JBL's Internal Monster Wiring

The owner's manual for Harman International's new JBL K2 S5800 speakers, introduced last year at $18,000 per pair list, not only recommends the use of audiophile cables but points out that these speakers are internally wired with Monster Cable specially designed for JBL. The manual can be found at JBL's web site:

http://www.jbl.com/home/product_supp...&Submit=Submit

Some Cable Forum members continue to claim that Dr. Floyd E. Toole, Harman's Corporate Vice President Of Accoustical Engineering, found different cables don't make an audible difference, although Toole has not confirmed this is his position on cables. In a 6-25-2004 post, Pat D said "Alan Lofft, former editor of Audio Scene Canada, told me in an EMail that Dr.Toole had done extensive DB testing with cables a number of years ago and found that proper cables did not make an audilble difference." Monstrous Mike also has recently said he has second hand knowledge that Dr.Toole "found that cables do not affect the sound of his speakers."

If Dr.Toole believes cables don't make a difference, why are the new JBL K2 S5800 speakers internally wired with Monster Cable specially designed for JBL, and why does the owner's manual for these speakers emphasize the importance of using audiophile cables? We can continue to speculate on the reasons for the apparent contradiction between what Dr. Toole may believe and what his firm's speaker manuals say. Or someone can just ask him. Will Pat D, Monstrous Mike, or anyone else who has made claims about Dr. Toole's position on cables be willing to contact him?

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Originally Posted by okiemax

If Dr.Toole believes cables don't make a difference, why are the new JBL K2 S5800 speakers internally wired with Monster Cable specially designed for JBL, and why does the owner's manual for these speakers emphasize the importance of using audiophile cables? We can continue to speculate on the reasons for the apparent contradiction between what Dr. Toole may believe and what his firm's speaker manuals say. Or someone can just ask him. Will Pat D, Monstrous Mike, or anyone else who has made claims about Dr. Toole's position on cables be willing to contact him?

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Why not you send him an email at the JBL website. He will not bite, much :) Then you get first hand info and response and follow up questioning?

I bet he is not involved in the marketing of the speakers.

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Originally Posted by mtrycraft

Why not you send him an email at the JBL website. He will not bite, much :) Then you get first hand info and response and follow up questioning?

I bet he is not involved in the marketing of the speakers.

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It was Pat D and Monstrous Mike, not I, who made claims about what Dr.Toole found. If you believe the obligation for proof is on those who make the claims, you should be asking them to email Dr.Toole for an explanation instead of asking me. Whoever does it should post the correspondence on this Forum.

There is only one possible explanation and that is that it is pure marketing hype targeted at a market which has more money than brains and knowledge. If you truely want a special cable developed just for your purpose, you don't go to Monster Cable, you go to Belden. Their R&D department would run rings around Monster Cable's on their worst day. So would their quality control department. (For all I know, Belden makes cable for Monster and puts their name on it.)

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Originally Posted by skeptic

There is only one possible explanation and that is that it is pure marketing hype targeted at a market which has more money than brains and knowledge.

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Paranoia strikes deep, huh skep? First audiophiles caused the downfall of your beloved AR and now Dr. Toole, corporate vice president of acoustical engineering, is reduced to but a powerless and willing pawn in the defrauding of the audio public.

What's your next theory? - rapidly declining sales of Lincoln Town Cars caused by corporate pressure to deliberately restrict availability to their fans in the post-retirement demographics?

rw

You still persist in acting like Toole has the final say over everything that goes on at Harmon Intl. I would hope that one who professes to be so all knowing would know better than that.

...or are we just grandstanding for the uninformed again?

I wondr how much Noel Lee and company paid for this endorsment?

I'l betcha that the great unwashed are highly impressed by their use of monster cable internally. Just like some speakers put bi wire terminals on speakers that, by their engineers own admission, don't benefit a bit from them, except on a sales chart.

I saw a family buying a $99 shelf stereo that had the words "bi amped.bi wired" on the side. That seems to be the new buzz word to filter down to the barely educated and/or terminally gullible, just like "bi wiring" and "hi end cables" did previously.

"First audiophiles caused the downfall of your beloved AR"

The downfall of AR was the fact that the techies who took over from Vilcher knew a lot more about building audio equipment than they did about how to run a profitable company. Their business plan was a failure.

