These are my top five, but I'll have to use bullet points instead of numbers. There's no way I can consistently rank them. My #1 tends to be the one I'm listening to at the moment. Three of the five have special touches done by people with more skill than I.
Not in any specific order:
- K2 S9900—actively bi-amped with the grumpy/Timbers curves (with subs)
- M2 Master Reference Monitor
- XPL200a—actively bi-amped with DX-1 and GT built cards
- L100 Century—the first series with inline drivers, not the later ones
- Timbers Arrays—predecessor to the Project Array Series, actively bi-amped with DX-1 and custom GT cards
Hey, Ian and grumpy, remember first hearing the K2 S9900 at the massive Mr. Widget demo room at the Bay Area audio show? The demo list was Everest DD66000, 1400 Array, Revel Ultima2 Salon, and off in the corner, unconnected, K2 S9900. After some pleading and whining on my part, he hooked them up at the end of the day, and within minutes I knew which pair I wanted to buy. In that big, honking 1/4 (or was it 1/2?) ballroom with impossible acoustics, they won the day for me!
Here's a special shout out to Widget for making that dream a reality!
Out.
Everyone that knows me well knows I like systems that jump! I love the line in the JBL large format driver spec sheets that says, " It can take the most explosive transients in stride and reproduce them at thunderous levels."
This is where its at for me. If it isn't capable of serious dynamics, I am not going to love it.
That said, here is the list I like enough to make space for in my life.
4350's. With a DBX 4800 controlling an over 6000 Watt four way, five amp amp rack, 1500AL woofers and TAD TM1201 mid bass these get it.
4365's These are at their best with fast big amps and they rock with subs.
4435's. Office speakers. Limited by the one inch HF drivers but the two 2234's are tight and clean.
1400 Arrays. Bedroom speakers. These don't jump, look goofy and they don't get loud, but they are super room friendly and sound really nice.
DD6700's Projects with all stock drivers. Will be multi amp with DSP. I expect these to be king of the heap when done.
Yes, I spend a disproportionate amount of my meager income on audio.
Barry.
If we knew what the hell we were doing, we wouldn't call it research would we.
My list is more memorably tied to people than speakers
but I’ve been fortunate to have had very impressive
listening experiences at several forum member’s abodes.
The common feature has been an unstrained and undistorted
visceral presence and liveness that allowed hearing into the
music... and lose track of time.
No ranked order:
67000 (somewhat customized )
9900
Timber Arrays
66000
4365
special note re very customized systems:
M2 derivative
Array-DNA system
and a very entertaining set of quad-amped 250Ti
Simple. I have not heard them.Thanks!you have a top 8 rank
but why not 4367?
I've owned many JBL's since the early 70's.
I went to Tokyo 2 years ago and hoped to hear some top enders while there. Unfortunately the best they had at the time were 4365's - which sounded really nice. So in my admittedly limited exposure to all JBL's
1/ L212's
2/ 250ti's
3/ 1400 Array
4/ 4365
5/ 4340
The 212's are very clean BUT only at lower volumes.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)