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JHS Spring Reverb SL5300

Studio Test

Article from International Musician & Recording World, February 1986

Cheap and effective, like our own spring chicken Jim Betteridge


Better than a bathroom?


The Superior Man forever guards his door against the insidious strangle-weed of decadence. So too the superior reviewer.

Have you any idea how much equipment passes through my (very well secured, so don't get any funny ideas) flat in the course of a year? A chap could get out of touch with reality.

It wasn't always so; my first studio consisted of an old orange box, a couple of pram wheels, a horseshoe magnet and some old Sellotape sprinkled with iron filings; so spare me your hard luck stories.

I do, however, occasionally insist on subjecting myself to a few perfunctory pangs of guilt and am ever on my guard against said decadence. It's all too easy to quote a price of £1100-£1200 for a programmable digital reverb as being 'very affordable' when as a punter I would be well stretched to afford one myself.

On the other hand, 75 notes for a reverb system that works has to be good value, and (dare I say it?) even affordable for most people. This is the refreshingly inexpensive profile presented by the JHS spring reverb model SL5300, here under review.

Reverb is well documented as being one of the most important, (if not the most important) pieces of outboard gear for the purveyor of the popular musical form. It shows itself as many things: the psycho-acoustic space in which the musical image resides; the fundamental ingredient of the much sought-after fairy dust ingredient; The Box That Goes Gerboinggg.

At £75 the 5300 is well ahead as the most inexpensive device on the market, and it would be only reasonable to expect no more than a moderate level of performance. At first sight the unit looks very well in a 1U, 19" rack mounting metal box with its own power supply (no fiddley mains adaptors) 3-band equalisation, high and low impedance input jacks, an output jack and a footswitch jack to kick the effect in and out: a good and sensible line up.

A lot of front



The fact that all the sockets are mounted on the front panel with none on the rear suggests that it is intended for live performance use rather than for studio applications. Yet its 19" rack mounting form shows some pretentions to sophistication — an on-stage rack system is still relatively upmarket, after all. If intended for use as part of a rack system it is in need of duplicate sockets on the rear panel; keeping control panels clear of unnecessary leads is all part of the rack concept. However, at this price, another way of looking at it is that it is basically a stand-alone unit with the option of being rack-mounted.

On the spec sheet the two inputs are referred to as 'Mic (Hi-Z) -40dB' and 'Instr (Lo-Z) -20dB'. This is a little confusing as the output impedance of an electric guitar is almost certainly going to be higher than your average high impedance mike; alternatively it could be referring to the line output of a keyboard or drum machine etc. I took the -20dB socket to be suitable for connection to my mixer's line level feed (nominally -10dB), which would in fact be relatively low impedance.

To wobble or not to wobble



All these things are details as compared to the basic sound of the reverb effect. The classic drawback with spring devices in general, and inexpensive ones in particular, is that they tend to wobble when subjected to the short sharp shock treatment from transient sounds such as drum machines or spikey synth sounds, etc. If used sparingly such problems can be lost in the mix, as long as the rest of the reverb sound is strong, although the sense of confusion does remain at some, possibly subliminal, level.

The 5300 is very inexpensive and therefore can't be expected to be completely wobble-free, and indeed with much material — even vocals — there was a perceptible 'quiver' to the processed sound.

The reverberation itself, compared with much more expensive units admittedly, tended to sound somewhat 'separated' from the original signal when used at a reasonable level.

In practical terms this means there are some applications for which the 5300 would introduce too many impurities into a sound to satisfy an engineer used to professional equipment. A solo vocal mixed to stand out from the backing, for example, could not be given a very convincing natural reverb. On the other hand an electric guitar under the same circumstances could sound full and powerful. When re-mixing or using the unit for live applications where a number of instruments are sounding at similar levels, reverb from the 5300 can add lift and fullness without unlooked-for side effects. It can create impressive guitar sounds and do interesting things to synth lines.

FOR: Cost, solid rack mounting construction, 3-band equalisation

AGAINST: Shortcomings of reverb effect; no rear panel sockets for rackmounted use

The question is, should you spend £75 on the SL5300 or should you hold out for a more expensive unit, which would probably be at least £50 on top. The answer probably lies in the kind of work you have in mind. Certainly many demo tapes could be brought to life by a unit like the SL5300. For those using a subtle interaction of acoustic sounds the natural ambience of a bathroom or landing — even via a mike/speaker arrangement — may be more effective than either this or the reverb in the price bracket above. On the other hand, the 5300 with its attractive casing and 3-band equaliser (which can considerably supplement the existing three-band controls on the average small mixing desk) is worth having a listen to.

RRP: £75


Also featuring gear in this article

Spring in the Air
(HSR Jan 86)


Browse category: Studio FX > JHS



Previous Article in this issue

Rebis RA226 Digital Sampler

Next article in this issue

Home Taping


Publisher: International Musician & Recording World - Cover Publications Ltd, Northern & Shell Ltd.

The current copyright owner/s of this content may differ from the originally published copyright notice.
More details on copyright ownership...

 

International Musician - Feb 1986

Donated & scanned by: Mike Gorman

Recording World

Gear in this article:

Studio FX > JHS > SL5300 Spring Reverb


Gear Tags:

Reverb

Review by Jim Betteridge

Previous article in this issue:

> Rebis RA226 Digital Sampler

Next article in this issue:

> Home Taping


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