Anone who wants to buy a high end speaker system from Harman International looks at Revel...or Infinity, not JBL.

And BTW, I don't care what happens to Lincoln's sales figures. Anyone who builds a car where it costs $1500 to replace the two headlights doesn't deserve to be in business anyway. Maybe Ford Motor Company will wind up like AR. Nah, no such luck.

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Originally Posted by okiemax

It was Pat D and Monstrous Mike, not I, who made claims about what Dr.Toole found. If you believe the obligation for proof is on those who make the claims, you should be asking them to email Dr.Toole for an explanation instead of asking me. Whoever does it should post the correspondence on this Forum.

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What he, Dr Toole found with his research and what the company Harman is marketing are two issues, no? Toole is not in charge of marketing, right? He may not have much to say on it.
I offered you an opportunity to find out from him directly. It is free. He has responded to emails in the past.

There is nothing in that link that would claim special needs. If I remember back a number of hours, it recommends at least 16 ga wire for 5 m length as a minimum, well made. They use Monster wire on the inside. And? Is that a special testable claims other than you can check the inside and make sure it does in fact has the Monster label on it.
Something wrong with using Monster? Maybe that is why the speakers cost $9k?

What other special claims are made?

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Originally Posted by skeptic

Their R&D department would run rings around Monster Cable's on their worst day. .)

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What? Monster has an R&D? I don't believe it.

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Originally Posted by markw

You still persist in acting like Toole has the final say over everything that goes on at Harmon Intl. I would hope that one who professes to be so all knowing would know better than that.

...or are we just grandstanding for the uninformed again?

I wondr how much Noel Lee and company paid for this endorsment?

I'l betcha that the great unwashed are highly impressed by their use of monster cable internally. Just like some speakers put bi wire terminals on speakers that, by their engineers own admission, don't benefit a bit from them, except on a sales chart.

I saw a family buying a $99 shelf stereo that had the words "bi amped.bi wired" on the side. That seems to be the new buzz word to filter down to the barely educated and/or terminally gullible, just like "bi wiring" and "hi end cables" did previously.

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There are direct links to three people on Harman International's home page. Two are Dr. Sidney Harman and Gina Harman. The third is Dr. Floyd Toole.

You act as if he is third in command of the mail room's restrooms.

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Originally Posted by pctower

There are direct links to three people on Harman International's home page. Two are Dr. Sidney Harman and Gina Harman. The third is Dr. Floyd Toole.

You act as if he is third in command of the mail room's restrooms.

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They have a rest room in the mail room? Arfe you sure? Or, is it down the hall? :D

I don't see much in that handbook link that is anything of importance towards wires. They are partial to Monster for most likely reason of $$? Certainly no indication of objective superiority. Or, did I miss that?

Wonder who Gina Harman is, daughter? Wife?

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Originally Posted by pctower

There are direct links to three people on Harman International's home page. Two are Dr. Sidney Harman and Gina Harman. The third is Dr. Floyd Toole.

You act as if he is third in command of the mail room's restrooms.

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From my experience in, not just with, big business, engineering decisions in many cases are outweighed by, and in many cases, driven by the marketing department.

Audio is, after all, a perception driven retail business bowing to the lowest common denominator.

Actually they don't research cables, what they research is the audiophile cable market. And in that regard they have been very successful.

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Originally Posted by markw

From my experience in, not just with, big business, engineering decisions in many cases are outweighed by, and in many cases, driven by the marketing department.

Audio is, after all, a perception driven retail business bowing to the lowest common denominator.

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From my young teen-age experiences along Canal Street in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, someone who allows his name, face, reputation and writing to be prominently displayed for all the world to see on the home page of an international audio conglomerate who fundamentally disagrees with a significant component of that company's marketing strategy is called a "whore".

So which is he Mark? Is he (1) a professional engineer who, for engineering reasons, supports the use of Monster Cable in the JBL speakers and supports the recommendation regarding use of speaker cables, or (2) a whore?

In a sense, anyone who works for someone else is a whore. When the boss has the final say, you either accept it or you leave. That's the conditons of all employment no matter what level you're at or in what business. It would be ludicrous for him to quit over this minor issue. Ultimately every company is in business for only one purpose and that is to make a profit. This little game with the market and the customers doesn't damage the product in any way, just the image of the company and certain people in the eyes of a handful of other people, who basically don't count. You can be sure O'Toole and Sidney Harman are both laughing all the way to the bank. Probably each in their own Limo. Each equipped with a junky Ford JBL sound system. About like mine.

