Hi folks,

Just wanted to say that this is a great forum! I stumbled across it about a month from a link on an Ebay ad. I have visited often since then and have gotten a lot of great information. Thanks!

Everyone on here has a JBL story. Here's mine. I got into the mid-fi hobby about 5 years ago and currently have a decent Rotel system. I have a high current RSX 1065 AV receiver, an RB 1070 power amp and Rotel RCD 971 cd player along with a Musical Fidelity output tube buffer. Good quality interconnects.

I have tried many, many different speaker combinations over the last 5 years but have never been completely satifisfied with the sound. I have used B&W, Magnepan, JM Lab, Athena, and Advent just to name a few. My most recent set of speakers were a set of JM Lab Electra 906 bookshelfs. Very good speakers in their own right but just didn't give me that wow factor with my setup. On a whim (more like desperation), I decided to hook up on old set of JBL LX 300 (027ti titanium tweeter circa 1997) bookshelf speakers in my system. I listened and thought to myself, hmmmm, these sound pretty good. I listened some more. No listener fatigue after hours and hours of playing. No ringing ears when I go to bed. Exceptional voice reproduction and decent sound stage. So I asked myself: how could this be that an old set JBL's sound better than anything I have ever heard in my system? AND how could it be that a speaker that was 1/10th of the cost of the JM Lab Electra's sound better? I never gave JBL serious consideration because of the cheapie speakers I always saw at the big box stores but now I am starting to reconsider.

So here is my question. I really like the sound of the LX300 speakers but I know JBL has made far superior products. Do I try to get something better to completely blow me away? If I do, do I stick with the circa 90's speakers when I believe the build quality was better or go with a newer speaker? Since I don't have a JBL dealer close by I am going to rely on input from this forum for my decision. I'm basically looking for a JBL speaker recommendation with these parameters in mind:
bookshelf or floorstanding size (just not huge)
price point: up to $600 or so for mains
would like to build a complete surround system eventually

If you have the time I look forward to your input! Thanks again for all of the great information on this forum. Happy Holidays!