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Thread: Array 1400 at CES 2011

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  1. #1
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    Array 1400 at CES 2011

    I voted JBL Array 1400 one of the top 5 best speakers at CES 2011. The speakers along with Mark Levinson gears outperformed many set ups that cost 5-10 times more. Here are the pictures of the JBL/Mark Levison set up:

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    Array 1400

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    Price List of the set up

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  2. #2
    clmrt
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    Besides the gear, where's the decorator's touch? One little plant?

    Isn't it true this series is discontinued already?

    Lot's of ???? from me, sorry.

  3. #3
    clmrt
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    So I jumped on the S'phile site to see if there are any blurbs about JBL / CES, and the first thing you see is a big theater pair with horns (cool, but...). Then you see Westlake (!) selling $0.05 blocks of foam with holes made to keep cables the perfect distance apart, for $60.

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    http://stereophile.com/

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by clmrt View Post
    So I jumped on the S'phile site to see if there are any blurbs about JBL / CES, and the first thing you see is a big theater pair with horns (cool, but...). Then you see Westlake (!) selling $0.05 blocks of foam with holes made to keep cables the perfect distance apart, for $60.

    More mixed with

    http://stereophile.com/
    Wow, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Some people think I'm easily duped and got suckered buying over-priced audio gear, but a look through that link leads me to believe I'm not nearly as whacked out as a lot of other folks.

    Some of it is best characterized by what? Absurd? Eccentric? Bizarre? Insane? No, no, none of those. I have it now: obscene.
    Out.

  5. #5
    Senior Member audiomagnate's Avatar
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    I was there too...

    I heard the 1400s at the show as well. They started with a piano piece and I thought to myself, "Wow, that sounds like a real piano, but I'm sure they're going to fall apart on vocals and more complex musical material." Next came a Boz Scaggs tune and I was simply astounded at how "real" they sounded. I wasn't even in the sweet spot of the fairly small room, but I knew I was hearing something very special. By the time the remastered version of "What's New" by Frank Sinatra came on (which I own and am very familiar with) I had worked my way into the sweet spot. It was the most realistic sound I've ever heard from a stereo, ever, period.

    When I told the Harmon rep how good I thought they were he immediately started downplaying them, telling me I had to hear the K2s down in the truck at the Convention Center. After I pumped him for more information - they had no literature on the speakers whatsoever - he told me that Greg Timbers had stumbled upon the vertical mid/horizontal tweeter setup, but since they knew vertical horns would flop in Asia, they have never really tried to aggressively market the Array series. It almost seems as if they put these on the market to placate Greg (a total assumption on my part) but that all of the marketing effort goes to the K2/Everest line. I mean, who goes to a CES show without bringing literature?

    After hogging the sweet spot for about half an hour I left to listen to the new flagship Sonus Fabers. I'm sure this system was in the $500,000 plus range. Next I listened to the Wilson Alexandria x-2s with some incredible looking tube amps and associated gear. I happenned to see a price sheet for the whole system, it was around $670,000. These two systems sounded very similar to me. I would call them "polite." They certainly didn't sound anywhere near as real as the 1400s, but by this time I was starting to question my sanity. After all, the 1400's retail for a paltry $11,500 and use antiquated 1940s horn technology. How on earth could they sound better that the Wilsons which employ "anti-jitter technology" and which are constructed from "X material" which costs 14 times more than MDF.

    I returned to the Harmon suite after a few hours of this audiophile insanity to make sure I hadn't lost my mind, and sure enough the funny looking 1400s sounded every bit as wonderful as they had during my first visit.

    The next day I shuttled over to the Convention Center and located the Harmon truck out in the parking lot. This setup was more like a Disney ride than a somber audiophile listening session, but in between "rides" the nice folks at Harmon agreed to put their 7.4 channel Sythesis system into two channel bypass mode and play the two K2s with the same material I had heard the day before at the Venitian. Since I was the only non Harmon employee in the room I got the sweet spot. The K2s sounded excellent, really excellent but not as amazingly lifelike as the 1400s. To be fair, the truck had pretty horrible acoustics, no treatment, and they were using Synthesis electronics instead of Mark Levinson, so it wasn't a fair comparison.

