This is a great looking speaker that is not too small and not too large. It measures in at 10½ inches across, 6½ inches high and 6 inches deep and looks great on my TV stand. On the top of the speaker you will find the volume button which also acts as the pause, forward and rewind. There is also a bass knob and treble knob to adjust to your liking. There are two buttons on the top also: the Bluetooth button (to pair to a device) and a heart button (access to your playlist and settings in the JBL One app).
On the back of the speaker you will find a slide button with a microphone picture on it. This button is for muting the Google Assistant and Alexa voice assistants, if you don’t intend to use them. Below this slide are an Ethernet port, Aux port, USB-C port and a spot to plug in the power supply.
You can connect to this speaker either with an audio cable or through Bluetooth. I have mine connected to my television via Bluetooth and have no problems with the connection. It was very simple to pair these together. You simply press the Bluetooth button to have the speaker adjust to the pairing mode.
My favorite feature of this speaker is that you can use both Alexa AND Google Assistant. I find this a big help because I use both, whichever one is closer to me and what room I am in. When one doesn’t work right away, I just ask the other to turn this to what station I want to watch before entering the room. You have the option of setting this with one or the other or both.
More important than the retro look is that this speaker has amazing sound. The speaker has a 5-inch woofer and two 1-inch tweeters. For a semi small speaker, you get a clear well balanced sound. Of course I mess with the bass and treble since I like more bass in my music and this speaker does not disappoint.
There is the JBL One app you will need to download to get the full use of the speaker. From here you can adjust the equalizer, play in app music among other things.
I found this speaker to be well rounded, a great retro look and the sound amazing.

When I saw that JBL was releasing the Authentics speakers I was really excited. Growing up I remember seeing JBL speakers and they always looked cool with how they did the speaker covers. So I was really happy that this is a retro take on those old speakers.
Out of the box the speaker looks and feels very high end. The gold accents are very nice and the gold is a nice matte look and is not shiny. The speaker is wrapped in a black leather that also looks and feels very nice. JBL perfected the looks of this speaker and it really shows. Normally I do not want to have my speaker the center of attention because they are usually just black boxes. I currently have this on display in my living room front and center because I love it!
The speaker has the look but does it sound good? I don’t think it sounds good, it actually sounds wonderful! Right out of the box without making adjustments the speaker was hitting highs and lows nicely. After I got it setup and made some adjustments I was really impressed with this speaker. Usually with smallish speakers something is lacking like highs or more common lows. I was worried that the bass would be tiny and almost no existent. I was wrong, this thing hits hard and strong! It feels (yes you can feel the bass) and sounds like this speaker has a separate sub. I even had to check to make sure it didn’t sync up with my sound bar and that was making the bass. It also gets very loud without any distortion. I had it in my living room and turned up and could clearly hear the music throughout the house. This little speaker packs a big punch!
The top of the speaker has a button for Bluetooth, favorites, treble, bass, play/pause, and volume. When you adjust the volume/bass/treble, there are lights around the knobs to show where the level is at. I thought this was a nice touch and made the product feel more premium. The back has the plug, AUX, USB, and an Ethernet port. I was surprised this had an Ethernet port as a lot of modern devices are doing away with this connect. The bottom has the down firing passive radiator that also looks nice and provides significant bass.
Setup was very simple but you will need to download the JBL One app to setup the device and get it online. The app also gives you an equalizer so you can make more adjustments. Once setup I was able to use Apple air drop to play music or Spotify. You can control the music with the built in Google/Alexia or through your phone app. I use both Google and Alexia so it was nice that this device can use both at the same time. You can also add the speaker to your home group so you can play music through all of the speakers at the same time. I love this feature when you have people over, you can have music playing in the background of each room instead of just one location.
I could honestly see using this speaker for everything from movies, tv, computer, tablet, phone, etc. This is a good all in one especially if you have limited space for multiple speakers in your home. It’s also nice that it looks great so if it is out in the open it looks like a cool retro speaker. I wouldn’t mind having a second one to put in my basement living room. Overall this is a great speaker that is well worth the price.

BOTTOM LINE
JBL enters the upscale retro-chic BT speaker market with a really classy and potent-sounding smart speaker that punches a bit above its weight class provided you don’t push it TOO hard.
