JBL Master Reference Monitor

[martin_wu99]

Some prefer the older Levinson. I used to have the No. 23 amp. I didn't care for it too much. It sounded kinda dead to me. I had to use a lot of EQ to perk it up.

It is true that many people think old Levinson and Machitosh are better than new ones.

[Dave_72]

It is true that many people think old Levinson and Machitosh are better than new ones.

Yes of course. I'm not a fan of either, new or old. Between the 2, I'll go for McIntosh.

[Cyclotronguy]

Heard the new M2 last week in Northridge..... pretty amazing soundstage. Side of the room, back of the room, front of the room between the speakers..... the image was solid and the spectral balance pretty much unchanged.

Cyclotronguy

[macaroonie]

Heard the new M2 last week in Northridge..... pretty amazing soundstage. Side of the room, back of the room, front of the room between the speakers..... the image was solid and the spectral balance pretty much unchanged.

Cyclotronguy

Feedback at last. Thanks for delivering the first snippet. Please add more if you care to , the crowd awaits with baited breath.

M

[Mctwins]

Heard the new M2 last week in Northridge..... pretty amazing soundstage. Side of the room, back of the room, front of the room between the speakers..... the image was solid and the spectral balance pretty much unchanged.

Cyclotronguy

Yes, tell us more!

What amps and how was the set-up done.

[Dave_72]

Heard the new M2 last week in Northridge..... pretty amazing soundstage. Side of the room, back of the room, front of the room between the speakers..... the image was solid and the spectral balance pretty much unchanged.

Cyclotronguy

Nice! Yeah, tell us more, please.

[caladois]

Come on Cyclotronguy , don't be shy !!!!

[gibber]

Some prefer the older Levinson. I used to have the No. 23 amp. I didn't care for it too much. It sounded kinda dead to me. I had to use a lot of EQ to perk it up.

Well, the 23 was perhaps the worst of them all. Closely followed by 27. Then someone noticed at ML (not ML, he was at Cello then).
JuniorJBL's Model 29 is quite a bit sweeter. Had one myself for years. Model 23 was redone later, too. They called it 23.5 (.5 standing for "half as brash" i presume). Same with 27 ==> 27.5

All of them hold the bass cone as in a vice. Nice if you drive one of the less well-damped 22xx/1xxA's in an active setup. All built to last and pretty cheap now, considering price when new.

Which is even more true of some pro gear, but then who dares to dis-engage that blower ...

[Dave_72]

Well, the 23 was perhaps the worst of them all. Closely followed by 27. Then someone noticed at ML (not ML, he was at Cello then).
JuniorJBL's Model 29 is quite a bit sweeter. Had one myself for years. Model 23 was redone later, too. They called it 23.5 (.5 standing for "half as brash" i presume). Same with 27 ==> 27.5

All of them hold the bass cone as in a vice. Nice if you drive one of the less well-damped 22xx/1xxA's in an active setup. All built to last and pretty cheap now, considering price when new.

Which is even more true of some pro gear, but then who dares to dis-engage that blower ...

Exactly. It was flat and muffled. This was with the matching No. 26 preamp too. Also, the damn thing used to shut off at high volumes. And there never seemed to be enough power. I fried a few tweeters with that amp. The Bryston 4BSST I use is miles ahead of it. Of course that's a newer amp, so not really a fair comparison, but still. Yeah, the build of the Levinson was good, I'll give it that. My brother now has the Levinson gear, and he's happy with it, but he EQs it quite a bit to get any grease outta it.

[gibber]

Exactly. It was flat and muffled ...

My brother now has the Levinson gear, and he's happy with it, but he EQs it quite a bit to get any grease outta it.

Sometimes this happens because "distortion" spectra just don't match. And with distortion, i don't just mean that of the harmonic type. Diaphragm materials all have different sonic signatures and the amp used can -to some extent- compensate. With the speaker discussed in this thread i fear lots of issues coming up in exactly that area. The bass is a fine unit that has proven it's moniker just one digit up from 2215 is well justified.
The treble unit is of a design that likely will see it's biggest advantage in high-SPL applications, i.e. not at home and maybe not even in the studio: the D2 design targets k2 (one of the few "musical" colorations) head on, leaving "non-musical" aberration exposed, even if those aberrations technically might well be at record-setting low (absolute) level, which i believe they will. The advantages in reduced k2 may well not outweigh this in a home context, but almost certainly will in touring or stationary PA use.