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Originally Posted by skeptic

The downfall of AR was the fact that the techies who took over from Vilcher knew a lot more about building audio equipment than they did about how to run a profitable company. Their business plan was a failure.

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That is a perfectly reasonable explanation. I was referring to your previous comments here:

<a href="http://forums.audioreview.com/showpost.php?p=20811&postcount=60">Why didn't audiophiles embrace...?</a href>

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Originally Posted by skeptic

Anone who wants to buy a high end speaker system from Harman International looks at Revel...or Infinity, not JBL.

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Agreed, yet even Chrysler is now getting infused with higher performance M-B technology. Witness the Crossfire. Why not have a lower end product benefit from lessons learned from more capable divisions?

rw

JBL is targeted at a different market which is NOT a true audiophile market. I think that there has been a lot of dissention and turmoil among the old timers at JBL since Sidney Harman took them over. They have been very resistant to change. They have a heritage of producing speakers for the movie theater industry and were in the vanguard of what was once referred to as "The West Coast Sound." I didn't think that this was a real phenomenon until I read it in Sam's Audio Engineering Handbook but it apparantly was real. Of course, accuracy in live versus recorded terms knows no geographical boundaries. It is fortunate that the revenues from JBL's financial success both in the professional market and in the low to middle price consumer market can be used to finance the research of the likes of Revel. JBL also always liked to have a flagship product which was highly innovative such as the Hartsfield and the Paragon. This latest manifestation is just one more of them which will undoubtedly have a very limited production and appeal. As I recall, there's a fair amount of information about it at the Lansing Heritage Site. Like many companies with such high profile low volume (and maybe zero profit) projects, it's a wonderful reward opportunity for their best engineers to run amok with their wildest ideas, whether they are practical or not. In these cases, it's best for top management to keep a hands off policy and just occasionally peek into what they are doing to let them know they are interested but will not be heavy handed. That is another possible explanation of why O'Toole didn't put a stop to the Monster Cable idea. If Monster Cable did develop something for them, it's my hunch they farmed it out to a Belden or an Alpha, and put their name on it for the prestige of being able to say that they are part of the project. It's good advertising for them as well.

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Originally Posted by skeptic

JBL is targeted at a different market which is NOT a true audiophile market.

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Isn't that what I said in my last statement? Low end <> audiophile

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Originally Posted by skeptic

That is another possible explanation of why O'Toole didn't put a stop to the Monster Cable idea.

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Stop it? I agree with your first speculation - they have the money to go for improvements exclusive of "practical" costing and pricing issues. I'll believe your tale only when I read that is the case.

rw

Unless you are on the inside, it's all pure speculation. Even then, the truth often depends on who you talk to, especially if company politics is involved. That's business.

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Originally Posted by skeptic

Unless you are on the inside, it's all pure speculation. Even then, the truth often depends on who you talk to, especially if company politics is involved. That's business.

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Indeed. That is why I rejected your first post out of hand. There is more than one possible explanation.

rw

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Originally Posted by pctower

From my young teen-age experiences along Canal Street in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, someone who allows his name, face, reputation and writing to be prominently displayed for all the world to see on the home page of an international audio conglomerate who fundamentally disagrees with a significant component of that company's marketing strategy is called a "whore".

So which is he Mark? Is he (1) a professional engineer who, for engineering reasons, supports the use of Monster Cable in the JBL speakers and supports the recommendation regarding use of speaker cables, or (2) a whore?

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He can be neither. He can be an engineer and still be removed from the marketing department. Is it stated in print that he vouched for these cables as making an improvement, or are y'all stretching to try to make a point?

Let's look at your brothers who do divorces. By your own words they are whores. Should now assume that all lawyers are whores?

After reading most--but admittedly not all--of the linked manual, I saw two references to Monster Cable, both on the same text-heavy page in regular type. This is in a 20 page manual! There's no "Monster Inside" logo on the cover or, I assume, on the speaker enclosure as far as I can see. So it seems like the idea of "whoring" is overblown.

