I bought my first L100s in 1971 with money I earned from managing the student radio station at college. I still have them, the original boxes, sales slip, paperwork, and manual. Many LPs from the time only sound right to me when played through these speakers. They came with a "lifetime" warranty, and JBL replaced one woofer for free when it failed several years later.

My children, who are in their 40s now, grew up listening to these same speakers. I had these in my office for many years before moving to a new location.

About a decade ago, I came across a similar pair in pristine condition which I bought off eBay for a ridiculously small amount of money. I'd heard other L100s that came from the later model runs with the offset drivers, but I always preferred the ones with inline drivers, so I grabbed this second pair as fast as I could.

All of this is very subjective and simply my opinion. My expectation bias tells me that the original L100s are the best of the L100 variations. I've had many newer and more expensive JBLs over the years, and I've enjoyed most of them immensely. As time passed and I've moved up the JBL chain, I've sold a lot of very good speakers, but I'd never sell my straight line L100s.

They just sound right!



Quote Originally Posted by Koosha9876 View Post

((There were four versions of the L100:

1) The very first model was the L100 Century made from 1971 to 1974. This model is very unique in many ways from the vast majority of L100’s found for sale today. Some call this model ‘rare’, yet in actuality it had the longest production run of all the models and many thousands were made. The main reason you do not see this version as much is they were far outnumbered by the enormous volume produced as the later models gained popularity. The most notable difference of this early model is the drivers are in a straight vertical row. Other differences exist in the crossover network, phasing of the transducers, and the cabinet bass port. Lower value capacitors and the use of an inductor in the LX12-10 network produced crossover points of 2.5K Hz & 7.5K Hz. All the drivers were in phase with each other, unlike the later models where the woofer and midrange are 180 out of phase. The bass port was only a small hole in the cabinet without an internal tube, and the tweeter was the LE20 round, not the LE25 square.
And for my last question(It's really the last one and will hopefully clear all my confusions about L100 ):

Was the LX12-10 crossover really better than the N100? and thus making the "original" L100 sound more musical(or better(?))than the later ones?(I've read these in some posts on AH,but highly doubt it...)
Thanks again!