We've had something similar before:
Try to match a 2435HPL into a home setup - a highly competent driver, but unexpected problems in matching to the other speakers working on it's side and to the amps driving the side.
Do the same with an aquaplassed Be dome -- still a task but much easier, as the discrete "Be quirks" are spread out and hence ameliorated by the AP coating.
Will be interesting to see how D2 is seen in a year from now for studio use, as discussed here rgd M2.

Apropos 2435: i saw that half-inch thick "spacer" on D2 again, same as before on 2432's exit. Wonder what it might do for 2431/2435?

Ralph

[4313B]

Apropos 2435: i saw that half-inch thick "spacer" on D2 again, same as before on 2432's exit. Wonder what it might do for 2431/2435?

Fix them?



I checked on the waveguides again today. Not even in the system yet. Mark says "Never say never." though.

I also checked on the 2216Nd again after JBL gifted me a pair earlier this week. Could I actually order a pair to play with? Could anyone? Not even in the system yet, not from Pro, not from Luxury, not from Lifestyle. Not even as a service part for an S4700. I passed them on to RobH3606 via 1audiohack, so both might post their experiences with these drivers at some point. From everything I am hearing, they have to kick ass below some SAM1HF's. Yeah, I know, SAM1HF's are old news and low rent now. But at least they are available.

D2 is available as a service part only. No idea if it will ever switch over to Finished Goods. Even as a service part it is more expensive than anything else JBL has except a 476Be, much closer to all the other compression drivers compared to the 476Be.

[gibber]

Fix them?

Here's some results with a "spacer" cut from 38mm (1.5") particle board (my new kitchen top surface).
The spacer used here is 3x as thick as the one found on D2 and 2432H, the hole is 1.4" dia, chosen as it is median between the 1.3" HR9040A throat dia and the 1.5" driver exit.

First pic shows an overlay of the same 2435HPL driver (aquaplassed fram) with and witout that piece of wood fitted. The inside of this "spacer" is not super-smooth, but i tried my best ...




Next we have ARTA shots that are a bit too complex to overlay, hence two seperate ones :






And here's the rather crude-looking test-object:




Mixed bag of results, but it seems the spacing clears some midrange nasties .7 thru 2 kHz. The spikes around 1.7 kHz are 5dB down.
The top end suffers but might well look better if the spacer had been shorter and/or more smooth inside.

Ralph

[4313B]

Well, at least it's a nice sounding driver. I guess the trick is to not measure it.

Very early response curves of that driver from <snip> looked great. At this point I suspect they'd been "fixed".

I won't think about it because I'll just get aggitated.

[gibber]

Well, at least it's a nice sounding driver. I guess the trick is to not measure it.

Very early response curves of that driver from <snip> looked great. At this point I suspect they'd been "fixed".

Before putting on Aquaplas the graph looked more spiky ...
Regarding "fixing" - maybe with highspeed materials such as Be or Boron it's quite a difference to measure in 1/24th oct res
The pic also amplifies amplitude variation to the eye as it covers two decades only instead of the usual three, i.e. from 200 Hz instead of 20 Hz up.

The dip at 680Hz (if not a peculiarity of this horn/driver combination) wouldn't matter in target applications; this driver is not intended for use below 800 Hz.
Previous posts accordingly had 2435HPL in smaller horns/waveguides where this dip may be less or not at all visible.



As to sample variation, above's my second driver (also aquaplassed) mounted to same horn w/o the wooden spacer

Ralph

[martin_wu99]

Heard the new M2 last week in Northridge..... pretty amazing soundstage. Side of the room, back of the room, front of the room between the speakers..... the image was solid and the spectral balance pretty much unchanged.

Cyclotronguy

So lucky you are,pls tell us more about M2,is it hard to drive?what's gear?