In the discussion of cable choice, Monster is used as an example, not a requirement. It's true JBL chose Monster Cable to go inside, but so what? It's a recognizable brand that performs as well as any of its competitors.

Yes, there's marketing going on, but that's a part of selling products.

As for the discussion about Floyd Toole's role in choosing/endorsing/whoring/rejecting/ignoring the use of Monster Cable internally, why would he give a good flying frak about that? As long as the wire meets the design specs, why would he care where it comes from? Isn't his generally known position that it doesn't matter? He might freak out if it were 18ga aluminum, but, otherwise, he's got better things to do than worry about who manufactures it for the production models.

Since I've been a life long JBL user (well, since 1970 anyway), I'll take a positive position on the JBL loudspeaker tradition and its current state. In addition to the West Coast Sound L100s I bought in '70 (still playing today BTW), I've had LX Series, L Series (L5 and L7), SVA Series (1800 and 2100) and currently the Performance Series. These are fine loudspeakers that are far above the normal consumer market (not the L100 or LX Series) and will kick the a$$ of most audiophile speakers of contemporary vintage.

I'm delighted that Revel decided to use the same inverted dome 4" titanium pistonic midrange speakers in its Revel Ultima Salons as are in my Performance Series PT800 and PC600 speakers. I'm delighted that technology and materials from K2 Series speakers and from JBL Synthesis Systems can be migrated to Revel and support its quest for greatness. Revel is a truly remarkable line that I respect a lot; yet, it is not so far removed from the best of JBL in some ways, and not yet its equal in others.

OK guys, load 'em up and let 'em rip.

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Originally Posted by skeptic

Actually they don't research cables, what they research is the audiophile cable market. And in that regard they have been very successful.

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Ah, they have a huge marketing department then :D

Maybe a voodoo department as well?

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Originally Posted by filecat13

After reading most--but admittedly not all--of the linked manual, I saw two references to Monster Cable, both on the same text-heavy page in regular type. This is in a 20 page manual! There's no "Monster Inside" logo on the cover or, I assume, on the speaker enclosure as far as I can see. So it seems like the idea of "whoring" is overblown.

In the discussion of cable choice, Monster is used as an example, not a requirement. It's true JBL chose Monster Cable to go inside, but so what? It's a recognizable brand that performs as well as any of its competitors.

Yes, there's marketing going on, but that's a part of selling products.

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Yes, :)

Looks like they made a preference for that brand of cables. Did they make any testable claims for them? I must have missed that too.

I might have some Monster and Angle cables myself, or it may be no name cable. Matters not.

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Originally Posted by filecat13

Since I've been a life long JBL user (well, since 1970 anyway), I'll take a positive position on the JBL loudspeaker tradition and its current state. In addition to the West Coast Sound L100s I bought in '70 (still playing today BTW), I've had LX Series, L Series (L5 and L7), SVA Series (1800 and 2100) and currently the Performance Series. These are fine loudspeakers that are far above the normal consumer market (not the L100 or LX Series) and will kick the a$$ of most audiophile speakers of contemporary vintage.

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filecat13,

I bought the L7 and L5(for surrounds) and the CL505 center back in 97" (everything at a 1/2 off close out). I bought these based on Stereo Review's (1987?) RAVE review of the JBL100's.

I always though these sounded good, but never did any critical auditioning of other speakers. Until last year when my brother got a small/medium size Monitor Audio S 5i (I believe)spks which MSRP is 1/2 of the L7. Although they have less bass, the MA's sound much better to me. Better vocals, and most noticable they did not sound bright like the L7s. The L7 to me has a lot of sibilance - so much I could no longer stand them (so I bought a pair of Martin Logan ReQuest).

Anyway, my question here is, or rather request is, could you please =) give me a detailed review of what you think of the L7's compared to other brand speaker and especially what you think of them compared to the other JBL models? especially compared to the L100 (or is is L100t?)!

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Originally Posted by okiemax

The owner's manual for Harman International's new JBL K2 S5800 speakers, introduced last year at $18,000 per pair list, not only recommends the use of audiophile cables but points out that these speakers are internally wired with Monster Cable specially designed for JBL. The manual can be found at JBL's web site:

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okiemax:
You're not actually suggesting that the use of a specific brand of wire inside a speaker cabinet is somehow going to effect an improvement to the speaker's performance, are you? I sure hope not.

