JBL CS6100 Build Quality

As with most systems in this price category, JBL has built all of the speakers with injection molded plastic cabinets. With bookshelf speakers this would not be the material of choice for a cabinet because of resonance and coloration issues. However, with micro speakers it is less of a problem because of the small surface area involved. Provided the plastic is thick enough and constructed correctly, it should not be much of an issue. JBL has built these little speakers with a nice thick front baffle to help alleviate these problems. Overall, the little speakers have a solid feel and look good.

Each of the 5 speakers has dual 3.5-inch mid-bass drivers and one 0.5-inch titanium-laminate dome tweeter arranged in an MTM configuration, and all are magnetically shielded. Turning them around reveals real binding posts, which is a feature almost always overlooked on speakers systems in this class.

The subwoofer is built from 0.75-inch MDF and has a thick front baffle. Internally I would like to have seen more bracing as rapping on the sides does reveal some resonance. Also, the use of T-nuts instead of just wood screws holding the sub to the baffle would have been nice to see as well, but that is a minor complaint.

The sub sports a fairly typical 10-inch driver and a 150-watt amp that has a nice hefty size coil. Of special note is the fact that the driver uses a vented pole piece and decent magnet structure. Also, the feet on the bottom are tipped with rubber to prevent scratching and sliding around on wood and tile floors. The amplifier panel has one LFE input, left and right line level inputs, phase switch, level control, power switch and a fuse. You won't be able to use this sub with speaker level outputs, so make sure you have at least some kind of preamp or subwoofer outputs coming from your receiver. Overall the fit and finish is good and the sub is sharp looking.