is impressive, so your devices stay connected even from far away. That said, latency is on the higher side, so you notice some lip-synching delays if you try to stream videos or movies to the device.

This Wi-Fi-compatible speaker is handy for those who want to connect easily with Apple or Google devices since it supports both Airplay and Chromecast. That said, Chromecast seems to work only with audio content like music and specific Chromecast-enabled apps like Spotify. Therefore, we couldn't perform our video latency test over Chromecast. Let us know in the forums if you have a similar experience with this speaker.