Regarding what Dr. Floyd Toole does or does not believe about the sonic properties (or lack thereof) of different wires and cables, it matters not even a little tiny bit. As markw pointed out in his replies to this thread, it's very seldom that any engineer - or the entire engineering dept. has much of any "say" in final product design and configuration. During the course of my extensive career in consumer electronics, I've had many discussions about this very topic with many engineers from both audio and video companies. They have all said essentially the exact same thing ... it's the MARKETING DEPT. that "drives the bus". The engineers have to sit in the back of the bus - with just about nada,zip,zilch to say about whereinthehell the bus is headed!

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Originally Posted by okiemax

It was Pat D and Monstrous Mike, not I, who made claims about what Dr.Toole found. If you believe the obligation for proof is on those who make the claims, you should be asking them to email Dr.Toole for an explanation instead of asking me. Whoever does it should post the correspondence on this Forum.

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PCT thinks Dr. Toole never looked into cables, but very credible people who know have said he did. If you do not wish to draw a conclusion from the evidence, you don't have to. Here are a couple of references.

"Audiolab Test: Six Power Amplifiers", Masters, Ian G., Audio Scene Canada, May 1977, pg 44-50.

"Audiolab Test: Amplifiers and Speaker Cables", Masters, Ian G., Audio Scene Canada, Jun 1981, pg 24-27.

Go ask Ian Masters, Alan Lofft, or Dr. Toole himself whether the NRC looked into cables to see if they were relevant to their speaker testing. Why get it second or third hand from us? Get it first hand from people who were involved.

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Originally Posted by pctower

From my young teen-age experiences along Canal Street in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, someone who allows his name, face, reputation and writing to be prominently displayed for all the world to see on the home page of an international audio conglomerate who fundamentally disagrees with a significant component of that company's marketing strategy is called a "whore".

So which is he Mark? Is he (1) a professional engineer who, for engineering reasons, supports the use of Monster Cable in the JBL speakers and supports the recommendation regarding use of speaker cables, or (2) a whore?

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What you propose to accomplish with them in a Cable Forum is an unanswered question. Are you just being vicious?

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Originally Posted by Pat D

What you propose to accomplish with them in a Cable Forum is an unanswered question. Are you just being vicious?

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If I read correctly he was either

1) saying that Mr Toole accepted the fact that cables make an audiable difference

or

2) was trying to drag Mr Toole down to his level.

Further evidence seemed to rule out option 1. ;)

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Originally Posted by woodman

okiemax:
You're not actually suggesting that the use of a specific brand of wire inside a speaker cabinet is somehow going to effect an improvement to the speaker's performance, are you? I sure hope not.

Regarding what Dr. Floyd Toole does or does not believe about the sonic properties (or lack thereof) of different wires and cables, it matters not even a little tiny bit. As markw pointed out in his replies to this thread, it's very seldom that any engineer - or the entire engineering dept. has much of any "say" in final product design and configuration. During the course of my extensive career in consumer electronics, I've had many discussions about this very topic with many engineers from both audio and video companies. They have all said essentially the exact same thing ... it's the MARKETING DEPT. that "drives the bus". The engineers have to sit in the back of the bus - with just about nada,zip,zilch to say about whereinthehell the bus is headed!

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You can rest easy, Woodman. It is the speaker owner's manual, not I, that suggests improvment from internal Monster Cable wiring designed for the speaker. I made no suggestion -- just told what was in the manual. And I have no opinion.

I'm not sure I agree with your "back of the bus" generalization about engineers. Are you suggesting engineers have trouble seeing the big picture?

I think there would be loud protests from the engineering department if the speaker wire actually caused poorer performance. From the look of some of these wires, wiring anything with them would be a step in the wrong direction.

If this is the speaker I've seen recently on the Lansing Heritage website, the one with a super tweeter which "reproduces" sound over 20 Khz, you can see the extent to which JBL has prostituted itself. Some of you may recall an interesting thread appearing here within the last year about the Japanese experiment with just such a tweeter. It was designed to show that even the best intended experiments conducted by the most objective scientists can be flawed. In that experiment as I recall, a professor of electrical engineering intended to demonstrate that reproduction above 20 khz was inaudible. He designed a loudspeaker which performed to well beyond 20 khz and when the signal included components above 20 khz, the students could easily distinguish it from when it didn't. As it turned out, the experiment was fatally flawed because the over 20 khz components were causing distortion within the audible passband. When the experiment was repeated with a separate supertweeter dedicated to the over 20khz spectrum, the expected result was obtained. If JBL is marketing such a speaker, it may be because Sidney Harman is still obsessed with this ultrasonic region. His vacuum tube amplifiers of the 1950s and 1960s routinely had bandwidths to 70Khz and his first solid state venture had a bandwidth of 1 Mhz. He may be rich and successful, but he's also nuts.

