Anatomy Of A Northridge

[boputnam]

..

Clever!
Just as useful as the rest of this thread...

[Titanium Dome]

And?

I put these into service in my workshop/garage where the bulk of my collection is. I didn't compare them to any horn-based systems because I'm not interested in that comparison. I listened to them against my four-way systems, and the expected slaughter took place, particularly in the low end. My real objective was to compare them to some legacy two-way and three-way systems to see what was up.

I'll divide this into two parts so you can skip one (or both) if it covers something you're not interested in.

[Audiobeer]

[quote=mech986]Hi TD,

I think the engineers at JBL Consumer and Pro have a heck of a job to do when trying to create great products which must meet a specific marketplace niche and price point. Sometimes they do well, sometimes it doesn't work out. But they learn and evolve with ever changing marketplace.

For all you other folks out there looking in, imagine, if you will, doing this exercise every 5 years through the JBL consumer catalog. Pick a TOTL "statement" speaker, a mid-pricerange speaker, and an entry level model. Now photograph them, dissect them, and place some quality judgement on how they were built and what went into them. I think, with a few exceptions, we would have been deriding the entry level models as being poor substitutes for the big boys. Yet these particular speakers had to sound and look good to attract the young, not so well healed buyers who had no prior experience with JBL products.

I absolutely agree that sometime in the late 80's to early 90's production quality shifted as JBL products sometimes used Harmon affiliated drivers or specific offshore made components. That's just part of the globalized manufacturing for a large diversified and somewhat multinational company. It does mean that JBL can use all of Harmon's resources to engineer, manufacture, and bring to market cost effective products which enable JBL to survive and prosper. That's a whole lot better than the alternative outcomes that have plagued so many other audio names and manufacturers.



I disagree strongly. There's a market for this stuff, no argument. But let's face it, a lot of of this stuff is crap. I put the entry level stuff JBL sells at the same level I put the Dell Computers. It's inferior construction material, out sourced to unfair labor, then shipped in boat loads to good old USA. Sure JBL gets to survive but at the expense of who.......there's not many people in the JBL shack making this stuff, thier jobs are gone. I have no complaints against the writer of this thread or the composer of the response that I used to make my whining comments.......but the bottom line is this shit is in a trash can 20 years from now. No ones collecting this stuff. Dollar for Dollar against Klipsch (Reinvented also) Altec (Great computor speakers) Pioneer, Marantz, oh yeah all the great big boys......JBL does quite well. They have put a little bit of fluff on thier new lines of crap. Keep in mind I'm not berating the quality of the higher end stuff. But what I am criticizing is the tip of the hat to globalization of good American products??? WTF is that? Bought a Dell lately......CRAP! Try calling JBL for service.

[boputnam]

I don't have any Bose in my collection...

Good for you.

Look - it's obviously silly of me to dissuade this level of "investigation". I tried to get us back to "LANSING HERITAGE" stuff two-months ago, right here, but you re-lighting this det cord after two quiet months shows this clearly is of value to you and some others.

I'm out.

()

[Titanium Dome]

I've got three four-way systems set up for listening right now: L250, XPL200, and L7.

They're driven by a Hafler SX2600 (600W/ch) that is fed by a Fosgate Audionics FAP-T1 and the killer Panasonic DVD XP50.

With a Niles IPC-6 and ProCo switcher, it's easy for me to run these off the same system, and adding the E50 to it was a breeze. The ProCo allows me to instantaneously switch from speaker to speaker, and the ability to control the volume to each unit is icing on the cake. After reasonable efforts to calibrate them all to the same levels, the slaughter began.

Bass: by comparison, the E50 is dead in the water.
Midbass: the E50's midbass is solid, but still inferior since it's trying to work the lower registers, too
Midrange: sounds pretty good, practially as good as the LE5-11, almost as good as the 704G, not faring well against the 095Ti.
Highs: better than the 044-1, not as good as the 046Ti and 035Ti

Comment: Obviously the larger four-ways were going to be much better at the bottom end. The E50 couldn't match the midbass either, but the overall bass balance was pretty good and it was managed well by the enclosure's ported tuning.

The midrange played better than it looked, though to be fair the LE5-11 is long in the tooth and probably is underperforming compared to the newer driver. If you like the 095Ti midrange (I love it) then the E50's cheap driver is not able to compete. If you don't like Ti midranges, you might prefer the E50's $25 driver.

