Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 33

Thread: 43xx series poor imaging???

  1. #1
    Senior Member Akira's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Posts
    327

    43xx series poor imaging???

    i have heard it said on this forum that the 43xx series were not good imaging speakers compared to modern ones like vandersteens.
    i couldn’t disagree more!!!!!
    those monitors had excellent imaging...how do you think they became the choice of recording engineers around the world?
    if i place a hi-hat 70 degrees to the left, it will be reproduced with every nuance exactly in the position it is assigned so clearly that you can physically see it. dido for every instrument in the entire spatial mix.
    JBL’s are first and foremost professional recording studio monitors and they are designed to function in an acoustically correct environment, and as such do not respond as well as some other high end products in a home environment. studio monitors are meant to be flush mounted. if you play your JBL's in a regular home environment you are seriously degrading the sound.
    want to talk poor imaging/ phase coherency? here is a simple experiment: set up your JBL’s outdoors placed against a wall or solid fence. after a careful but short listening session move them out to a position where there is no interference in all directions. (anechoic) you will be shocked at the difference. in the first example the back wall is totally out of phase with the box. multiply this with 3 separate cross over points and you have a poor imaging speaker.
    a speaker is still a speaker. while modern speakers are advertised as phase coherent, this is not exactly accurate. anytime you have multiple speakers, where ever one driver takes over from another, you are introducing an anomaly. where modern speakers have an advantage is they tend to be two way, (plus sub) and right away cut down on problems due to their improved extended range. the only system that is truly phase coherent is a dual concentric system where the drivers are physically mounted into a single form, coupled with a sophisticated cross over, preferably an electronic outboard system with time aligned phase tuning. tannoy DMT's do this but, they do not represent an improvement over the 43xx series as they introduce other problems, namely a noticeable discrepancy between the size of the image of the horn and the speaker and vastly different tonality characteristics between the two drivers.
    another consideration is psycho acoustics. have you ever wondered why on some days your JBL's sound phenomenal...clean, wide open with that rich textured effortless sound...the speaker just floats. on other days, the system doesn't quite sound the same...everything is there but, something is missing. this is due to a combination of psycho acoustics, humidity, program, phase coherence (more of a problem in a 4 way) and most of all gain structure. let me explain. a sound tech with 5 years pro experience will deliver a well balanced mix with decent tonality, similar to a musician who has reached a state of fluency where he can fly around a drum kit. this is quite different than an accomplished session man who can lay in a simple groove that sounds like pure musicality coming off his limbs. an accomplished recording engineer does the exact same thing! the goal is to perfectly place the mix in the monitor so it "floats" and achieves that effortless, full bodied sound. in other words, you build your instrument tonality and gain structure to achieve perfect phasing within the box. this is why JBL used to refer to their products as MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS...THEY WERE CALLED THE 43XX SERIES.
    finally, i am not saying that the 43xx series was the be all and end all of monitors and speakers in general. today's systems on the ultra high end are superior because they benefit from 70 years of technology...but, keep that in perspective. newer does not automatically mean better. if you used vandersteens to mix a program and played it back on JBL's it's not gonna sound anywhere as good as the same product produced on a JBL and played back on a vandersteen.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Lancer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Posts
    473
    Vandersteens!?

    OMG! Where do you guys come up with these 'stoopid' speaker names?

    Doesn't Vandersteen make sandals or hand bags or something?

    how do you think they became the choice of recording engineers around the world?

    Because they were cool looking.

    JBL’s are first and foremost professional recording studio monitors and they are designed to function in an acoustically correct environment, and as such do not respond as well as some other high end products in a home environment. studio monitors are meant to be flush mounted. if you play your JBL's in a regular home environment you are seriously degrading the sound.

    We know that. We've been over and over and over this from day one when the forum first started. I stated it then and numerous times since. I finally stopped harping about it after I realized I couldn't give a rat's ass what people did with their Studio Monsters, never mind the fact that people kept going over and over and over this.

