New Speakers: expensive and not like the old ones

[Woochifer]

Am I missing something? If he likes the sound of JBL's, why not listen to a pair of JBL E80's or E100's to see if he likes those? Are they that much different than the old series?

Even the JBLs no longer sound like JBLs. While they retained a bit of the thump in the midbass, the current Northridge series is noticeably different from the vintage big woofer JBLs.

The other dominate flavor at the time were the AR / Advent designs that I still find quite natural sounding today (if not a pinch boxy with cabinet diffraction issues). I have a double pair of New Advents in my vintage system that do not share the mid bass / upper midrange peaks of the Century.

I am amazed at how good these vintage speakers sound today (albeit refoamed and with recapped and rewired xovers) when fed with nice upstream components.

Yup, the three major groupings of that era were the West Coast, New England, and British speakers, each with their own distinct tonal properties and adherents. My understanding is that the JBL L100 was the best selling speaker during the early to mid-70s, and those generally awful L100 knockoffs were everywhere (including almost every rack system I saw). I liked the acoustic suspension ARs and Advents, but thought that the New England sound came together more when Polk and Boston Acoustics emerged in the late-70s.

Around 1971-72 I heard a pair of JBL bookshelf speakers and quickly fell in love with them. I seem to recall they were the Lancer 77's. I liked the bright, aggressive sound. I didn't get them right away because they were, the princely sum of $700, (compare $3000-3500 today).

However a few weeks later I had the opportunity to compare them directly with the AR 3a's. It was pretty clear that it was the 3a's that hand the more resolved and natural sound. (The AR's were cheaper too, <$600).

I grew up with a pair of the JBL L65 Jubals. My first listenings with my friend's Advents were pretty revealing in how those L65s colored the sound. But, the widespread use of JBLs in studios for pop recordings meant that a lot of music in that era sounded "right" when played through JBLs (the flipside is that a lot of other music sounded really bad).

As the 80s moved forward, less and less music sounded optimal on those JBLs, and I think the introduction of the CD and digital recording exposed a lot of the weaknesses with the vintage JBL sound. With vinyl and compressed multitracked analog recordings, JBL could get away with a hot high end (since vinyl will more gently roll off the highs) and boosted bass (since vinyl generally did not include a lot of deep bass). Once the CD came along, and recordings raised the dynamic range, the JBL sound made more and more music sound overly bassy and harsh in the highs.

The one thing I will say about JBL though is that the vintage models were very well constructed, and used a lot of overengineered and innovative driver designs. Just on those L65s, the tweeter is made from a plexiglas prism, while the woofer uses alnico magnets, and the cabinet is made out of solid walnut (not the best for dampening resonances, but damn does it look good!).

[Feanor]

...

The one thing I will say about JBL though is that the vintage models were very well constructed, and used a lot of overengineered and innovative driver designs. Just on those L65s, the tweeter is made from a plexiglas prism, while the woofer uses alnico magnets, and the cabinet is made out of solid walnut (not the best for dampening resonances, but damn does it look good!).

It's my recollection too that the quality of the JBL components and finished speakers was outstanding. They were very handsome to look at.

http://www.lansingheritage.org/image...ome/page13.jpg

The Lancer 77 used an LE20 "direct radiator", an LE10A woofer, and PR10 passive radiator if I'm not mistaken ...

http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/.../1976-comp.htm