JBL no longer studio monitor of choice.

[Akira]

While JBL is firmly entrenched in the large control room film mixing stage, just about any engineer will tell you it is only due to consistency match ups with the actual theater installations. These speakers are meant to penetrate a physical screen.
A more disturbing trend is JBL are almost non existent in the huge project and home studio market where small 2ways dominate. I'd love to have a pair of LSR 6328's but, I find the younger guys have never heard of them. JBL seems to be a myth they might have heard about in an ancient tale from across the sea--disturbing to me anyway. The future is always youth. An entire generation has grown up never hearing the product.

[hjames]

... The future is always youth. An entire generation has grown up never hearing the product.

Well, an entire generation has never heard good fidelity either. With low-res MP3s as the product of choice, why bother with JBLs? Do you really want to show the traces of pitch-shifted vocals and excess compression on a monitor where every flaw is visible?
Its like Phil Spector playing through car radio speakers to test what his target audience would hear ...

I blame Todd Rundgren for starting folks on this path!!

[robertbartsch]

Yeh, I think they are loosing in a lot of markets and I assume this will continue.

Some of the products they offered in the home market over the last few years have been total garabge. When you do this, it has long lasting impacts. Dido for Kliphorn.

[Akira]

I blame Todd Rundgren for starting folks on this path!!

A Wizard a True Star...I didn't know Todd invented the Mp3

[jcrobso]

When I started buying JBL in the mid 1960s nobody had ever heard of them either. I felt like a lone crusader, I'm sure other long time JBL fans felt the same way.
JBL was never into heavy advertising like that other company(aka: Bo$e, If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull). If you go to Japan JBL speakers are highly sought after. In the shop at the station I have a set of Yamaha NS-200Ma monitor speakers in addition to JBL 4412a. The Yamaha drivers mimic the appearance of the JBL drivers, the sound is very similar.
But in the US it is a different story at times. One criticism I ran into was the high cost compared to other speakers. I told people that they will last a life time, I love my 42 year old JBLs. One problem is magazines like CU, they put down JBL because of the cost in favor of lower cost speakers that will fall apart in 10 years and get thrown out.
When I first started going to stores an listing to speakers AR was one of the hot selling brands where are they today? Go to eBay and search on AR speakers and you will get 50 or so dismal responses.
JBL does have a lot of competition these days, and many of the those speakers sound very good and are priced lower,Hmmm same story all over again. John

[BMWCCA]

Nearly two whole generations have grown up not knowing Germans ever made cameras, too. Now we've got a generation that thinks you can buy a top-quality car from Korea. Granted, they're much better than they used to be, but so are clock radios. Niche markets drive an industry. Design and engineering used on high-line products trickle down. Someone must pay a premium to bring quality to the market so others can reap the benefit.

Remember when the Chevy Caprice was a top seller? Remember when only top-of-the-line BMWs and Mercedes had ABS? BMW had ABS standard across their entire model line by 1987 even in the USA. Traction control was standard on all models in 1997. Twenty-years later the government wants to make stability systems standard.

Most people buy their lumber from Lowe's and wouldn't know a quality piece of board if it jumped up and bit them. Some even think Wal*Mart is the epitome of customer service, or that books can only be bought at Barnes and Noble. We've Wal-marted America. Why should we expect those looking to engineer poor recordings to care about listening to them on quality monitors? If it sounds good cranked in a car, it's good enough for even the artist. Sad. Probably true though.

You can't make quality assessments on market share, but a company has to retain some market share just to stay viable. I'm more worried about that simply because I hate to see once-great American companies disappear because of a fickle (and cheap) public.

But that's why this site is Lansing Heritage rather than Lansing Future, much less present.

[louped garouv]

the younger kids i know know about JBL, thay just can not afford the LSR series offerings.... much less large format endeavours...

[hjames]

A Wizard a True Star...I didn't know Todd invented the Mp3

Nah, not MP3s - but he was a very well known advocate of basement recording studios and making albums on computers!
He inspired a "generation" to set up their own gear and pass on expensive formal studios.

Then again, just because you CAN produce an album on your computer in your basement doesn't
mean you have the skills or the ears to do so!

[BMWCCA]

I didn't know Todd invented the Mp3

I've heard Donald Buffamanti claim that invention. I didn't believe him, either. He now owns the Internet web site Autospies.com and loves to take pictures of pretty young girls.

the younger kids i know know about JBL, thay just can not afford the LSR series offerings.... much less large format endeavours...

I couldn't afford them either when I was a kid. But back then JBL took their monitor technology and aggressively marketed it to the younger generation at somewhat affordable prices. Now they sell . . . what? And do little marketing of any kind. But we've been down this road before.

[hjames]

Dido for Kliphorn.

would you be trying to say "Ditto" ??
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ditto

Ah, another generation who has no connection to the written word ... sigh ...
as bad as the WALLA-voila crowd ... sigh ...
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voila

just shoot me now!

[jcrobso]

http://mp3licensing.com/mp3/history.html

Just so Al Gore can't claim that he invented the MP3 as well as the internet. John

[hjames]

http://mp3licensing.com/mp3/history.html

Just so Al Gore can't claim that he invented the MP3 as well as the internet. John

Wow, same old moronic, misquoted talking point, disproved LONG ago,
yet repeated Ad nauseum ... not gonna waltz with you, pilgrim ...

Read - http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

Can we drop the misinformed politics and just do the AUDIO thing here ...

[robertbartsch]

...this thread is degenerating into a discussion involving politics which is strickly prohibited.

[SEAWOLF97]

I blame Todd Rundgren for starting folks on this path!!

all I know of Todd is sappy songs that I turn off "Hello, It's me" , I mix him up with Chris Montez

http://mp3licensing.com/mp3/history.html

Just so Al Gore can't claim that he invented the MP3 as well as the internet. John

He didnt say that ..
"Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley," Gore responded: I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be. But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system. [96]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_gore

and if you read the whole article, "Gore was one of the Atari Democrats who were given this name due to their "passion for technological issues"

back to subject

STUDIO MONITORS - the name is so widely copied thats its now worthless.

does not being the leader in their early mission affect your home enjoyment ?
My 4410 are brutally honest and clinical real studio monitors , most dont care for them in a home environment.

[Harvey Gerst]

You must realize that with the growth of "home studio recording", the use of smaller, cheaper near field monitors as the only monitoring system was inevitable. The larger studios still use TAD, JBL, Tannoy, and Augspurger systems as mains, but the growth of Alesis, Genelac, KRK, Events, and other small near field speakers as the single monitoring source has been on the increase for at least ten years.

Possibly blame Bob Clearmountain who first said he mixed on Yamaha NS-10's. Also, blame the mp3 as a "viable music delivery system" for a lot of people that aren't concerned with hearing everything.