    I have been chasing the Holy Grail of a real sounding loudspeaker since I was in college in the 70s. When I heard Mark Levinson's HQD (Hartley Quad Decca) system at the Palmer House in Chicago at some ancient CES show I immediately went home and tried to duplicate it on a student's budget. I even founded my own speaker company, KAS Audio, and designed, manufactured and sold a line of speakers and subwoofers which hold their own to this day. After all, almost every speaker out there today, no matter how insanely expensive, ends up reproducing the highs with a one inch dome tweeter and a cone midrange, as did my designs. The Dynaudio/Morel MDT28 - or a clone thereof - that I used back then is still in use today in most megabuck systems. The difference is, I charged $1000/pair for my floor standing speakers not $200,000.

    In short, I think the 1400s deserve to be in every snooty, tubed up audiophile salon in the country, where they would put to shame all the lifeless overpriced hokem that passes as "state of the art" these days.
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  6. #6
    clmrt
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    Great post, thanks!

    And thanks for taking a picture of that poor plant, too...

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by audiomagnate View Post
    I heard the 1400s at the show as well. They started with a piano piece and I thought to myself, "Wow, that sounds like a real piano, but I'm sure they're going to fall apart on vocals and more complex musical material." Next came a Boz Scaggs tune and I was simply astounded at how "real" they sounded. I wasn't even in the sweet spot of the fairly small room, but I knew I was hearing something very special. By the time the remastered version of "What's New" by Frank Sinatra came on (which I own and am very familiar with) I had worked my way into the sweet spot. It was the most realistic sound I've ever heard from a stereo, ever, period.

    When I told the Harmon rep how good I thought they were he immediately started downplaying them, telling me I had to hear the K2s down in the truck at the Convention Center. After I pumped him for more information - they had no literature on the speakers whatsoever - he told me that Greg Timbers had stumbled upon the vertical mid/horizontal tweeter setup, but since they knew vertical horns would flop in Asia, they have never really tried to aggressively market the Array series. It almost seems as if they put these on the market to placate Greg (a total assumption on my part) but that all of the marketing effort goes to the K2/Everest line. I mean, who goes to a CES show without bringing literature?

    After hogging the sweet spot for about half an hour I left to listen to the new flagship Sonus Fabers. I'm sure this system was in the $500,000 plus range. Next I listened to the Wilson Alexandria x-2s with some incredible looking tube amps and associated gear. I happenned to see a price sheet for the whole system, it was around $670,000. These two systems sounded very similar to me. I would call them "polite." They certainly didn't sound anywhere near as real as the 1400s, but by this time I was starting to question my sanity. After all, the 1400's retail for a paltry $11,500 and use antiquated 1940s horn technology. How on earth could they sound better that the Wilsons which employ "anti-jitter technology" and which are constructed from "X material" which costs 14 times more than MDF.

    I returned to the Harmon suite after a few hours of this audiophile insanity to make sure I hadn't lost my mind, and sure enough the funny looking 1400s sounded every bit as wonderful as they had during my first visit.

    The next day I shuttled over to the Convention Center and located the Harmon truck out in the parking lot. This setup was more like a Disney ride than a somber audiophile listening session, but in between "rides" the nice folks at Harmon agreed to put their 7.4 channel Sythesis system into two channel bypass mode and play the two K2s with the same material I had heard the day before at the Venitian. Since I was the only non Harmon employee in the room I got the sweet spot. The K2s sounded excellent, really excellent but not as amazingly lifelike as the 1400s. To be fair, the truck had pretty horrible acoustics, no treatment, and they were using Synthesis electronics instead of Mark Levinson, so it wasn't a fair comparison.

    I have been chasing the Holy Grail of a real sounding loudspeaker since I was in college in the 70s. When I heard Mark Levinson's HQD (Hartley Quad Decca) system at the Palmer House in Chicago at some ancient CES show I immediately went home and tried to duplicate it on a student's budget. I even founded my own speaker company, KAS Audio, and designed, manufactured and sold a line of speakers and subwoofers which hold their own to this day. After all, almost every speaker out there today, no matter how insanely expensive, ends up reproducing the highs with a one inch dome tweeter and a cone midrange, as did my designs. The Dynaudio/Morel MDT28 - or a clone thereof - that I used back then is still in use today in most megabuck systems. The difference is, I charged $1000/pair for my floor standing speakers not $200,000.

