JBL mini-comparo

[Fred Sanford]

Well, due to the fun we had at the last shindig here:

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=22268

...we went at it again. This time our focus was on 10" 3-ways, and 6.5" 2-ways, with a few Dahlquists thrown in for fun. More info soon, but here's a quick look at some of the candidates:

[hjames]

yet another listening party at Fred Sanford's house! It was short notice and a small crowd - plus - a VERY rainy weekend, which meant Opimax didn't bring the Big Guns - the 250tis ... but he brought the 18ti speakers and various Dahlquist which I don't seem to have pictures of (!!) ...
I brought a spare Adcom 4way amp - BMWCCA brought new in box L1s, L20T and enthusiasm. John gave us the space to explore!


Anyway - we set up 2 Adcom 2535 power amps - each of which has 4ch x 60w each - so, we could compare 4 pairs at a time ... John feed each channel a pink noise source - tied it to a speaker, and adjust the gain to a preset point as read on the SPL meter. So, the basic tests were done 4 pairs at a time, all calibrated to the same sound level.

The first pass ran through the 6 1/2 woofers ... 18Ti vs 4401 vs L20T vs L20T3 (in custom cherry veneer) and after eliminating the L20T, we subbed in the L1s that Phil brought along ... Interesting comparison, front port vs rear port.
They'd seem to be very similar speakers, yet such differences in sound!

Next up were comparing L96, L110, L50 and Lx600 - we agreed they sounded much different upstairs on the rug & floor than they had last time downstairs on the concrete floor in the cellar.

At one point we swapped out the Lx600 for opimax's Dahlquist - sealed box 2way ... but very impressive sound.

Big fun was had by all - and everyone was a critic!

[Audiobeer]

Sounds like a good time. What ws your personal favorite?

[hjames]

Sounds like a good time. What was your personal favorite?

Well, they are a lot different than what I own, but except for the stupid high price of 18Ti (due to the 044ti tweeters), I'd say the L1s were hands down the winners of the small box comparison. I hate the black ash look, but eyes shut, they sounded the best in that room. And I have 2 pairs of L20T3 and a pair of L20T (as surrounds) so I'm real familiar with them.
Just sounded like the L1s went a lot lower than any of the others. Amazing.

For the larger boxes - of what we heard, I liked the L96s in that room ...

Understand that adding a sub to the small box test would change the favorites. And put the 10 inch systems on a pedestal/plinth/stand would probably change the winners there as well.

[JBLAddict]

Well, they are a lot different than what I own, but except for the stupid high price of 18Ti (due to the 044ti tweeters), I'd say the L1s were hands down the winners of the small box comparison. I hate the black ash look, but eyes shut, they sounded the best in that room. And I have 2 pairs of L20T3 and a pair of L20T (as surrounds) so I'm real familiar with them.
Just sounded like the L1s went a lot lower than any of the others. Amazing.

For the larger boxes - of what we heard, I liked the L96s in that room ...

Understand that adding a sub to the small box test would change the favorites. And put the 10 inch systems on a pedestal/plinth/stand would probably change the winners there as well.

I think word has gotten out on the L1, as prices on ebay have really gone up lately

[BMWCCA]

The L1s surprised in consistently sounding like much larger speakers than the other small boxes. That being said, all the front-ported small speakers suffered in the comparison presumably due to the placement in the room. If you used any or all of these on an actual bookshelf or up against a wall, I assume the results would have been quite different.

In fact, I first auditioned the L1s in the system in my daughters room from which the L20Ts used in the comparo were taken. I found the L20T up against the wall sounded as good as the L1s which were a bit away from the wall during that audition. There was little difference between the two at the time so I put the L1s back in their box where they've pretty much stayed until today. That system drove both 2-ways with a Crown PS-200 and both sounded quite nice in the small room. Today the L1 definitely out-shined the L20T. Different day, different room.

The L96 has been a great performer in my other "testing" system where it is frequently compared to and lives next to L5, L7, L80T, modded L80T, LX22, and Infinity RS4001. I always sit them up high, off the ground, and with the 044s at ear-level. They never go the deepest but nothing ever sounds bad on them. Depending on the room they like to be off the floor and sometimes like being part-way in corners. They didn't disappoint today though it was the little two-way guys, in my estimation, that stole the show. Even Opimax's acoustic-suspension two-way Dalquists sounded great, though they did have a one-and-a-half-inch woofer-diameter advantage over every small JBL.

Surprising revelations to me were that the 044ti tweets didn't stand out as superior to every 035Ti variant, and just how good the L1s really were. :applaud:

And for Seawolf: Yeah the black ash L1s looked ugly right out of the box next to all that pretty wood! So just close your eyes! ;)

Thanks JE (and Jean and the dogs) for putting up with us, again. :cheers:

[4313B]

It sounds like you guys had a fun time. :thmbsup:

[opimax]

I was surprised that the music itself made so much different in which speaker I chose that sounded the best to me.

