You got me right through the heart,,,, BUT even JBL recommends a variant on the woofers,,, From 150-4 to Le15 and now 136,, on Mid driver from 375 to 376
You got me right through the heart,,,, BUT even JBL recommends a variant on the woofers,,, From 150-4 to Le15 and now 136,, on Mid driver from 375 to 376
You can improve a Rolls-Royce by putting a BMW engine in it, but is it still a Rolls-Royce? :dont-know
Many enjoy a Model-T for what it is. Some think a '50s Corvette is the bee's knees. We all know a current Subaru can run circles around either. I'm impressed by the Paragon for the beauty and timelessness of its design and the progressive thinking it exhibited at the time of manufacture. If minor mods can improve it, that must make it even more enjoyable. If the mods get carried away, I suppose I'd draw the line before that happened.
But I'm pretty confident Maron has all the original stuff to put the Paragon back the way JBL built it, if any subsequent owners feel compelled to do so. That choice, as always, belongs to the owner.
". . . as you have no doubt noticed, no one told the 4345 that it can't work correctly so it does anyway."—Greg Timbers
Yes I have the origional drivers.. But enjoy upgrading to see what can be pushed to even better sonics,,But alas i always revert back...
The Paragon was a very nice console system of that era. It doesn't really compare to the conventional JBL loudspeaker systems. Think of it as fine furniture with audio capabilities.Originally Posted by AmericanPie
I've noticed several have been popping up on Ebay lately, often looking for huge bucks. Their industrial design has always intrigued me and I assume they used JBL's (then) state of the art drivers but I've never been fortunate enough to actually hear one. Just wondering how these sound compared to, say, L300s or L250ti's, L7s, etc.
Mr. Widget,Very important observation for all of these vintage speakers... also true about vintage electronics. I have run across so many that were so far out of spec, that it is amazing anyone could stand to listen to them.
My opinion is certainly no more valid than yours... but as much as I love the Paragon, it is far, far from one of the best sounding speakers I have ever heard. But, that is only my opinion.There really is no right or wrong answer. I can give you a laundry list of objective reasons why the Paragon is less than ideal, but every speaker at every price point can be torn apart analytically.
Widget
Just curious would like to have your laundry list of Do's and Don'ts.
Might help out on improvements. Not only the JBL Paragon but also the Hartsfield.
Your thought's please.
Thank You.
Joe Lazaroo
If you want to improve either the Paragon or Hartsfield, you could do one or more of the following:
One key point that might have been missed here is that the stock Paragon needs quite a bit of EQ, and it is normally a struggle to make it sound good.
- Design new crossovers with necessary response shaping.
- Charge-couple the crossovers if you continue to run passive.
- active crossover, 2-way or 3-way.
- Add bypass capacitors if you decide to stick with the stock crossovers.
Johnny Haugen Sørgård
This has all been discussed here before, but some of the issues with the design are:
The bass horn is too small. It increases the sensitivity of the woofer in the upper bass but has little effect on the lower frequencies so you end up with a large response bump and very little low bass.
The midrange horn is also too small... it is best above 1KHz. Using it down to 500Hz creates a drop off in the lower midrange response.
The 075 being set back deep in the enclosure doesn't aim it properly onto the curved reflector.
Then there are the more nuanced issues of phase and time. The system's poor directivity response. The poorly braced panels that are easily excited. ...and Johnny's comments on the crossovers are also all correct.
That would be the short list.
Widget
Just How good are the JBL Paragon
Mr. Widget.
Thanks for your feed back and Johnny.
I guess there is no real prefect speakers depend on each to it's own.
And how would like to tune it up.
Joe.
Nine years ago my son and I did hear a Paragon as a center, with a pair of Hartsfields in the corners.
That was at Hal Cox's place, when he still lived in Mill Valley. Those three speakers together were quite impressive.
Living in the Land of the Sun
Hi! Johnny,
Have you or other members in this forum could recommend me the person or company who could do the modification up grade for the JBL Paragon or Hartsfield.
Any electronic repair workshop can add bypass capacitors. I'm not updated on which bypass capacitors would be best suited. But there will be other members filling in that information for you if you should choose this route.
Designing new crossovers will require a Paragon to work on. My guess is that this option is difficult/impossible to go through with.
Charge-coupling is reasonably straight forward for stock crossovers. However this will not address any of the response anomalies. I can think of a few members that can make this happen.
Active 3-way crossover is the option you can do yourself. I would look for something like a Deqx or equivalent. A digital crossover with eq and abilities for time alignment. The passive components will be gone, but you will need 2 extra amp's. The gained experience can later be used to specify a passive crossover.
My recommendation to you would be the 3-way active route.
Johnny Haugen Sørgård
Not wise IMO. Why pay $15k for a rare icon and then "Soup it up"?
These great flagship all-horn speakers from the 1950's (Paragon Patrician Hartsfield Klipschorn)
should be enjoyed for what they are: Ambitious - tho naive & flawed - attemps to bring
the experience of big cinema horn sound into the living room.
Tri-amping would also increase the risk of HF driver damage
Thanks for the advise,
I would like to leave my JBL Paragon and Hartsfield in stock condition.
Maybe outside of the box I would not mind playing around.
The mods I was thinking would be more on the passive network e.g inprovement on the components.
But there again need to have some spare crossOver LX5 and N7000, if I do want to let the speakers go it will be in stock condition when I sell it. After all that's were the value is to collectors.
Nothing wrong in modifying and thinking out of the boxs (so to speak) Ive bi amp,d the Paragon and time aligned to see what could be done with the ol lady,,, Tried many new drivers,,With the TAD 4001 wide bandwidth you can disconnect the 075,, I,m not afraid to see how far i can go in modification,, Like maybe a Array verticle type horn and driver splayed across the curved panel,,, Or a wide bandwith 476 driver, for the HF...As long as i keep the origional speakers and xovers ,,no harm is done. The cabinet is a beautiful work of form follows function art.. The only thing now that looks better is the Everest II...But the price eludes me (for now)
I think Johnny's suggestion to try DEQX or something like it is a very good one. Essentially no modification would be necessary (other than disconnecting the jumpers from the four networks.) and it would yield the greatest improvement possible while maintaining the original look.
Using DEQX isn't simple, but with care, you could make significant improvements to the sound and even make adjustments to taste if you wanted.
DEQX would allow correcting the time and phase alignment. group delay, and frequency response. You could also use a very steep phase linear crossover slope between the 375 and woofer which would help the 375 on that small horn.
Widget
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