Originally Posted by
BMWCCA
They gave me today off since I worked every day last week (end of the year). So, after a brief stop at work to make sure they hadn't f'd up something, I decided it was a good time to rub some more Watco into the L100 grille frame walnut strips. And, or course, I had to play them. Those female banana jack pigtails really make it much easier to swap the leads out so I ended up playing the L100s, L7, S38, and then the DCM TimeFrame 600s. They all sounded nice. The L7 is just superb and makes a comparison with the others really unfair though.
So then I had the TF600 playing aimed to the "craft" area in the basement an hooked up another JBL pair to the Crown Studio Reference-II jacks in the "speaker" area, and went to another area to install a headlight lens in a BMW motorcycle fairing. The bike is one of 200 sold in the USA (R100RS Motorsport) but it came to me recently with an odd-looking lens fitment. After studying what it was about the lens that bugged me and realizing that it had a later lens but installed in the correct year "tunnel", I discovered it was only on the very earliest of any of the R100RS models that had the correct lens for this Motorsport. And I'd purchased my first R100RS, a '78, in November of 1977 so I knew it looked wrong. So I ordered one from a used-parts store in the Netherlands which arrived last week. Figured I'd just put it in while listening to the David Crosby "Lighthouse" album produced by that Snarky Puppy guy, Michael League.
When I went back over to the speaker section of the basement I sat for a moment in one of the Poang chairs and thought how nice the tone balance of the L100s was on this album, and how smooth the transition from the fairly deep bass was to the vocals. And then I realized I was actually listening to one of my JBL Pro-III Plus sets that I'd recently replaced surrounds on after paying twenty-bucks for the set including sub off Craig's List.
I mention this at all because I was never a true believer in the L100, even from Day One. But I thought they actually sounded pretty good—until I realized I was playing a $20 JBL setup with tiny monitors and a single passive sub with only an 8-inch driver!!! The mystique of the L100 was lost on me and I ended up listening to the album again from the beginning on the little Pro-III Plus system. I never have realized why I'm so pleased with these and they never get any mention. (shrug)