DESIGN/FEATURES
The black with gold-accented enclosure is wrapped in a handsome leather-looking/leather-feeling material. That, coupled with JBL’s old-school style speaker grille, makes for a refined yet definitively “rock and roll” statement on your tabletop or shelf. Controls and readouts are minimal which adds to the clean, streamlined, and classy look of the Authentics 200. The top-most inset control panel features three large dials, each encircled by a progressive white LED ring that indicates the volume, treble, or bass level—it’s actually kinda cool when you adjust levels via phone/app and watch the LED circular displays change from across the room. A button with a Bluetooth icon sits next to the volume dial and acts as both BT input select and BT pairing; there is also a heart-labeled “Moments” button just below that which lets you instantly activate a favorite playlist and dial in custom speaker volume/EQ settings that you set up in the JBL One companion app.
Just above the BT button is a small multi-color LED that communicates the status of a number of functions and activities for the speaker itself as well as voice assistant notifications; for example: speaker start-up (pulsing white), successful WiFi network connection (solid white), weak network strength (yellow), Alexa timer and alarm ringing (pulsing cyan & blue), Alexa do-not-disturb (purple). There are also several Google Assistant LED indicators as well, but they all utilize various patterns of white LED activity only. Honestly, the status LED is so small, so subtle, and faces directly towards the ceiling, so I don’t know how helpful it really is unless you are physically standing over the speaker at the time the display lights up. Nevertheless, I give kudos to JBL for making a product that focuses on *the music* and doesn’t become a cluttered and intrusive mess in a darkened room thanks to a glut of illuminated buttons, readouts, or unnecessary RGB effects.
On the back is a physical mic mute switch with handy green and red indicators to let you know when your voice assistant can actively listen or not. Along with a deeply recessed power port, there is a USB-C port though you cannot use the Authentics 200 as an external DAC and speaker for a PC, the port only provides playback of MP3s (80-320kbps/16-48kHz) or WAV files. There is also a 3.5mm AUX jack and an Ethernet jack (!!!) in case the built-in 2.4G/5G WiFi adapter isn’t enough network connectivity for you.
Although construction feels rock-solid, be careful of how you handle the speaker because there is a down-firing passive bass radiator that takes up virtually the entire bottom panel. The speaker also has four rubber bumpers at the corners of the risers that give the speaker an almost springy, floaty feeling when set on a flat surface. The sensation took a bit of getting used to because I am so accustomed to hi-fi components sitting resolutely in place so vibrations can’t intrude on drive motors, delicate laser pickups, etc.; the Authentics 200 practically bounces on its rubbery feet!
In addition to offering vanilla BT streaming, the Authentics 200 can also handle network streaming and Internet radio to include connectivity and playback via AirPlay, Chromecast, Spotify connect, and Alexa Multiroom Music. And in a gracious nod to those of us who can’t commit to a single digital assistant and smart home ecosystem, JBL gives you both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa built-in, so you get all the benefits of a Google Nest or Amazon Echo speaker along with all the smart-home features they bring along for the ride. Speaking of BT streaming, I used the Authentics 200 with several YouTube and Netflix streams; depending on the stream/source quality, I noticed barely any to no distracting A/V delay at all which bodes well for those of you who might want to use this speaker for video as well as audio content.
The companion JBL One app (which mercifully does NOT require an account or login credentials) is actually a useful tool that, in addition to establishing network connectivity and basic device settings, gives you the option to further tune and customize the performance of the Authentics 200 with preset EQs that can include midrange boosts and cuts (the on-speaker controls are limited to adjustments of bass and treble only) that are saved to the speaker even after exiting the app. The app also features “In-App Music” capabilities which essentially integrates the sound controls and settings accessible in the JBL One app with the playback and browsing controls and user-interface for Amazon Music, Tidal, iHeartRadio, Qobuz, etc. This is a very handy way to manage your listening options, especially if you subscribe to multiple streaming services, without having to flip between multiple applications; and the responsiveness of the In-App Music user experience in JBL One seemed only a hair slower than using the native apps themselves.
PERFORMANCE AND OBSERVATIONS
Finally, getting into the guts of the unit, there is a single 5” full-range driver flanked by two 25mm tweeters behind the speaker grille. The effect this 2.0 setup produces is *somewhat* stereo-like with greater-than-mono sound separation at relatively close listening distances. But as this is a single-enclosure after all, and given that the 5” driver is serving double duty for both bass and mid-range, the stereo effect really only shines when a song has been deliberately mastered with exceedingly wide L/R channel separation. That said, vocals and instruments sound clear, detailed, and energetic…there is definitely no veil or loss of dynamics to the music despite the Authentics 200’s diminutive size—JBL clearly knows its stuff!
