Great article about sound systems at Jazz Cafe in Japan with pictures HERE: http://www.sakurasystems.com/jazzcafe.html
"There weren't any real live houses in Japan until the '80s. What we had instead were Jazz Kissa (Jazz Cafe), probably 30~40 of them in Tokyo only, each with a 3000~4000 collection of jazz LPs and an incredible audio system for that time. Most of them had JBLs (Olympus, Paragon, etc.), or Altec A-7, A-5. Smaller ones had JBL Lancer 101, JBL Nova, etc. "
"Those vintage JBLs, Altecs and Tannoys are rather narrow range (probably 50Hz~15kHz or so) and not as clean sounding as most of modern speakers, but they are very efficient and fast. For me, this "ease" of presentation is very important to get connected to the music, to feel the breath of the music."
"There weren't any real live houses in Japan until the '80s. What we had instead were Jazz Kissa (Jazz Cafe), probably 30~40 of them in Tokyo only, each with a 3000~4000 collection of jazz LPs and an incredible audio system for that time. Most of them had JBLs (Olympus, Paragon, etc.), or Altec A-7, A-5. Smaller ones had JBL Lancer 101, JBL Nova, etc. "
"Those vintage JBLs, Altecs and Tannoys are rather narrow range (probably 50Hz~15kHz or so) and not as clean sounding as most of modern speakers, but they are very efficient and fast. For me, this "ease" of presentation is very important to get connected to the music, to feel the breath of the music."