JBL L100’s ..... “vintage” (but with a big caveat highlighted below) or their new current reincarnation...the L100 CLASSIC I had the original JBL L100’s back in my misspent youth university days way back in the Jurassic era in audio (.... the 70’s... ergo the CLASSIC ROCK era....) Sure.... they were touted as “studio monitors” of THAT era. But most rock music recordings of that era were engineered with a bloated top and bottom end spike that fed into these speakers design and resulting audio performance in lock step. But let’s examine what was under the hood in that “vintage” era speaker. CAVEATS (1) With reference to the audio engineering comment above, the L100s were studio monitors that were designed as a heavily-coloured " California" sound speaker ( Google the term ...) with a heavily coloured off-natural frequency curve. They performed with an exaggerated treble top-end and matched exaggerate bass frequencies boost to actually accentuate an audio performance to be best tailored to the popular pop and classic rock music general presentation of that era. (...There was a contrasting “Eastern Sound “ with AR, ADVENT and other similar offerings that were the midrange performers for the classical and jazz music genres played at moderate levels...) (2) They were designed AND marketed as party speakers that you could play loud. I ran them with a MARANTZ 2245 receiver ( very minimalist when compared to today’s power supplies in a quality-build amp. (3) Remember that all of these 70’s geezer-rock era speakers have significant warts via some ultra-cheap build components: - (A) ultra-cheap basic spring-loaded speaker binding posts that limited speaker cables to uber-cheap that you can find and thus crummy 18-gauge zip cord speaker wires from Home Depot. without prejudice to any performance limitations therein, their advanced age and cheap build predicate these these crappy speaker cable posts need replacement soon if not done already. - (B) given their very advanced age, they will likely need speaker surround refoaming PDQ also (if not already) and likely even new caps in lockstep. - (C) Google the want ads for replacement foam grills and the stupid prices being asked. MY TAKEAWAY: - - If you favour nostalgia primarily and favour 60s- 70s hard rock / classic rock primarily played loud, then these JBLs will be your ideal boomy, highly -spiked top-end and wooly, bloated bass overhang party speaker... No problem. That does not favour them as preferred / optimal all the other alternate genre music performers. - If you are actually looking for a non-coloured flat response balanced musical presentation with superior imaging, and tight, accurate and FAST bass (emphasis added) that contemporaneously excel with all music genres including classic rock, ..... look elsewhere. These include inter alia, HARBETH, REGA, B&W, Jean Marie Reynaud, PROAC, SPENDOR, and a vast plethora of similar Euro offerings that immediately come to mind. Current era alternate speaker brands all have superior performance models with all the dynamic slam you can imagine even at normal listening levels; as long as they are properly paired with high-end build electronics (amp AND source). Why: They all excel at what the vintage JBL’s do not : their midrange. Get the midrange right and everything else will fall into place. Get it wrong, and all the king’s horses..... 2019 REINCARNATION of the original JBL L100 IF YOU REALLY HAVE YOUR HEART SET ON CLASSIC ROCK PARTY SPEAKERS - JBL L100’s ......THE SUPERIOR ALTERNATIVE : JBL Unleashes L100 Classic Speakers at CES 2018 The brand new 2018 model re-issue will eliminate the old speaker potential repair issues at a minimum, and current spec 2018 build quality will be be BIG BIG step up. Now, nostalgia buffs music can experience the illusory glory of what was once sold as a stand mount studio monitor speaker thanks to the introduction of the JBL L100 Classic at CES 2018. Invariably, most auditioners agree that the new model audio performance is comparatively better based on improved crossovers and much better build drivers and even the cabinets and the retread issue even has the bold foam grills appearance. https://www.stereophile.com/content/jbl ... l-included https://www.jblsynthesis.com/productdet ... assic.html |
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