Bass performance is further extended by the passive radiator at the bottom of the enclosure which definitely helps extend the bottom end further than you would imagine possible from a speaker this small. At low and mid-range volumes especially, the additional grunt contributed by the bass radiator adds palpable heft to speaker’s rich and detailed output. Along with auditioning the speaker at home, I brought it to work to share with my officemate who thankfully shares similar musical tastes to my own…he said the speaker was very lively and “fun” to listen to and thought the sound it produced was of a quality that was commensurate with JBL’s asking price.
That said, the Authentics 200’s premium build quality, appearance, and feature set feels just a little incomplete without some of the newer HD audio codecs like aptX HD or LDAC. It’s not a critical omission, but it would have been the icing on an otherwise very capable and well-appointed sonic cake.
I also found that as the volume increased, the extra oomph provided by the passive radiator started to translate into a) vibrations of the entire enclosure (remember, the whole thing sits on incredibly bouncy rubber feet) that created just a hint of its own vibration noise, and b) attention-grabbing bass bloat that got muddier and more imprecise as the volume continued to rise. In the case of the latter, some bass-heavy passages would simply have deep bass notes suddenly and distractingly “appear out of nowhere” at levels that drowned out the finer details and clarity of the mids and highs below them.
When this happened, some quick re-EQ at the low end brought things back under control. I also had to remind myself that I wasn’t trying to fill a giant rave with dance music…yes, the Authentics 200 can go REALLY loud, but it probably shouldn’t if you care about the quality of the music. In all fairness, this tends to be true of pretty much any small enclosure source that leverages a passive radiator…there is only so much precision you can squeeze out of a small rubber surround that is furiously flexing near maximum excursion once bass frequencies start getting longer and longer. Still, it is something to note if you were planning on having a house/apartment/dorm party and DJ’ing it solely from the Authentics 200.

TL;DR 90W Digital Amp with DSP.  Dual 1″ Silk Dome Tweeters, 5″ Full-Range Mid-Woofer, 6″ Passive Radiator.  Bluetooth and WiFi streaming.  Ethernet, AUX and USBC ports at the rear. No built-in battery, no Dolby Atmos.  Google Assistant and Alexa voice controls, and can do it simultaneously.
Setting up the 200 was very simple, as it comes supplied with a power cable.  That’s it.  On the top of the unit, you’ll find Play/Pause controls, bass and treble knobs, a Bluetooth button and a “Moment” button.  On the backside are three ports; a single USBC port for MP3 or device charging, AUX output port and Ethernet to add the speaker to your network.  There are a couple of mics up top as well to handle voice control commands as well as auto tuning of sound.  For those that are concerned about privacy, there is a mic slider as well, and the until will emit a red LED stating that the mic is disabled.
Much of the setup and tuning controls will be done using the JBL One App. In this app is where you’ll be able to tell the 200 what WiFi network to connect to as well as change the EQ.  The EQ itself is very basic (just high, mid and low curves), but I found myself keeping the EQ flat because it just sounded so good out of the box.  Finally, you can set up your “Moment” button, which is a staple in many JBL products. You can summon your favorite playlist or apply any settings that you consider your fave.  What you don’t need the JBL One App for is Bluetooth connectivity.  You can simply do that by pressing the Bluetooth button on top and finding the 200 listed as one of the available devices on your phone, for example.
I must confess..this speaker sounds amazing.  And it looks good doing it too.  I have it set up on my nightstand, in front of my lamp and various trinkets that I keep on my nightstand.  It just looks so good.  The sound output is very full bodied.  I enjoy the speaker mostly using AirPlay.  I have various streaming services (Tidal, YT Music, Apple Music) and each one was able to easily stream to the 200.  I’ve also one Bluetooth connectivity just fine.
I do have ONE complaint.  And it does have to do with sound output, yet nothing to do with the sound quality.  There’s a quirk where if you skip tracks, the first 1/2 second of the song is either missed or played in a faint volume, then finally the music comes through.  It’s a bit annoying when some tracks that hit you with that first note….don’t hit at all.  This only happens when skipping tracks as I don’t hear the issue when the music progresses through a playlist naturally.  Now, I would normally dock a star off for something like this, but because of the powers of the internet and OTA updates, I think JBL will possibly try to fix this in a new software/firmware update of some sort.
I still absolutely love this thing, and I would recommend it as a buy for those that are looking for a home speaker to fill a room.  Remember, it’s not a portable speaker with no internal battery and is designed to play music and look stylish somewhere long-term.