Originally Posted by
Ian Mackenzie
Hi jBL Guy,
I like your humour and your right.
Way back in normal normal 2008 I spent two weeks in JP with our friend Steve K who guided me around the HiFi mafia of Electric City.
Most of the evenings were spent embracing something close to the most pure alcohol but we did sneak in some jBL time.
One bar we visited was old school with barely room to move. On the bar they had a pair of Pass Aleph 2's. A match made in heaven pumping 140 watts of glorious SE power through a pair of gorgeous 4343's soffit mounted. It was all vinyl and really cool Jazz being played back then. Verbal speaking was forbidden....An amazing experience. No chatting.
To sum it up they know their music and they know their hifi. If you think you've got you head around hifi or the high end in the USA that's cool. We all have our journey that's for sure.
But its all about style if you've got deep enough pockets. I visited several high rise hifi establishments while in the hifi district and its not uncommon for the President of Toyota apparently to arrive in a convey and spend several hours listening to a system with the whole top three floors to himself and then raising his eye brows. The transaction is done.
An important decision. No waf to be considered.
It's a whole different level of understanding to appreciate what hifi means to them. It's deeply embraced in symbolism and its spiritual. They worship their sound systems. I do too and so do you and this is why a JBL system is the peak of the mountain to them. Keep improving the 4343's as JBL did.... both in the USA and in Japan and it reaches the peak of their mountain. That's what JBL did. A decade later the S9800 arrived. Greg Timbers was their god without any doubt. Greg had their absolute true which is a really big deal in the Japanese culture.
Back down on planet earth you can make any system sing within reason if your put the effort in for long enough.
Unfortunately, in recent times those bar's have declined because things change. It's pretty sad. And that is why when someone NEW turns ups up HERE and no matter how crazy their ideas are I try and help them because they are the future of this legacy. Isn't that our cause? No question is too difficult. At the start we all knew nothing. Fuck all.
It's not about you and its not about me. It's about nurturing the next generation and the generation after that. What's the big difference with JBL? Why? And helping fulfil their experience with JBL. Their journey might take 20 years just like it did yours and mine and then they will pass on what they've learned and experienced.
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