After being on here for a little bit and looking around on eBay and other sites, I see that a lot of these vintage speakers go for a pretty penny.

Such speakers I am referring to are the 4341's, 4350's, 4333's, 4344's, etc, etc, etc... These loudspeakers have the MF and HF drivers scattered around on the baffle in no particular order.

Now please keep in mind, I am not suggesting anything negative about them at all. In fact, I would love finding myself a mint pair of any of those mentioned above at a great price.

But considering modern loudspeaker design these days, there's a "normal" order of placement of the drivers on a baffle. IOW, all of the drivers are typically inline with eachother going up the baffle. Also, with modern designs, everyone strives to have a narrow baffle as well to help with defraction, imaging and soundstaging. Hence why small bookshelf speakers tend to image much better than larger tower speakers.

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So to my questions are:

How do these vintage JBL speakers stack up as far as imaging and soundstaging are concerned?

What is the driving force behind these speakers for demanding such a high $$$ resale value?

Are they more for "audiophile" grade listening, all out blasting dB's for miles , or more of a collector's items?
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I used to think that it was crazy for some to spend $2000-3000 on an old pair of Klipschorns, but some of these JBL's, especially the larger ones blow any of the Klipsch's out of the water in the resale market by 2-3 times as much easily. There's got to be some good reasons why these JBL's go for so much.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not bashing anything or doubting anything, just curious about the special magic of the vintage JBL's. Maybe, hopefully one day, I'll get to find myself a pair, or at least be able to hear a pair in person to see what all the hub-bub is all about!

Charles