How many here own a JBL speaker less than 5 years old?

[Wagner]

CRAP.

4365 speaker delivery delayed. Man, some day's just su*k. I was looking forward for this day for a while....

How long have you been waiting to hear this?
Maybe they are being drop shipped from a Japanese dealer in Tokyo?
All jive aside, sorry for your hassles, sincerely

Thomas

[Wagner]

I notice that the 4365 is now listed as "Discontinued" on the Synthesis site. I really like that speaker, guess I shoulda jumped sooner.

Wonder if we will see what happened when Matsushita discontinued production of the venerable SL-1200 to whatever is left in the JBL pipeline?

[Mr. Widget]

CRAP.

4365 speaker delivery delayed. Man, some day's just su*k. I was looking forward for this day for a while....

Oh dear... that is not a good sign. Did you buy these through a Synthesis dealer? We usually get the complete systems within a week of ordering... parts – a different story.

I really, really liked them. I am not surprised they are discontinued, but that is a real shame. One by one all of these systems will disappear if they are not selling them by the pallet to somebody. (Japan, Europe, Russia, etc...) I guess this goes back to the OP topic.

There simply isn't enough demand to make sense for the typical global corporation to produce these boutique goods.

FWIW: I have bought (2) DD66000s and (1) 880 Array in the last five years and (2) 1400 Arrays in 2010. (Trying to do my part. )


Widget

[SEAWOLF97]

Wonder if we will see what happened when Matsushita discontinued production of the venerable SL-1200 to whatever is left in the JBL pipeline?

But they've recently revived it ... tho new price

http://www.mixmag.net/read/panasonic...-returned-news
[url]

[Wagner]

But they've recently revived it ... tho new price

http://www.mixmag.net/read/panasonic...-returned-news
[url]

http://www.technics.com/global/introduction/hifi-direct-drive-turntable-system-sl-1200gae/

I suspected this would happen but did not know it already had, thank you!
Guess they figured they needed a turntable to go with all their new high price electronics

http://www.whathifi.com/technics/sl-1200g/review

That, or a brilliant marketing ploy

http://djtechtools.com/2016/03/01/why-the-new-technics-turntable-will-be-4000/

I had seen the prototype of the new, sleeker deck

Now, one of those articles infers it was for the "new" 1200 all along?
Either way...............
I love it, "we lost all the tooling", yeah, lost it straight to china and Hanpin to churn out all those "Super OEMs":

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/technics-sl-1200g-costs-3000-because-original-manufacturing-tools-were-gone/

http://www.passionatedj.com/why-pioneer-is-making-turntables-now/

Know where they're building this incarnation? At $4 Grand I hope it's Japan

[Robh3606]

I have an Array 880 center a pair of Beryllium Array 1400's and components for the M2 in the form of waveguides 2216's and 476Mgs. Components for another pair of Array 1400's. Considering I still have my L25 Prima's and L100's from 1974/75 I will probably keep these until either they or I stop working.

Rob

[SEAWOLF97]

I suspected this would happen but did not know it already had, thank you!
Know where they're building this incarnation? At $4 Grand I hope it's Japan

yup, at $4K USD , it may not be on my radar for a while.

regarding JBL's less than 5 y.o.

I was reading an article on TI calculators. The newest ti89 ? really does NOT do anymore of value than a vintage 82, hence the reduced sales on the newest models and continued sales of used 82's.

I wonder if this phenom is applicable to JBL ? Really, my vintage JBLs suffice. They are much better than the majority of current speakers of a similar price range. Unless you have money to burn or very little other priorities, why replace what works with what's new & shiny ? (& not affordably priced any longer)

IF you are starting out from scratch or have to own the newest/greatest, sure, go for the new ones. Most of us here don't fit that category.

[Hoerninger]

... the reduced sales on the newest models and continued sales of used 82's.

And be aware of all these Casios etc. which have never reached the quality of for example HP.

[Ed Kreamer]

Colleagues,

While I do not currently own anything new, My 4410's (with LE10's for the LF's) and 4408's suffice for my listening quite nicely. I want to purchase in the future LSR 6332's for the front ( 3 of 'em) , by the time I get them IF I get them they will be already more than 5 Years old. because I buy used. My children think I'm cheap. I think I'm thrifty.

[DanMan]

Yep. JBL IBT. I just couldn't help myself. It's a cute little guy that has 4 speakers pointing in different directions that seems to mimic those conference call speakers used in office conference rooms. It quickly attains and hold a bluetooth signal and is great for my conference calls.

[BMWCCA]

Well, yeah, I also have a JBL OnBeat Mini dock. Saw them on-sale for about $29 once and use it on my desk at work to charge customer's iPads and phones and to play music from my phone whenever I can shut-off the Sirius that drones on in the showroom. Does a very nice job for what it is.

[DanMan]

I also live this little JBL Micro Wireless speaker... It plays loud and clear and hardly distorts at full volume. Sadly, the awesome JBL Flip Case houses an equally awesome UE Boom "360 degree sound" speaker - also great for conference calls around a table. Luckily the coffee mug contains Irish Coffee

[dprice]

Oh yeah...forgot about the 5x7 coax (rear) and 5x7 component (front) JBLs I installed in my new (then) F150 about 3 years ago. Tossed out the "premium" Sony speakers and installed the much better JBLs...though at about $150 for both pairs they were still quite affordable.

[doodle6]

Wagner and Challenger604. Neither of you answered the simple question in the post. Have you purchased a JBL speaker new within the last 5 years and what model (or models) is it?

Regarding your reply and agreement respectively, Heritage website name notwithstanding, a lot of griping is done here about what JBL is or isn't doing TODAY.

I know from 40 plus years of involvement in audio as a dealer, having regular contact with both customers and vendors, that consumer (non pro) part sales are today a tiny fraction of sales compared to completed speaker packages. Like it or not consumer speaker companies can not survive if people don't buy their latest efforts.

It's true that JBL has made a lot of marketing mistakes including not offering their better product in the US until more recently, but many better models have now been available here for well over five years. Regarding price, comparing street price then (fair trade and no internet), for street price now (internet and sold much nearer dealer cost), and adjusted X4 for inflation from the 1970's, many of JBL's speakers today are no more unreachable for the average guy now than they were then. MSRP on the L-100 was $273 each vs $1000 each for 4312E (today's pro version equivalent) and available for closer to $750 each.

So enjoy your vintage JBL speakers as I have, and build your DIY JBL speakers as I have. Just don't be so shocked when the resources for JBL to continue to build new products, or support old ones, dries up.

I've been buying JBL speakers for over forty years now and although I've been lured away from the vintage stuff from time to time by rave reviews of other companies' products, I've always come back to the old vintage JBLs. IMO, no one has ever matched the accuracy and dynamics of the old JBL stuff from the 70s and 80s. That being said, they hit a big home run in the mid 90s with the L- series but failed to provide product support for that line. How could they expect to build a new fan base when parts weren't available through factory support for a really great design success? They certainly have been able to do well selling parts for the 43XX series for how many decades, eh? Seems to me that they lost focus on quality and started selling price point speakers that had fairly short life spans, at least as compared to the vintage stuff. Ever wonder why that stuff is commanding prices that are double, triple, quadruple what the original sales prices were? That era for JBL was analogous to the mid to late 60s for American muscle cars - reflecting a commitment to design engineering with no truck for cost considerations. That's what made JBL the icon that current ownership is not sustaining.

[doodle6]

.