The thing that makes these comparisons to older four-ways worth doing is the tweeter. It clearly outperformed the 044-1. This was no contest, really. The 044-1 is aging, but even at its peak it was only good, not great. The larger 1" Ti tweeters had an advantage over the 3/4" Ti, but the difference was not as pronounced as I expected. Perhaps it's the effect of the EOS Waveguide, but the E50's highs were smoother and dispersed better. Even in the raw power department, that 3/4" driver could play very loud, though it got slightly shrill at very loud levels. The 1" drivers could go louder with no shrillness (to my ears), but they could not match the dispersion of the E50.

[Titanium Dome]

Also in my bunker I've got some two-way and three-way speakers set up: original L100 Century speakers (in-line model), XPL160, L3, L60T, and LX300. (Uh-oh. L100s. Thank goodness Bo dropped out...)

These can be run off any number of systems, but in this case some of the ubiquitous Soundcraftsmen gear was called forth. I had two Pro Power Three amps bridged through the Pro Power Four Preamp, the T6200 tuner and the same Panasonic DVD XP50.

Bass/Midbass: The $30 E50 8" driver had a chance to perform against more appropriate competition, beating the 6" 406G in the LX300, beating the 8" 116H-1, pretty much equalling the 708G, better in some ways/worse in most others than the 10" 127H-1, and not able to touch the low end of the 123A-1.
Midrange: The two-ways that extract their mids from the woofers, were at a disadvantage, yet, the two-ways tended to do midrange better than bass. Still, only the 095Ti handily beat the E50's midrange. The old LE5-2 was more powerful, but that's not necessarily a virtue, and it's an old driver that doesn't measure as well as it did thirty plus years ago.
Highs: All had Ti tweeters except the L100, which fared the worst. Each of the other tweeters in turn had the inherent characteristics of their design, and the E50s EOS Waveguide gave it an edge over all but the 046Ti and 035 TiA.

Comment: The L100 is a dated design and a heritage product, though not one of the best. It does demonstrate that a quality cabinet and quality drivers can still be less than the sum of its parts. It had the edge in bass over the E50. it had a stronger but not better midrange sound, and the highs were inadequate by comparison. It is still one of my favorite speakers, but I am neither blind nor deaf to its challenges.

The XPL160 has the mids and highs I love, but the integration of the whole again leads to a speaker that is less than the sum of its parts. As a package, the E50 is better integrated and sounds more complete, notwithstanding that the XPL160 has killer midrange and deeper bass. It's obviously a better speaker in virtually every way, except in extended listening.

The L3 is a very nice two-way, and it holds up well. It would have been better as a three-way IMO, but it is what it is, and the advances in the E50 give it the edge, despite its less expensive nature.


The L60T looks good, sounds okay. I really can't listen to it very long without a sub. When played without a sub and compared to an E50, it just sounds flat and narrow. The E50 beat it in every way, unless one needs the nicer cabinetry of the L60T.

The lowly LX300 is more speaker than most would give credit to. It's actually similar to the E50 in its cabinetry, construction, and design (though rear ported), but it's older and it's a two-way. The 027Ti tweeter is delightful in this package, but there's no EOS Waveguide, and the 406G-2 does its job very well, but it can't match the output of both the 8" and 4" drivers in the E50. It certainly doesn't get the bass out. I paid much more for the pair of LX300s ($200 in '94) than the E50s. By comparison, the E50s were a steal, and they're much better speakers to boot.

Yes, there are a number of three-ways that are better than E50s. I didn't have my 240Tis set up, for example. However, this was an opportunity to see a newer, entry level consumer JBL product compared to some other consumer level products of the past. (Perhaps the XPL160 is out of its class here; it's not purely entry level consumer.)

[boputnam]

(Uh-oh. L100s. Thank goodness Bo dropped out...)

Not so fast, pardner!!

L1

[Titanium Dome]

Ouch! I resemble that remark.

[JBLRaiser]

first inductee into the Lansing Heritage 'THREAD HALL OF FAME'.

[Titanium Dome]

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to the E50 owners from AVS who stop by:

What did I tell you? Everything you wanted to know, and then some.

Since you're here, feel free to join. There's a whole JBL world to explore.

[SEAWOLF97]

China JBL ?

[Titanium Dome]

The regular product ID sticker is vague:

JBL Incorporated
Northridge, California

However, there's a much smaller sticker on the back near the bottom that tells the tale. You can see it here: http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...55&postcount=3 at the lower left, but it's hard to read. Here's what it says.

Designed and Engineered by JBL
Made in Mexico.

Until you asked, I didn't know.

[Titanium Dome]

Just added a review here:

http://www.audioreview.com/mfr/jbl/b...761915crx.aspx

Trying to win an iPod Shuffle and a special, unnamed prize.