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Originally Posted by okiemax

I'm not sure I agree with your "back of the bus" generalization about engineers. Are you suggesting engineers have trouble seeing the big picture?

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There are many factors to consider other than the best engineering design. Among them are cost, reliability, perception of the buyer, speed from R&D to market, affiliations with other companies, national and international laws, etc. I can say with all certainty as a member of the military in an engineering capacity that I have had many recommendations overturned for a variety of reasons from political to practical.

The bottom line of any business is profit. Final decisions are made for business reasons and not engineering reasons. And I certainly don't mean to imply that this is not how it should be. As a young design engineer my point of view was fairly idealistic in that I could not see how the best design with the best performance should not be the one to hit the streets. But in the big picture, this is usually never the best business decision. And as far as engineers seeing the big picture, well that is usually reserved for the more experienced engineers with business administration skills and usually in consultation with people of other skill sets like marketing, manufacturing, distribution, etc.

If you think about, scientists and inventors are usually the least business oriented and thus less likely to be affluent. Engineers are a little better but the real overachievers are the salesman. And unfortunately, sometimes the quality of the product isn't much of a factor in the sales, it's the sales pitch that does it combined with the lack of information and discretion on the part of the consumer.

So if Dr. Toole said in a meeting that regular zip cord was good enough for their JBL speakers and business types calculated that this would lead to a decrease in sales and profit since other speaker manufacturers have captured the market with internal wiring and bi-wiring marketing, then guess what path Harmon would choose to take?

If you think about, what hope does 12 gauge zip cord have in hi-end audio? It's not marketed by anybody. It is simply available at Home Depot. And not only that, it is poo-pooed on most audio boards on the Internet and anybody who supports using it is considered either deaf or having a bookshelf audio system incapable of resolving the performance of high end cabling.

If we did an experiment using wine, I believe we could come up with the same phenomenon. Let's say we filled one hundred bottles with the same wine. Then we put on a different label on each bottle. I can guarantee you that if 50 of those bottles were marketed, priced higher than the other fifty and talked about on the Internet, then in a year, you would see arguements claiming that those fifty brands were "better".

I'm not saying that is what is happening in audio cabling but rather I was speculating on an answer to your original post. If the winemaker said that his company's $100 bottle was no better than some other $5 bottle, would that company and its business managers change it's label and start selling their bottles for $5?

Cables aside, this is one miserable speaker. It's neither fish nor fowl. As a home high fidelity reproducer, it shows the characteristic benefits and limitations of horn speakers. While it is highly efficient, it cannot reproduce not only the lowest octave of bass but the next to the lowest half of an octave as well. With a 6 db down point of 50 hz, it cannot reproduce not only organ pedal notes but the lower registers of pianos, double basses and other low freqeuncy instruments. What are they going to tell you after you've spent $18,000 if this is the kind of music you listen to, buy a subwoofer? For professional use, its price is beyond the pale. For $18,000 you can buy enough horn speakers to fill a sports arena with sound. This is a dumb dumb dumb idea which can only be sold to people who have too much money. This is what happens when you must produce a new flagship product and you've completely run out of ideas. IMO, if you must have a horn speaker, a Klipschorn would be a far better choice and at a much lower price.

Where to start? Where to start?

All right, here's a simple question and some follow ups: How many of this speaker's detractors have audtitioned this speaker? Of those who audtitioned it, how many opened the enclosure, ripped out the debated Monster cable, and replaced it with another brand? With rip cord? With solid copper wire? With silver cable? What were the measurable differences?

