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Thread: Sad to say but this group forum is dead

  1. #61
    Senior Member Woofer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by brutal View Post
    The "Vintage JBL" Facebook group is kind of a joke. Apparently 90's big box JBL is "vintage" to some.
    You have to remember that 'most' of 'em are pretty young, so to them 90's IS vintage....
    I might be deaf, but I can still hear da bells! (Quasimodo)
    .... Oh, and the Kick Drum.

  2. #62
    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Woofer View Post
    I was dreadfully ill and diagnosed with stage 4 non small cell lung cancer, and given 2-3 months.
    The shock was devastating.
    After some (very fast) research, I discovered my hospital was starting trials in IMMUNOTHERAPY...
    Fantastic news! Thanks for sharing your uplifting story and keep us posted on your continued good health!


    Widget

  3. #63
    Senior Member Woofer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Widget View Post
    Fantastic news! Thanks for sharing your uplifting story and keep us posted on your continued good health!


    Widget
    Thanks heaps Widget.....
    I might be deaf, but I can still hear da bells! (Quasimodo)
    .... Oh, and the Kick Drum.

  4. #64
    RIP 2021 SEAWOLF97's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Widget View Post
    Fantastic news! Thanks for sharing your uplifting story and keep us posted on your continued good health!


    Widget
    I reacted the exact same way ... got distracted before could reply.
    Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles

  5. #65
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    Xennial here.

    I grew up with L112’s as a toddler. Through high school, I had JBL Sub Sat systems. By the time I got to college, I went from computer speakers (Klipsch Promedia) to finally getting the HLS-610. But like many in my generation, as we moved around to various apartments, the opportunity for floor standing speakers was limited. I went to Polk LSi’s for added bass and then finally ended up with Magnepan’s and Devialet Phantoms.

    The Arrays were out of my price point and I didn’t have time (or a large enough car) to get my L112’s refoamed. I was happy with Magnepans and dreamt of “one day” getting a Synthesis home theater.

    Fast forward to the present day. For as long as I can remember, my Magnepan setup was more enjoyable to anything I experienced at the theater. Then, I saw “A Star is Born” in the theater and the sound was incredible. This was with a JBL ScreenArray setup.

    I returned to JBL with a Studio 530, knowing it was the last GT/JM collaboration which quickly led to me adding a Studio 590 and then leading me to today, where I am flying an S/2600 from Japan back to the US.

    I give the story as background to emphasize the power of auditioning the Studio 530 in my home.

    If you go to forums such as AudioScienceReview or Reddit.com/r/audiophile you can see that there is still a large generation of young audiophiles. As demographics of home ownership have changed, today’s millennials are more into headphones than they are loudspeakers. You just need to look at drop.com and see the number of headphones they are selling. Almost 93000 pairs of the Sennheiser HD6XX were sold!
    But many of these owners are just waiting to reach a stage in their life where it will be possible to get into loudspeakers. The market isn’t dead — there is just a gap.

    JBL died when they no longer could get into brick and mortar stores and they stopped advertising and getting press in the magazines. All of the attention was on Revel since it was once an unproven brand. It’s impossible to get repair kits and drivers now. If not for the Japanese market, I think JBL would already have gone the route of Infinity.

    If I was in charge of Harman Luxury Audio, I would “reboot” the JBL brand and get them back into Best Buy / Magnolia. Samsung already buys floor space at BestBuy so there is already a precedent.

    At the expense of Harman, I would convert one of the Best Buy cinema rooms to a Synthesis room. It may even be possible to take over the Car Audio install bays. Best Buy wouldn’t sell Synthesis but would get a commission for sales through the existing Synthesis dealership network. The Synthesis room is to showcase JBL cinema technology which then would drive sales of their Bluetooth consumer gear and the Synthesis line.

    In exchange for a cinema demo room, the Magnolia sites would have Studio 530, Studio 590, the L100 and something like a 4367. The Studio 5’s are actually still in production in China. My 590 was manufactured October 2019.

    They don’t need a complete line (the way Best Buy doesn’t have a full line of McIntosh, Sonus Faber or Arcam) but it would give customers an opportunity to listen to what dynamic speakers sound like in comparison to the B&W that they have.

