This the best speaker BestBuy have in inventory.

[spacedeckman]

I can't speak about the speakers released only for the European market which I haven't been exposed to, but when the engineers ran things at JBL the product was completely different. I've had the chance to play with some of the Euro stuff, and it was interesting. Had high hopes for the Ti2000, over-engineered to be sure, but I like things that way. Unfortunately, they just didn't sound all that good. Had to like the way they were built though.

The last round-up that I was really happy with was the L1/3/5/7 product that was discontinued in the late 90s. The sound was a bit more upscale than the original L-Series. JBL's "Signature Sound" is essentially a midbass rise of 3-8dB depending on product, and a treble rise starting around 5k. The midbass hump is centered around 80Hz for a floorstander and 100Hz for a bookshelf. The little L1s were tuned about an octave below that. They tended to "come onto the port" fairly hard at around 50Hz, maybe a bit lower. However, in function it worked pretty well, albeit slightly aggressive. I owned a pair for a long time, replacing them with a pair of XPL-90s which had a better tweeter, enclosure, and were tuned flatter. Then again, at $1400/pr they were over twice the money of the L1. I was happy as a pig in slop until a friend loaned me a pair of Castle Isis. Then it was all over. I never did buy a pair, although I know where some Cliftons are that I can get for cheap. They didn't have the bottom end of the JBLs, but at every other frequency, they made them sound broken. That started a quest that still continues today.

Don't get me wrong, I want JBL to do well. I know what they are capable of, and for $800, these E90s aren't "it". It's a nice looking speaker, it's a quantum leap beyond its predecessor, but even if it were $600/pr, I would still not be able to recommend it. If the Athena were $800 and the JBL $600, I would be telling you to shovel snow to earn the extra money. It isn't really competitive with what's out there today, which bothers me more than it bothers you...it really does.

I'm not trying to convince you, Smokey that you shouldn't buy them. If they trip your trigger, get 2 pair, they are half the size of the speakers they replace. I just have to step in when you say it is the best in the store. I'm in Best Buy frequently to get something (although I don't buy much of significance from them, last major purchase was hifi VCR in 1989 from them) and just have to check to see what's back there. I won't even take it personally when you say that both the Athenas and the Klipsch were "good". The Klipsch are awful, nasty little things, although the big SF3 is a lot less nasty than the rest of the line, it still isn't a player in the $800 price category either. If you like midrange, you will hate the Klipsch at BB. You see, one comment made me doubt you, but I know it was done to be polite. When BB got the Athenas in, it didn't surprise me that they were heads and tails better than the Klipsch. What surprised me was how good the Yamahas were. The tweeters are a bit hot, but that could pretty easily be fixed by using some felt, or even just turning down the treble control a bit works very well. Once that is overcome, the midrange is pretty close to spot-on, there is no boomy midbass bulge, and there isn't anything in the store that goes deeper and tighter. I was delighted to see that JBL decided to forego the 70's retro designs for a more modern approach, but I think they need a bit more work using smaller drivers and optimizing crossovers for those applications. Experience pays. Already, the current line could be "mark II"ed for little cost and drastically improve their performance. The crossovers are probably the major culprits, but some driver re-engineering is probably called for too. Something like Infinity did with their Reference stuff about 8 or 9 years ago...after some famous guy kind of botched the driver design. No names will be mentioned here.

Merry Christmas everyone.