Originally Posted by
L.H. Nick
"I wish JBL would bring back more of their old products"
Why would JBL wish to bring back designs from 40 or more years ago? Back then, the designs were questionable at best: 12" woofers that were run up to 1,500Hz? Five inch midranges that were run up to 5,000Hz? Drivers placed seemingly at random on a baffle? Harman has spent huge amounts of money into researching what people like and those parameters are simply not what their testing tells them people like.
Why would the cost of manufacturing old drivers be expensive today, other than that Harman no longer has tooling to do so, and that cobalt is now harder to obtain? In any event, who cares? Has not Harman spent years researching new magnetic materials and new motor geometries to improve their speakers? Are you really saying that a Century will sound superior to a Classic? Are you really saying that the woofer on a Century is more highly engineered than the woofer on a Classic?
When it comes to esthetics, I agree with your wish to bring back old school design. Old JBLs were gorgeous. I suspect that Harman would be only to happy to replicate that look, except that modern laws about what can be permitted with regard to woods and wood finishes prevents them from doing so.