ranking JBL 3 way bookshelves

[jblsound]

I made the mistake of buying an HLS center channel about 8 or 10 years ago.
...pure garbage!

That would fit right in with my comment about them being sold in Monkey Wards and Sears. Not exactly HiFi shops. Of coarse, that was the prelude to them showing up in BB, which only carried low end JBLs.

[coherent_guy]

I made the mistake of buying an HLS center channel about 8 or 10 years ago.
...pure garbage!

What did you expect for the price? I will again say they were not half bad. They had real binding posts and film caps in the X-overs, things that cannot be said for some original L series speakers. They were designed to a price point obviously. I imagine the JBL engineers that worked on them enjoyed your comment.

[Minatogawaman]

I agree with those who have posted LSR6332 or LSR32. These speakers are current-hungry, but they use this power to blow away pretty much anything else in their price range. Their butt-ugliness becomes charming unpretentiousness after extended listening. Hell, my wife even puts up with them after hearing Bach's Partitas on them.

I have 4425 now, and have had L112 (excellent), all manner of Lancers and so forth, but the LSR is clearly the King in our little castle.

Chris

[Akira]

i vote for 4310.

Yes the Grand Daddy of them all is still my favorite!

Of course 40 years of advancements have yielded superior speakers, but there is something musical about that box.

[robertbartsch]

My JBL HLS center channel HT speaker was NOT cheap. At close to $300 when purchased 10 years ago, the comparable price in today's dollars, considering inflation, is close to $650.

The HLS speaker has a very small plastic compression horn and two small cone drivers each under 6 inches in diameter. The speakers are not capable of reproducing the full audio spectrum which is a basic requirement for a center channel speaker. In addition, the accustic efficency of the speaker is dismal- requiring relatively large amounts of power to generate very moderate SPL.

For the large price and lousy performance, I consider this product from JBL to be a pure rip off of consumers.

Rare for JBL but never-the-less and unfortunately TRUE!