which is a better speaker


I am looking to buy a pair of speakers to use with my 2265B Marantz which would be better Pioneer HPM 100 or Jbl 120ti

mike317

Brilliant all guys on here.

Not one recommendation of a speaker model or even a reference to any save OP's present speakers.

OP picks two speaker models out of thousands and asks which is better.  He tells us nothing about his room, his tastes and only identifies his Marantz.

Only @dicockrum attempts an answer.

.We are finally learning that silly questions cannot usefully be answered.

I liked the Pioneer HPM100’s when I first heard them. JBL has always been a favorite and slightly more efficient. Between those two I would choose the JBL’s.

Not a fan of either. Pioneers had a nice tweeter, but that's about it. JBLs were built better, but boomy and hardh. Find a pair of JBL L-110s ca. 1980. Those are killer, will be very happy driven by a 2265B. JBL got all the pieces right - it was the first ported speaker I ever heard with extended, tight bass. The soft dome tweeter was a vast improvement, and everything could keep up with the LE-5a midrange. Add to that mid and tweet level controls and impeccable build quality and you have a classic.   

As for the 2265, Marantz always had ballsier receivers because they had better power supplies and discrete transistor high current output stages. This was why they also tended to cost a bit more than the Pioneers and Kenwood's of the day.

I worked in a shop that sold tons of Advents, a speaker known to blow tweeters when pushed. The high watts/dollar receivers were heavily current limited to protect their wimpy output stages that only performed well into an 8 Ohms resistor. Rather than damage the output stage, current limiting essentially clipped the amp at a level low enough to not hurt the outputs and dumped the resulting trash into the speakers. This was marketed as a feature that protected the amp. We rarely saw blown speakers driven by Marantz and HK, blown tweeters were common with Pioneer and Kenwood receivers. 

I agree they both kind of stink. Have very little experience with the Pioneers, but all older JBLs I have heard are pretty bad sounding.