    In short, I think the 1400s deserve to be in every snooty, tubed up audiophile salon in the country, where they would put to shame all the lifeless overpriced hokem that passes as "state of the art" these days.
    I bought a pair of 1400s a little over a year ago, based on posts like this one. Earlier in the year, in the late spring, we had a pair of birds nest in the shrubs outside one of our bedroom windows. In the pleasant spring weather, every morning we awoke to them singing in the bushes at dawn. I stirred in bed one morning to that singing, then came awake enough to realize that it was still pitch black outside. I listened for a few minutes, then checked the time. It was 3 AM. My wife woke up as I moved around, then asked, "What's up with the birds? Is something stalking them?" We have cats and coyotes in the neighborhood, so they are vulnerable. After a couple of minutes of silence, the bird began again, this time from a tree halfway to the street and over to the left from the shrubs. After some wifely prodding, I got up, grabbed a flashlight and went to the rescue. Just as I opened the front door, it struck me. I turned around, went back to the bedroom and checked the stereo. We were streaming Carlos Nakai, including a track recorded in an outdoor setting, in a small canyon. We were listening to birds in his canyon, not to our own.

    We all know that we can convince ourselves that we're hearing almost anything we want to from speakers that we really like or want. This was a completely BLIND experience. We had no idea that we had the system on. Both of us (and we worked for several years in the outdoors, taking out groups on monthlong backpacking trips in the mountains) were convinced that we were listening to our own birds, and both of us could tell EXACTLY where the birds were located. After that experience, I have nothing but awe for the 1400s. I've never before or since experienced that sort of absolute realism in sound reproduction. These speakers are nothing short of astounding in their faithfulness.

  8. #8
    Senior Member audiomagnate's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by clmrt View Post
    So I jumped on the S'phile site to see if there are any blurbs about JBL / CES, and the first thing you see is a big theater pair with horns (cool, but...). Then you see Westlake (!) selling $0.05 blocks of foam with holes made to keep cables the perfect distance apart, for $60.

    More mixed with

    http://stereophile.com/
    $60 just gets you in the door, I'm sure we're talking hundreds to do a whole system. Cable muffs! Even the name is hilarious.
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  9. #9
    clmrt
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    I didn't even notice the different shapes on the table. Must be for specific "applications".

    Scene at your local Audiophile meeting:

    Gregory: "I say, did you notice Phillip happens to've place Interconnect Muffs on his speaker cables?"

    Reginald: "Indeed! Oh, the horror! Should we tell him?"
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  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by audiomagnate View Post
    $60 just gets you in the door, I'm sure we're talking hundreds to do a whole system. Cable muffs! Even the name is hilarious.
    I guess it's a whole new world of opportunity, and it gives "muff diving" a completely new dimension. $100 a pop is about right for a good muff.
    Out.

  11. #11
    Senior Member gferrell's Avatar
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    I guess I need one of those $1800.00 power cords and a block of magic foam to get the most out of my Bose's.
    XPL 200's w DX1, XPL 160's, XPL 140's, L7's, L5's, L3's, L1's Homemade L Center, 4412's, 4406, L60T's, L20T's

  12. #12
    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by clmrt View Post

    Isn't it true this series is discontinued already?
    No, the 1400 Arrays are still available in the dark gray finish... which I believe is what is pictured above though it is hard to tell in photography. The 1000 and 800 Arrays are the speakers that have been discontinued.

    I agree that they are quite a bargain... not all of the crazy audiophile stuff is bad or stupidly expensive. Even though many audio fans/music lovers in the on line world consider "audiophile" a derogatory expression, I bet a random poll of the general public would consider the 1400 Arrays an "audiophile" system... I mean after all they don't look like furniture or disappear like a tiny Bose system.

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  13. #13
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    The Array 1400's have never been at the Denver show, but in 2008 the Array 800's and 1000's were on display for auditioning.

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