Dayton Audio B652 vs Jamo S 803

The cabinet is simply too small for this size woofer. That means there's not enough air volume to allow the cone to move as it should. This hurts bass response and also low frequency volume. Since these are not ported, I decided to remedy that

I am a hifi and home theater enthusiast and I purchased these for a friend as a housewarming gift and I was shocked to hear how great these sound for the price. 90% of people wouldn't need any more than this, and for this price there's almost no sense in buying a soundbar when you can get a budget receiver with these for less than a good soundbar. They look fantastic, though the build quality is as you'd expect for the price (cheap vinyl on the outside, shouldn't be a problem unless you're moving them around a lot) Bass is amazing, I couldn't believe the bass response coming from these little bookshelf speakers, the front port is excellent and means that placement is super flexible. Midrange is as you'd expect from a budget pair of loudspeakers: lean and carved out

That said, they do produce stereo sound so if your sound system currently consists of a sound bar, or something similar, you will definitely notice a night and day difference in sound quality because they will produce true stereo separation. In addition, the B652s may make excellent rear surrounds in a surround sound system but I have never used them in this manner. If you have never listened to better speakers and you have only used computer speakers or the cheap speakers that come with MP3 player docks in the past there is no reason you will not enjoy these speakers. Sound quality is up to the listener and the listener's experience is what often dictates what that person thinks about the quality of a pair of speakers

The cabinet quality is what you can expect from Klipsch's budget brand. Not great, but acceptable. Seriously, these sound almost as good as Klipsch, so if you don't mind the more generic cabinets they are a great deal. They are kind of European looking which makes them look more expensive then they are

One small, but nice (and important) touch is the rubber de-coupling pads on the base of each speaker. Instead of felt pads or thin rubber stickies, they put decent thickness rubber pads on, which help to reduce sound transmission and reverberations (I usually use florist's clay or a square of dense camping mat to accomplish the same thing). For someone (me) who overspent on underdelivering speakers in the 70's, '80's, and early '90's, it's amazing the sound that comes out of these speakers. It goes to prove that careful design and consistent materials and manufacturing are about 85% of what it takes to produce musical speakers - the many "exotic materials" and "new technology" speakers that fell by the wayside just go to show that cost (in the past) doesn't guarantee better performance than mass-produced China-speakers from a parts company

I use these for a home theater setup and bought them primarily for the aesthetics because I did not plan on using them for music. In that use case, they are absolutely perfect. They look great and they sound great for movies and television. If you are looking for speakers for a Hi-Fi setup or for music generally, there are probably better speakers out there in this price range