JBL Speakers?

[Ace H]

I have a pair of JBL S38 speakers (Mains) and the JBL S-Center speaker. The S Series are really good speakers. I wonder why JBL discontinued their S series excpet for a sub and the S36AWII? They are continuing the Northridge Series, although they changed the style. The Studio Series were suppoed to be better speakers than the Northridge Series. Anyone have any ideas about this?

[filecat13]

That's a question as old as the idea of product cycles. Many felt the discontinuation of the JBL HLS Series was a big mistake, as was the discontinuation of the L Series or the SVA Series. Yet, there are traditionally four reasons:

1) Lagging sales
2) Change in marketing strategy
3) Technological change (sometimes upgrading, sometimes downgrading)
4) Manufacturing pressures (changes in suppliers, materials availability, production capacity, labor costs, etc.)

Sometimes a product lives on in diminished form, like the S Series or in mutated form like the SVA (5" model) reborn as the HT Series. I'd think the S Series changed due to nos. 1, 2, and 3. The Northridge E Series does a pretty good job of replacing and improving on it, and it can easily be sold in more places.

[axelsrd]

I have a pair of JBL S38 speakers (Mains) and the JBL S-Center speaker. The S Series are really good speakers. I wonder why JBL discontinued their S series excpet for a sub and the S36AWII? They are continuing the Northridge Series, although they changed the style. The Studio Series were suppoed to be better speakers than the Northridge Series. Anyone have any ideas about this?

Not sure why the S (Studio) Series was discontinued. I have the S310II, S26II, and an S-Center in aN HT set up and they sound sweet. BUT, The towers were just too big for the space I was using them in so I had to downsize (Upgrade) to Paradigm monitors. Paradigm Mini Monitors for fronts, Paradigm Titans for rears, and CC-370 center channel. Now I have to sell my JBL's...only because they were too big for the space I had to work with.

[Woochifer]

Supposedly, the current Northridge E-series models are more of a continuation of the Studio series. I haven't listened to them for myself so I don't know if their sound will be more reminiscent of the previous Northridge or Studio series. Either way, the Studio series was a break from their signature sound. It was also the first series that JBL produced after Floyd Toole (who worked with the NRC in Canada and created the listening tests that helped spawn the Canadian loudspeaker industry in the early-80s) came on board to run their acoustic research, so I don't think it's coincidental that the sound reminded me a lot more of a Canadian speaker like Paradigm or Energy than the vintage JBLs that I grew up with. The Northridge series has typically had more in common with the vintage JBL sound than the Studio series did.

No idea why the Studio series was discontinued. They went through two iterations of the Studio series, and then the new Northridges came out. Either it was so radical a change for their long-time customers that JBL went back to their more traditional sound, or it went so well that they standardized their entire sound around the new voicing and no longer need to separate the Studio and Northridge models.