Here's a second question. Has anyone seen JBL advertise this speaker? If so, was the inclusion of Monster Cable used as a selling point? Don't confuse the issue by noting that it says Monster on page 14 in the owner's manual, which you'd normally get AFTER puchasing the product. How about here on JBL's own Web site:

http://www.jbl.com/home/products/pro...rId=K2&sCatId=

See any Monsters? Or do you have to go online and deliberately download the manual (before ever hearing or purchasing the speaker), then read the first fourteen pages to find the word Monster? How is that being a whore again?

Let's look at who had engineering control over this speaker. Who was it? People seem to think it was all Floyd Toole. Better check again. Do the names Greg Timbers, Doug Button, and Francher Murray mean anything to you? In fact, Toole's name does not even come up on the engineering team, while Timbers, as chief engineer, even appears in the K2 marketing material, while Monster Cable does not.

http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/...1-k2-s9800.htm

Someone who didn't know better could read this thread and conclude that JBL tried to validate the quality of its product by associating with Monster Cable and that its engineers were patsies to a corproate marketing rip off. This is incorrect and ignorant. If our objective were to research and learn rather than speculate and make sensationalist statments, all this is easy to find out.

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Originally Posted by skeptic

Cables aside, this is one miserable speaker. It's neither fish nor fowl. As a home high fidelity reproducer, it shows the characteristic benefits and limitations of horn speakers. While it is highly efficient, it cannot reproduce not only the lowest octave of bass but the next to the lowest half of an octave as well. With a 6 db down point of 50 hz, it cannot reproduce not only organ pedal notes but the lower registers of pianos, double basses and other low freqeuncy instruments. What are they going to tell you after you've spent $18,000 if this is the kind of music you listen to, buy a subwoofer? For professional use, its price is beyond the pale. For $18,000 you can buy enough horn speakers to fill a sports arena with sound. This is a dumb dumb dumb idea which can only be sold to people who have too much money. This is what happens when you must produce a new flagship product and you've completely run out of ideas. IMO, if you must have a horn speaker, a Klipschorn would be a far better choice and at a much lower price.

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So you have heard it, skeptic? Or is your position, "I don't need to hear it; I can read a graph."

I don't think my local sports stadium has an $18k speaker system. I'd hate to be in it if it did. I know from the press materials that they spent quite a bit more than that, thankfully.

The engineering team for this speaker had a lot of ideas, so to characterize them as "out of ideas" would be incorrect. You may not like the ideas, and you may be correct that the ideas are insufficient to make this a great or even marginally acceptble speaker, but to declare someone bankrupt by ignoring their accomplishments and failing to give anything other than "IMO" to validate your claims is very thin indeed. That's not being skeptical, that's being illogical.

What makes this speaker better than the Paragon or the Hartsfield for that matter. I've been a JBL fan for over 40 years. This is NOT one of their proudest moments. They still haven't addressed the problem of integrating the speaker into the room acoustics.

BTW, nobody uses a single $18,000 speaker for a sports arena. They use them in arrays. As I said in another thread, controlled dispersion is a hallmark of modern horn speakers and one of the reasons why they are the system of choice for PA and sound reinforcement in large public spaces. It gives them the advantage of uniform coverage over a wide area and maximum gain before feedback. High efficiency and high maximum sound pressure levels before distortion are two others. But they do not adapt well for use as home high fidelity speakers especially where two are needed for stereo. They are large, very heavy, of limited and often irregular frequency response, do not have the best high frequency dispersion (this seems to be different because of the tweeter design) and do not produce adequate bass unless they are folded and still enormous as in Paragon which reaches down to 26 hz at -3db beating the pants off this one at -6db at 50 hz. As I said elsewhere, my favorite is Paragon and one day I hope to build one. BTW, what does this design say about capacitors, that they don't behave linearly at small signal levels unless they have a dc bias? What does that tell you about EVERY OTHER speaker crossover network including their own if they are right? Baloney. If this is the flagship their current crop of engineers produce, then sadly their best days are behind them.

So you've heard it then?

After a little reflection, it has occurred to me that there is no point in listening to them. By the manufacturer's own admission, they cannot reproduce one and a half to two octaves of the ten audible octaves humans can hear. This includes all of the deep bass that defines rhythm, one of the critical elements in most music and an aspect indespensible for my enjoyment of it. Therefore they cannot be considered "high fidelity." This would be unacceptable at $1,800. At $18,000 is is outrageous. Of course I feel exactly the same way about other expensive loudspeakers which cannot reproduce an orchestral crecendo because their maximum loudness is grossly inadequate and expensive peewee amplifiers which cant provide sufficient power to drive 95 percent or more of the loudspeakers on the market to acceptable loudness levels. Whatever their attributes, their limitations make them fatally flawed for attracting my dollars or attention.

