L75ms

The JBL L75ms is the larger of JBL’s all-in-one music systems: one wide cabinet containing a three-way speaker array, the amplification and the network streaming, styled after the company’s L-series speakers of the 1970s.

Real walnut veneer and the foam Quadrex grille are the point. It is designed to look like a piece of 1970s furniture and to be the only audio object in the room.

What Apple Home actually does with it

This is an AirPlay 2 speaker rather than a HomeKit accessory.

• It appears in the Home app as a speaker you can play to, and as an AirPlay target in Control Centre.
• You can assign it to a room and group it with HomePods for synchronised multi-room audio.
• Siri can send music to it by room name.
• It can be the audio output in a scene or an automation.

You cannot switch it on or set its volume from the Home app the way you would a light. Those stay with the speaker itself and its own app.

Before you buy

Measure the surface. This is a wide, heavy cabinet and it needs a substantial sideboard rather than a shelf.

Stereo separation is limited by physics: the drivers are close together, so the sound is wide but not as spacious as two speakers placed apart. If that matters, powered speakers such as the JBL 4305P will do it better.

The L42ms is the smaller model in the same style.

Specifications