What is your hifi system worth ? (retail price, and NOT what you paid for)

[Feanor]

I have that shirt.



JBLunacy might be closer.

For those who doubt, take a gander at my user gallery.

I suspect an ulterior motive for so much of one thing. Personally, with some many systems, not to mention so much financial investment, I'd want a much more variety.

[Ajani]

Personally, with some many systems, not to mention so much financial investment, I'd want a much more variety.

Me too (but as long as filecat is happy, then so be it)... but with that amount of money and that many setups, I'd have a solid state beast in one room (at least 500 watts), 5 watt Tubes with horns in another... and even though my only experience with Maggies (MG12) was terrible, I'd have a maggie setup just for the fun of trying to see what music etc... would get it to really sing in another room.. and of course my favourite gear in a seperate room entirely.. each system would have entirely different brands from the other.

[filecat13]

I suspect an ulterior motive for so much of one thing.

Not sure what this means. Care to explain?

Personally, with some many systems, not to mention so much financial investment, I'd want a much more variety.

I suspect you mean "brand variety" since there's incredible variety here. This represents more than four decades of product lines from one of the world's oldest, most diverse, and most successful audio brands.

There are two-ways, three-ways, and four ways in the mix. There are paper tweeters, silk tweeters, Aluminum tweeters, Titanium tweeters, and Beryllium tweeters; waveguides, constant directivity horns, defined directivity horns, and bi-radial horns. Speaker cones range from pulp, PolyPlas®, Aquaplas®ed paper, Aluminum, Titanium, carbon-filled polypropylene, mineral impregnated cloth, and more; from 15", 14", 12", 10", 8", 6.5", 6", 5", 4" to 3"; from AlNiCo to Ferrite to Neodymium to ceramic magnets; regular "box" four-sided cabinets, irregular four-sided cabinets, three-sided curvilinear cabinets, five-sided cabinets, and eight-sided cabinets...

...well, you get the idea. As I suspect is true with most other brands that have a lineage and breadth of products like JBL, there are many different sonic signatures, dispersion characteristics, efficiencies, styles, and capabilities.

As a fresh-out-of-high school kid working for the Penn Central Transportation Company (railroad) in Ohio in 1969-70, when I could afford to buy a pair of brand new JBL L100 Century speakers I started on an amazing JBL journey that, as I wrote earlier, really took off after gaining my freedom in 2000.

[Feanor]

Not sure what this means. Care to explain?
...

I suspect you mean "brand variety" since there's incredible variety here. This represents more than four decades of product lines from one of the world's oldest, most diverse, and most successful audio brands.
...

...well, you get the idea. As I suspect is true with most other brands that have a lineage and breadth of products like JBL, there are many different sonic signatures, dispersion characteristics, efficiencies, styles, and capabilities.

As a fresh-out-of-high school kid working for the Penn Central Transportation Company (railroad) in Ohio in 1969-70, when I could afford to buy a pair of brand new JBL L100 Century speakers I started on an amazing JBL journey that, as I wrote earlier, really took off after gaining my freedom in 2000.

Well, no offense intended. I just wondered if you worked for JBL for example -- nothing wrong if you did, of course.

Despite the JBL diversity, (or some might say, lack of coherent design philosophy), my inclination would be to explore many manufactures rather than just one. But that's just me.

My own experience with JBL is limited. Back circa 1971 I heard and fell in love with a pair of Lancer 77s. They were C$700 as I recall and I didn't have that cash just then. I resolved to save up to by the 77s but before got the cash, I got a chance to A/B them with AR3a's. The latter were so much more natural and resolved that I never considered JBL again.

[filecat13]

Well, no offense intended. I just wondered if you worked for JBL for example -- nothing wrong if you did, of course.

None taken. I've been in nonprofit work most of my life. Since I moved to CA from MI, I do know a couple of guys who work there. I once bought a pair of prototype JBLs from a former engineer who listed them on craigslist.org here in Los Angeles. I won a contest a few years back that go me a nice 5.1 Performance Series set, but it wasn't sponsored by JBL. I guess that's as close as I ever got to being on the dole from JBL. I liked the Performance Series so much I bought a 7.1 set for the Two Jims Theartre.

Despite the JBL diversity, (or some might say, lack of coherent design philosophy), my inclination would be to explore many manufactures rather than just one. But that's just me.

I would simply say that JBL has several coherent design goals according to market segment. Most people only see one small sliver of the company's products. I've been lucky (obsessed?) enough to see several of its market segment products and their evolution over the years.

My own experience with JBL is limited. Back circa 1971 I heard and fell in love with a pair of Lancer 77s. They were C$700 as I recall and I didn't have that cash just then. I resolved to save up to by the 77s but before got the cash, I got a chance to A/B them with AR3a's. The latter were so much more natural and resolved that I never considered JBL again.

IMO you made the correct decision. There are no Lancers in my collection. The ARs are probably better than the L100s I bought back then and still use. However, the JBLs were way cooler looking and could definitely rock the house (or dorm as it were). We were listening to Deep Purple, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Grand Funk Railroad, so the L100s were perfect.

[OzzieAudiophile]

Hi peeps.

Today I finally finished the unpacking and setup of my LCD tv.

Several things I've learnt from now being able to watch on a 40 inch screen as opposed to
a 19 inch crt tv :P

1. Sooo much better to connect my PC directly to it, I no longer need my PC desk, so I
will gain much more free space in my lounge room.

2. Well I already knew this fact, but I have no other components which have a HDMI out.
I.e. There's no possibility of viewing anything beyond 576p I will need to get an DVD
upscaler.

3. My DVD playback image is much better than my cable tv and dvr. Best I could connect
from lcd tv to my dvr is component cable. It is capable of up to 1080p, however I have no
signal from anywhere beyond 576 anyway My lcd is capable of telling me precisely
what signal I'm picking up, which is 576 max (so far).

4. I have no digital set top box, I may consider getting one to enchance the signal. I know
for a fact that my tv antenna is way dodgy, even on my old crt tv, I receievd a snowy
grainy signal at the very best. Changing/upgrading the cable type made little improvement.

5. Can't wait to play Rome Total War on my pc, which I'm going to do now lol.

6. With the space I have gained by rearranging my furniture, the quality, imaging of sound
through the speakers has vastly improved. Really does make a difference when you give
good speakers plenty of room to breathe, and really minimising obstructions

7. Next step will need to borrow a blu-ray player to test the signal/performace on this lcd
screen. Will also need to borrow an upscaler dvd/universal disc player. The Cambridge
Audio one sounds like a good option.

EG

[SlumpBuster]

Wow! Filecat's got an impressive list there. It's looks like the audio equipment version of my pornography collection.

I think I only got about $10,000 worth of stuff not counting TV and furniture. But I don't even know how much alot of my stuff cost or what it translates to. For example, I have a quad receiver that I paid $0 for, but retailed at $700 in 1973. I ran it through an inflation calculator, but I don't think $124,000 was right.