    Anyway, thanks for the post just the same.

  3. #3
    Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Posts
    40
    Wow, what a timely topic (for me )

    I have the 4333s which I think are just fabulous, but I've always thought they do not image as well as other modern speakers I had - don't shoot me.

    So last week, I picked up a Behringer DEQ2496 to see if I could improve things. For those not familar with the DEQ2406, its an RTA, equalizer plus a hosts of other functions I haven't even looked at yet.

    Anyway, I ran the RTA and discovered that my room (about 26"x30") has a huge peak (of 15db) around 16kHz. This only occurs on the left channel. I have in the past always thought the left channel was somewhat louder, and this confirms it. Of course, there also other dips and peaks on both channels, but this one is the biggie.

    I used the DEQ2496 to flatten the response but so far, I've only listened to the new setting for 10 mins so I can't say whether things has improved.

    My question is what now? Do I leave the equalizations in there permanently? Apply room treatment to tame the room? Build a new wall to flush mount the speakers ? I'm not sure the wife will like the last option.

  4. #4
    Senior Member JBLnsince1959's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    KC - land of ahhhhs
    Posts
    1,795
    Quote Originally Posted by kevf
    Wow, what a timely topic (for me )


    My question is what now? Do I leave the equalizations in there permanently? Apply room treatment to tame the room? Build a new wall to flush mount the speakers ? I'm not sure the wife will like the last option.
    Simple, just build a new room that is an acoustically correct environment.

  5. #5
    RIP 2011 Zilch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Berkeley, CA
    Posts
    9,963
    For under $300, nothin's as much fun or as useful as your UltraCurve Pro.

    15 dB's a MAJOR anomaly, though. I'd use the DEQ to track down the cause. Swap the two cabinets to determine if it's the speaker or the room.

    Hone in on the problem from there. I would not leave that much EQ operating all of the time.

    My UltraCurve PEQ and FBD provide a high-pass filter for my woofers here. The GEQ I only use for design work. The RTA is on all of the time. I can't listen anymore without it.

  6. #6
    Administrator Robh3606's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Rocinante
    Posts
    8,170
    "Anyway, I ran the RTA and discovered that my room (about 26"x30") has a huge peak (of 15db) around 16kHz."

    That seems odd. That's way up there and is well above where you would normally have issues due to room interaction. You switch speaker cables to make sure it's not upstream??

    Rob

  7. #7
    Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Posts
    40
    Quote Originally Posted by Robh3606
    " You switch speaker cables to make sure it's not upstream??

    Rob
    I know...my first thought was equipment problem too. And I suspected 30 year old crossover may be the culpit. But I swapped the speakers cabs (left to right) and got the same problematic response curve. I also changed to another amp just to make sure its not the amp as well.

    Now the room walls are asymmetric so I would expect some differences between left and right, but wow..the left/right curves are completely different. The dips and peaks (some fairly large) are in all different freqs.

    As Zilch said, the DEQ2496 is a great unit. I've read about room acoustic before, but this unit makes it great fun to experiment and see results.

    I'm going to try and track down the cause of this.

  8. #8
    Administrator Robh3606's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Rocinante
    Posts
    8,170
    "those monitors had excellent imaging...how do you think they became the choice of recording engineers around the world?"

    Hello Akira


    I doubt if that had anything to do with it. This whole imaging thing is from the Audiophille movement which was just begining when many of these 1970"s vintage designs were first introduced. Sure you wanted an image but not to the same extent as demanded these days. What you need is excellent clarity, dynamic range and balance. That to me is where they excell. Sure they can image very well if you are careful with driver level and balance, toe in and position but that IMHO is not their strongest suit. Many of these designs such as the Urei 8XX and 4331 have some abrupt changes in DI and this makes them more difficult to integrate into a room than the more modern designs. The 4400 was developed along the line to make integration easier with a constant directivity horn smoother power response with less EQ required. Take a look at the DI curves for the Urie 811, 4333, 4343, 4430 in gets better in each design requiring less EQ and easier integration. If you look the 4way 4343 is the best of the bunch for the larger monitors while the small formats simply excell with their horizontal DI curves and on axis frequency response and time domain response. Many of these smaller systems image better than their larger brothers.