    The Studio 530 and 590 at Black Friday pricing gives Millenials a starting point in the setup and the L100 and 4367 gives Baby Boomers who haven’t thought about music in a while a nostalgic point of reference as well as a sample of the current state of the art.

    Just as audio engineers bringing home their monitors led to the success of the L100, there is a great opportunity to have Synthesis and the Best Buy/Magnolia salespeople choosing JBL for their own home setups.

  6. #66
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    Hi Alan,

    Great story.

    Here in Australia it’s a supply problem. No product for two years.
    The advertising for Synthesis is still up but they can’t get it.

    My impression from people l have spoken to is the Interest and Demand is turning to the legacy products!here locally, SoCal, HongKong and Europe. The price for a 2235H on EBay is going up. Those here who profess to gravitate to JBL SOA drivers are part of that group but represent a very small slice of a much larger pie of JBL legacy followers and they are prepared to wait a while to acquire the drivers for their project.

    If there is slowing of traffic on the LHS it’s not linked to what’s happening on the ground.

  7. #67
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    Colleagues;

    I wish to thank all those who contributed to this thread, the forum is not dead, but like all things it has changed somewhat. How many of us here can remember going to one anothers homes to listen to sound systems at listening partys, drinking cheap wine or western or eastern beer. That's all we had then. "Hey you just gotta hear my University Classics!" or maybe "I just finished my speakers and I'd like you to hear them. And so into the late night we'd listen to the Beatles,Stones, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and anon. All on vinyl.

    Most Hi-Fi outlets that had JBL or Altec, also had someone who could guide the consumer into building their own custom speaker systems. Here in the Northwest we had Speaker Lab that sold kits of speakers one could build.

    Who among us could forget the advanced industrial design of the original L-100, L-212, or the L-300. Gorgeous to behold.....and you could build your own, and you could feel the music. Those days seem to be gone, in an age when most people listen on headphones to mp3. the only time these people listen to systems is when they watch T-V.

    But who knows? Parts Express seems to be doing well, the audio salon is still around, and JBL appears to be doing well with the L 100 classic, and Klipsch with the Heritage line.

    I still engage in listening parties, with better wine and beer also, however we are all in our late 60's and 70's. enjoying each others systems and each others company. Do younger people do that?

    Regarding businesses, they have to evolve with the market, and so does JBL. Although I wouldn't give a plugged nickle for the recent Harman Management Team. I can't imagine they had any idea what they were doing, and were ruining to venerable companies while they were doing it.


    Hey Ian; Isn't Palm Springs a fascinating place? First time I was there I thought that maybe I'd been dropped into the middle of Sodom and Gomorrah.
    KEEP ON LISTENING!

  8. #68
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    Hi Ed,

    It’s good to hear stories of our Audio lives.

    With the smart phone now almost a permanent fixture a persons time is now taken up by just keeping up with all the Apps. The LHS is still a well visited site by lurkers.

    Yes l liked Palm Springs.

    We were interested in the Modernism architecture and plan to go back again.

  9. #69
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Kreamer View Post
    Colleagues;
    Who among us could forget the advanced industrial design of the original L-100, L-212, or the L-300. Gorgeous to behold.....and you could build your own, and you could feel the music. Those days seem to be gone, in an age when most people listen on headphones to mp3. the only time these people listen to systems is when they watch T-V.
    ...
    Still engage in listening parties, with better wine and beer also, however we are all in our late 60's and 70's. enjoying each others systems and each others company. Do younger people do that?
    I'm not yet 40, so here are my thoughts...

    - The ability to build your own stuff is definitely lost in 20 and 30 yo. Radio Shack and Fry's Electronics are gone. However, it's not completely gone. 3D printing has opening a new world of enthusiast manufacturing, however the build volumes are small (think 1 foot cube) and younger people are very used to IKEA furniture.
    - "Crafting" is actually quite popular -- it seems like Joann's (the fabric store) is only growing and thriving in a world where other retailers are suffering.
    - Even among traditional MP3 listeners, there is a progressive understanding that better gear = better sound and better source = critical. Services like Amazon Music HD are now streaming 24/192 and lossless tracks. Meridian MQA is giving high-resolution lossy streaming through Tidal with even Chinese hi-fi DACs supporting it. Headphones have seen a boom in the current young generation. Kids like music. JBL has sold 100 MILLION bluetooth speakers.
    - The lack of home ownership among millenials severely impacts the ability to setup dedicated hifi. The lack of home ownership is probably why most "younger" people go out to dinner rather than host something.
    - Movie soundtracks are a great way to get people introduced to the world of hifi audio. They're often well recorded and how many of us enjoy listening to the Star Wars Soundtrack or something from John Williams or Henry Mancini?