I found about a 3 inch gap where the glue wasn't holding in the woofer surround to the cone of 1 of the tall(dq-16) visiting speakers. could it have lost some bass there? I bet that speaker hasn't been used for years and now i am beating the crap out of it...:applaud:

As always I really enjoy these get togethers. I think all the the work John (fred sanford ) did in prepping with his board set up and all helped making snap judgements on speaker choices so easy. :thmbsup: thx again John!

I still thought the 18 was the best sounding of the amlost same speakers (115 woofer) but the l-1 was the best there.

On the 10s, they were on the floor and honestly didn't sound as good as they should of. I will probably be as amazed the difference the height of each speaker will cause as much difference in sound as the music choice and hope to explore that in one of our get toghethers some tim. Maybe 1 set of speakers and room experiments for all the changes; bass traps, placement, other room treatments, wires , amps inteconnects, etc.

My house would be perfect for this one.

Maybe think Tom Sayer and painting the fence, lol

Mark

[hjames]

Yes, yes, Kudos to Fred for all his hard work prepping for this and covering all the details -
from being at the IHOP at o-dark early to pick me up when Emma dropped me and the Adcom 2435 off
(to head to her sermon engagement at the HUU church in town), to all the coffee, nibbles, and guru meditations
(he even carried that massive switching board upstairs by himself!) and he prepared a ton of music for us ...

Even having a pair of warm doggies to keep our feet toasty!

Great fun, great fun!

Woofer admiring the woofers ...

[JuniorJBL]

Looks like you guys and gals are sure havin some fun out there!:)

[brutal]

Looks like you guys and gals are sure havin some fun out there!:)

When are we gonna have the Denver hookup?

I wanna hear those CC 250Ti's you're working on.


:D

[JuniorJBL]

When are we gonna have the Denver hookup?

I wanna hear those CC 250Ti's you're working on.


:D

Yeah we should!

There are a few of us in these here parts!:applaud:

[Fred Sanford]

Mark- when you get a chance, give us a run-down on the Dahlquist model #s, they were all very impressive. I especially liked the 8" 2-way sealed-box. Thanks for bringing them by!

je, making short work of a "two-bite" cupcake.

[opimax]

The 8" DQM-3 was the model number of the 8"driver unit. The woofers were refoamed by an unnamed Duanage . Had trouble with the surrounds, 1st set from Looney toons won't fit(no hassle return) , purchased another set made for them and he still had to trim and make fit. Sounded nice to me .I have 3 of them currently. I believe them M was for monitor, near field but 100% sure.

The other set we heard was DQ 16. they were stock minus the woofer surround separation I found in the car on the way home. These didn't have much bass at your house or mine but I though more at mine (there is a shocker!) but when connected where the 250 sit the blended very well with the subs, very smooth transition I thought. They use the same Vifa tweeter the dq 28s (tall 3 way)use which I have along with the smaller units dq-6c with RadioShack woofers we didn't play. I would think a few other DQs use the same tweeter. I do have a working set of DQ10s and also just bought a pretty bad cheap set of 10s for parts and play.

How is the poor sick dog doing?

Mark

[Fred Sanford]

How is the poor sick dog doing?

Mark

The pukin' pooch seems OK today, thanks for asking. Not sure what that was all about, maybe just the shock of seeing something other than JBL & Canton in the house...

je

[BMWCCA]

...maybe just the shock of seeing something other than JBL & Canton in the house...

That's got to be it! :thmbsup:

[hjames]

The pukin' pooch seems OK today, thanks for asking. Not sure what that was all about, maybe just the shock of seeing something other than JBL & Canton in the house...

je

That's a good thing ... poor thing was not happy yesterday, that's for sure!

[BMWCCA]

That's a good thing ... poor thing was not happy yesterday, that's for sure!
She seemed very happy and loved the attention...until Opimax got there! ;)

That's why JE's theory of Dalquist allergy seems to hold water.

[opimax]

I thought the speakers sounded nice, it is me she didn't like :blink:

Mark

[audiomagnate]

And I thought I was crazy! That is a gorgeous collection.

[Fred Sanford]

And I thought I was crazy! That is a gorgeous collection.

Thanks...that pile was probably a representative 10% or so from each of our collections, I know there were ~20 more JBLs in my collection that weren't represented in this shootout, and we're all just as loony. This gathering pretty much stuck to the theme of only 10" 3-ways and 6.5" 2-ways, although folks left a bunch of theirs home because of redundancies...the 4 of us own more than our fair share of L20T & L20T3 variants.

je