"How many of this speaker's detractors have audtitioned this speaker? Of those who audtitioned it, how many opened the enclosure, ripped out the debated Monster cable, and replaced it with another brand? With rip cord? With solid copper wire? With silver cable? What were the measurable differences?"

They don't let you "rip out" the internal wiring of a loudspeaker and replace it for an $18 a pair of speakers let alone an $18,000 pair unless you buy it first and then it belongs to you so you can do whatever you want with it.

"Someone who didn't know better could read this thread and conclude that JBL tried to validate the quality of its product by associating with Monster Cable and that its engineers were patsies to a corproate marketing rip off. This is incorrect and ignorant."

Actually it's not. They would never admit to having been paid off by Monster to play this little harmless stunt advancing Monster's prestige while trying to trick gullible customers into drawing wrong conclusions about their speakers. In a letter to the editor of Sound and Video Contractor magazine about 20 years ago, one industry insider wrote pointing out that when the cable guys come around to the speaker manufacturers, they don't make the slightest pretense about better quality of their wire because they know they'd get booted out the door before the last sylable was out of their mouths. What they tell the speaker manufacturer is that their customers expect and like to see it as internal wiring because that's what they get suckered into buying for their own home audio systems. In a perverse sense, there is some logic to this.

Funny how so many of the best and most expensive speakers of the past never used any special audiophile cable for internal wiring. Like for example, Infinity IRS or RGA's favorite Klipschorn. How about your Vandersteens PC, any special brand of wiring in them? And no batteries for charging up the crossover network capacitors either? Is that a new trend in audio lunacy?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by skeptic

"How many of this speaker's detractors have audtitioned this speaker? Of those who audtitioned it, how many opened the enclosure, ripped out the debated Monster cable, and replaced it with another brand? With rip cord? With solid copper wire? With silver cable? What were the measurable differences?"

They don't let you "rip out" the internal wiring of a loudspeaker and replace it for an $18 a pair of speakers let alone an $18,000 pair unless you buy it first and then it belongs to you so you can do whatever you want with it.

"Someone who didn't know better could read this thread and conclude that JBL tried to validate the quality of its product by associating with Monster Cable and that its engineers were patsies to a corproate marketing rip off. This is incorrect and ignorant."

Actually it's not. They would never admit to having been paid off by Monster to play this little harmless stunt advancing Monster's prestige while trying to trick gullible customers into drawing wrong conclusions about their speakers. In a letter to the editor of Sound and Video Contractor magazine about 20 years ago, one industry insider wrote pointing out that when the cable guys come around to the speaker manufacturers, they don't make the slightest pretense about better quality of their wire because they know they'd get booted out the door before the last sylable was out of their mouths. What they tell the speaker manufacturer is that their customers expect and like to see it as internal wiring because that's what they get suckered into buying for their own home audio systems. In a perverse sense, there is some logic to this.

Funny how so many of the best and most expensive speakers of the past never used any special audiophile cable for internal wiring. Like for example, Infinity IRS or RGA's favorite Klipschorn. How about your Vandersteens PC, any special brand of wiring in them? And no batteries for charging up the crossover network capacitors either? Is that a new trend in audio lunacy?

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Afraid there is: high purity silver. And he uses batteries in the high-pass filter between pre-amp and amp. Worst of all, he claims he builds the internal cross-over to be bi-wired and strongly recommends bi-wire.

He says that bi-wiring with modest speaker cables is usually more productive than more expensive single cables. I'm afraid he's a yeasayer when it comes to cables. Perhaps just as bad, he personally prefers tube gear and spends a lot of time tweaking his own personal amps with special parts. He's a former truck-driver, so what do you expect?

Amazing, though, how over the years he has developed a strong reputation for usually providing the best bang for the buck in loudspeakers at all price ranges up to $15,000. He believes anyone building a speaker system for more than $15,000 is either over-charging or under-engineering.

For what it's worth - I didn't have a clue as to what kind of wire he used in his speakers before I bought any of the 4 different pair I've owned, including my current Model Fives.