    Project May was designed to build a reference speaker using the most exotic flagship drivers.

    Imagine instead a Project "Timbers" which is intended to demonstrate the ability for this forum to develop a speaker that "brings the magic" and "sparks joy and curiosity" using low cost components. Yes, you could get a Studio 530 and keep it simple, but the process of building a speaker is definitely going to lead to bragging and the builder trying to get more people to sit down and listen, which is the goal.
    A super-budget build your own system could rely on something like
    1) IKEA catalog for wood (i.e. an IKEA Cutting Boards) to simplify things.
    2) Commonly available JBL woofer such as
    https://reconingspeakers.com/product...idrangewoofer/
    3) Low cost compression driver and horn like a Selenium D220Ti and HM17-25
    4) Then it would be about crossover design. I bet that you could make a baby-Array 500 with a vertical horn that would be buildable in a weekend and beat a lot of speakers out there and work great in a small room.

    Use movie soundtracks or even youtube music videos and help people hear the difference. Even lossy MP3 level compression sounds better with a good speaker
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhAS_GnJIc
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo_efYhYU2A

  10. #70
    Senior Member grumpy's Avatar
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    Perhaps do a google search on "Zilch Econowave" and see what happens

  11. #71
    Senior Member RMC's Avatar
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    Hi Alan,

    Nice to hear from someone under 40.

    RE "... how many of us enjoy listening to the Star Wars Soundtrack or something from John Williams..."

    Not 24/192 streaming, but could the following 1978 LP record be what you were referring to? Regards,

    Richard

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  12. #72
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    https://www.npr.org/2019/08/24/75387...e-price-of-one

    This is the reference quality recording I mentioned on the other thread.

    Available in digital FLAC from usual sources, as well as LP
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07T3G4Z45/ref=tmm_fbs_vnl_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=


  13. #73
    Senior Member duaneage's Avatar
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    I don't post like I used to. Life gets in the way like that.
    I came here 17 years ago looking for drivers to make a pair of 4411 speakers. I succeeded and still have them today. I contributed a lot of projects and posts, bought and sold drivers, and made a few friends along the way.

    JBL has moved on for sure but those of us who prefer our old systems are still the party faithful.

    I decided today to start a new project and post it all. Originally I conceived it 6 years ago and never followed through. What the forum needs is fresh content from time to time to counter the usual questions about system price on eBay and what to do about bad surrounds.

    Hopefully we can get another 20 years here.
    Why buy used when you can build your own?

  14. #74
    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by duaneage View Post
    Hopefully we can get another 20 years here.
    Here here!

    Thanks for sharing... looking forward to seeing your project!


    Widget

  15. #75
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    Thanks for posting your project.

    I agree the forum needs fresh new content from time to time.

    A while back now a small number of forum members feasted on and were spoilt by the mighty Giskard efforts to obtain more current JBL driver offerings. This has polarised opinions and the volume content on these drivers in general which is unfortunate.

    The reality is only a small handful of members received these more contemporary drivers while the overwhelming forum population possess real legacy drivers and systems.

    As proved with Greg when l last spent time with him even the now vintage 4331 can put in a commendable performance against the Everest DD67000 when set up in the hands of a world class engineer.

    Trust your ears and seek out the real facts.

    Obtaining the best possible outcome with a legacy system can be compared to the lap time on a car race track. The best driver in the slowest car will always beat the worst driver in fasted car. That’s of course if the worst driver doesn’t crash on the first lap. This is the problem with an audio amateur attempting to build a loudspeaker with expensive soa drivers.

    Hence l always support those who want to obtain the best best sound reproduction from legacy drivers and systems.

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