    If you have not seen these take a look it's good reading.

    http://audioheritage.csdco.com/vbull...ead.php?t=4408

    http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/...monitoring.htm



    Rob

  9. #9
    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    9,720
    Quote Originally Posted by kevf
    Anyway, I ran the RTA and discovered that my room (about 26"x30") has a huge peak (of 15db) around 16kHz. This only occurs on the left channel.
    There is no way a room is doing that. You have a problem somewhere.

    Widget

  10. #10
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    7,942
    The Vandersteens last time I looked are geared towards a phase and transient perfect transfer function by staggering the baffles and using low order crossover slopes. They are a nice classic boutique audiophile loudspeaker with a loyal following, but they are not for everyone.

    While on the one hand they may have certain ideal crossover characteristics in terms of impulse response, their drivers are outclassed by the low power compression of the JBL's and once you get get over the 105 db barrier which most hifi speaker can't cut this is where the JBL legacy comes into play.
    The sound gets bigger more powerful and more real, not necessarily louder.

    In subjective comparions the Vandersteens sound like and an old 50's radio set (muffled).

    That has nothing to do with horizontal dispersion or interaction with a listening room. Every loudspeaker will integrate differently with a given room and all rooms also tend to react differently. Where you or your spouse decides to put the Texas bookshelf will utimately determine the fate of the imaging and almost always this is far from ideal. ......the vase, the lamp, the family photo's!

    The whole business of studio environment is a totally different kettle of fish to playing back a vinyl recording in the home. There are certain advantages in having uniform Di across the whole spectrum but that can only come into play with the right complimentry acoustic environment. Wide dispersion can be a problem with poorly placed loudspeakers....no matter how nicely its done.

    Anyway, as our new junior member Lancer (who sounds more and more like a recycled senior member with each day passing) said its an old topic but one to hold in perspective.

  11. #11
    RIP 2009
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Rohnert Park, CA
    Posts
    3,785
    Quote Originally Posted by Ian Mackenzie
    (who sounds more and more like a recycled senior member with each day passing)
    Nah - I think that guy got burnt out trying to answer so many ridiculous questions...



    John

  12. #12
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    7,942
    Looks more like my average day in the office.....

    I have to say this is the funniest post I've seen for a while!

  13. #13
    Senior Member Lancer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Posts
    473

    Owned!

    Quote Originally Posted by johnaec
    Nah - I think that guy got burnt out trying to answer so many ridiculous questions...



    John
    D'oh!
    Attached Images Attached Images  

  14. #14
    Administrator Robh3606's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Rocinante
    Posts
    8,170
    Geez that poor girl that must have hurt!!

    Rob

  15. #15
    Senior Member Lancer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Posts
    473
    I'd imagine it was a trip to the ER.

    It was probably an episode on Discovery Health channel.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. L100 and 43XX Monitor Legacy
    By Don McRitchie in forum Lansing Product General Information
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 05-22-2012, 08:09 AM
  2. L212, L250, 250Ti, XPL250, Performance Series
    By Titanium Dome in forum Lansing Product General Information
    Replies: 25
    Last Post: 02-26-2006, 02:51 PM
  3. Performance Series Expanded, "New" K2
    By Titanium Dome in forum Lansing Product General Information
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 01-30-2005, 02:47 PM
  4. List of JBL info
    By Donald in forum Lansing Product General Information
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 10-27-2004, 04:17 AM
  5. JBL 4430 vs 43XX balance argument
    By slxrti in forum Lansing Product Technical Help
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 05-13-2003, 08:21 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •