Here is another one we can talk about. Seems they did listen to the comments.
Rob
Here is another one we can talk about. Seems they did listen to the comments.
Rob
The rest
I somehow got a hold of the marketing lit for the XPL line back in the day and I was smitten. Just from what I read I knew they these would be fabulous speakers. I even had some money for them so I called JBL coprporate to find out where I could listen to them. "We're sorry sir but we have no dealers in New England. How about New York? " WTF ? I know JBL's are rare up here but they didn't even TRY to get these into the Boston market.
Fast forward to 2001 where I picked up a mint pair of XPL140's on ebay from Denver. These fully ignited my long-dormant audiophile tendencies and set off a cataclysmic chain of events that saw most of my equipment upgraded. They were so much more revealing than anything I had owned up to that point. Unfortunately that same upgrade bug took out the XPL's a year later when I found some L250's.
But...
The XPL's were a fabulous footnote in JBL history. That titanium midrange has to be heard to be believed - especially if you love jazz. You will never hear a sax or trumpet rendered with quite as much clarity as on these.
As the reviewer suggests, the three-way XPL's really didn't have the low-end totally covered, but the rest of the speaker was pure magic. It's interesting that even he mentions the 140 as having lower bass extension than the 160 ( I had heard that but never seen it confirmed). As we all know, the real gem is the XPL200 with it's 4-way design but they are super rare and no bargain (rightly so).
I still have the XPL140's in the basement (with the stands) and I may someday set them up again. But they're still available for the first person who coughs up $500 plus shipping. They're worth every penny and I need the pennies for more upgrades elsewhere.
jblnut
Nice "personal-experience" review jblnut! ( very much appreciated )
Robh, Thanks for starting these "Stereophile- Review" threads.
,> Earl K
I always thought the XPL160 should have run a 3-inch coiled LE10H variant. Frankly I was shocked when I pulled the XPL160's out of their boxes and found a 127H variant. Good Grief!Originally Posted by Robh3606
Oh well, easily remedied in the DIY realm.
The XPL140's were fine and the XPL90's were fantastic. Shake 'em out of the boxes and fire 'em up. The XPL200's should have been running a 4-inch coiled twelve or, preferably, an LE14H variant. Also remedied in the DIY realm.
Reviving an old thread here to post an additional review.
The Audio critic,
Issue number 16. Spring-fall 1991
By Peter Aczel.
JBL Consumer Products inc, a Harman International Company.
240 Crossways Park West Woodbury Long Island NY 11797.
XPL160A floor-standing 3-way loudspeaker system, $2498.00 the pair.
Tested samples on loan from manufacturer
A major paradox of the loudspeaker industry: JBL makes the best drivers, has the slickest production techniques, and is both progressive and honest in the R & D area-yet there seems to be no truly first-class JBL speaker system for home use (as distinct from professional sound).
The XPL series is supposed to be JBL's breakthrough in the audiophile market, but on the basis of the XPL160A I can't confirm that. It's a frustrating, self-contradictory speaker.
In my review of the L-40t3 two issues ago, I called the proprietary pure-titanium 1" dome tweeter in that system the best known to me, bar none. I have to reiterate that opinion now, after having tested an updated version of the same tweeter in the XPL160A. And that's not all. The midrange driver in the XPl160A is designed around a pure-titanium 3" dome, a tour de force never before attempted to my knowledge, certainly not as successfully as in this remarkable unit. How they got rid of all the standing waves is beyond me, but they did. The two dome drivers are mounted as close together as possible and crossed over at 4 kHz to form what functions, in effect, as a single seamless 1kHz to 20kH transducer of the utmost flatness and smoothness. The two voice coils are wired out of phase, probably as a concomitant of a second-order network. There’s no high frequency peak, the rolloff starts at 20kHz, but stops and reverses a bit after 30kHz. The older version of the tweeter went out a few more kHz on axis, wasn't quite as well damped, and the off-axis rolloff began sooner. The double-dome combination has just about the same response 30 degrees off axis as on axis, meaning almost perfectly flat (when the microphone axis is at the most favorable height) and showing much smaller squiggles-maybe 2dB from peak to peak-than I've seen in any other drivers. No trace of ringing of any kind, either. If I were in charge of a new project to design a conventional electrodynamic speaker system, these are the drivers I'd like to specify because they're simply the best; unfortunately JBL keeps them strictly in-house.
So far so good-indeed, fantastic. The 10" woofer in its vented box is another matter. The 33" high cabinet itself is gorgeous-high gloss black lacquer finish, subtly nonparallel side walls (trapezoidal cross section), neoprene-lined baffle step to time-delay the domes (very impressive craftsmanship), elaborate open grille frame, and so forth-but the tuning of the woofer enclosure appears to be less than optimal. The box frequency, (where the displacement of the woofer cone is at a minimum) is 34 Hz, but the maximum output from the rearward facing vent is at 44 Hz, and that looks like the effective low-frequency cutoff of the system. I've seen deeper bass out of smaller boxes at the same efficiency (between 88 and 89 dB SPL at 1 meter with 1 watt input).
The paper cone of the woofer is, as far as I can tell, the downfall of this speaker system. Its frequency response is extremely flat, but there are -you guessed it- energy storage problems. Tone burst tests revealed definite ringing in the octave just above the crossover frequency of 800Hz, where the 12 dB per octave rolloff begins. (The 3" dome actually comes in just above 1 kHz, also with a 12B per octave slope, but for some reason there's no hole in the summed response, perhaps because the midrange and woofer are wired in phase, despite the second-order crossover.) If the otherwise excellent woofer were only used up to, say, 400Hz, there would be no problem, but with the 800Hz crossover the ringing in the 1kHz to 1.5 kHz range is insufficiently attenuated and becomes the signature of the speaker. I have a feeling that a you-must-use-what-we-have corporate policy was imposed on the engineers here. For all I know, the woofer was conceived for a totally different application; it's very good, for example, in terms of linear excursion-the Q doesn't change at all as the amplitude of a step function is increased.
The sound that results from this mixed bag of design elements is intriguing but ultimately unsatisfactory. Above 2kHz or so, everything is utterly neutral, transparent, and smooth as silk, as good as you'll ever get out of a forward firing system. The barely attenuated ringing immediately above the woofer's passband, however, is a pervasive coloration at all times and on all types of music. It comes off as a breathy hollowness, and it's right there in the midrange where you can't get away from it. I find it to be a disqualifying fault of what would otherwise be a stupendous-sounding loudspeaker, albeit somewhat light on the bottom end. The top-of the-line XPL200, which has been promised to me for review, has a 12" woofer and a separate lower-midrange driver covering the two octaves from 300Hz to 1.1kHz, so it probably avoids the same pitfall. Those titanium-dome drivers deserve the best possible system design.
"A major paradox of the loudspeaker industry: JBL makes the best drivers, has the slickest production techniques, and is both progressive and honest in the R & D area-yet there seems to be no truly first-class JBL speaker system for home use..."
I felt that way back in 1980, and with a couple of exceptions still feel that way... they sure do make some damn fine drivers though!
Widget
3" Ti dome mid
Gosh darn it! That three incher was sweet. That's what proved that Ti could be more than just a tweeter. That's what converted me from a normal speaker guy to a Titanium Dome kind of guy. The only way it could be better was if it were 4" and an inverted dome with pistonic drive.
Oh wait! The 904TI is available now.
That poor ten incher was good, but as quoted, mismatched. Shoulda been smaller and mated with a bigger woofer.
Oh wait! How about the 908TI and an LE14H-3?
Man I wish JBL made something like that! That would be sweet. That would be an audiophile speaker, eh?
http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/s...ead.php?t=3272
Last edited by Titanium Dome; 05-10-2005 at 08:55 PM. Reason: Enlightenment by Giskard (or a memory jog, at least).
Out.
Yeah, but just try to find two XPL200's let alone 5 ! And what are you going to use for a center to match that 250ti ? I love the XPL and Ti as much (or more) than the next guy but you have to admit for modern 5.1 systems it's hard to make the classic stuff work.
Unless you're a custom speaker and xover building guru or something....
jblnut
OK, those are nice, but what about those vinyl clad cabinets?
Well there's only one solution here.....own them all!!!
That's funny... I started in 1975 too... didn't try JBL until 1977. Boy most of those early systems I built really sucked.
Widget
D'oh!Gosh darn it! That three incher was sweet. That's what proved that Ti could be more than just a tweeter. That's what converted me from a normal speaker guy to a Titanium Dome kind of guy. The only way it could be better was if it were 4" and an inverted dome with pistonic drive.
Oh wait! The 104TI is available now.
That poor ten incher was good, but as quoted, mismatched. Shoulda been smaller and mated with a bigger woofer.
Oh wait! How about the 108TI and an LE14H-3?
Man I wish JBL made something like that! That would be sweet. That would be an audiophile speaker, eh?
http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/s...ead.php?t=3272
As Giskard kindly and privately reminds me:
Merci.104Ti and 108Ti
I think those drivers are the 904Ti and 908Ti.
Out.
They never get water stained.
Also, no splinters!
Out.
Just be carefull if Titanium Dome gets around the vinyl cabinets... he might want to do to those what he does with his performance series... you know... Touch, fondle and smell...
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