JBL 4333AWX & McIntosh DREAM system!

congrats LiOH, those are beautiful 4333's. Did you have Kenrick finish them in a glossy finish?
Kenji & Rick are very tight lipped in the fact that he doesn't want everyone knowing which products or methods they use to finish their speakers. As for the veneer, it's a traditional oil finish. Kenji had them waxed before shipping them to my house.
 
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The 4333A's are great speakers. Grats. The Mc amps are not my pick for 'dream amps' for those though, at least in any reasonably sane price range there are a few others I'd like to try.

Happy listening!
 
Here's a song that I uploaded a while ago, please enjoy it! It's recorded with a studio microphone this time, but it's still nowhere even close to what it's like in person. If you can, try to select 1080p50HD.

Whoa!! A mere recording won't even come close to these babies, but the sounds in the guitars are crazy!! I'm sure it's heavenly in person. Thank you Lioh.
 
Cool thread. As a young man starting off, the price tags on these items can be distressing. But its encouraging to see folks allowing themselves to enjoy what they've worked hard for. Heck, if people can own boats or sports cars, what's the cost of some Kenrick monitors?

A good reminder that there's always more to discover. Thanks, and enjoy :)
Boats and sports cars spend a lot of time sitting and being repaired in the course of their ownership.
Great HI FI gear is a much better value and a lot better return on the enjoyment you receive from ownership, in my opinion.
Great system.
 
The OP forgot to mention about the upgraded wiring Kenji did inside the speakers with leather surrounds on the 15" woofers! :idea:
 
:wtf: are you talking about??
KRS Artificial Leather Surround

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KRS Artificial Leather Surround
Oh boy, Frankenwoofer! Are you sure these didn't come from Russia? :D

Well, KRS simply refers to KenRickSound. I wonder why "artificial leather" is assumed to be an improvement. How does it affect the performance of the speaker with respect to its original parameters? I'm assuming this was done to improve on the life-span of the original foam surrounds?

I recently sold a beautiful, low miles, Mercedes E-Class sedan we took in trade. Exceptional condition. Obviously garage kept. It had the Mercedes "artificial leather" interior which they call MB-Tex. The only flaw in the car was severe cracking of the MB-Tex along the sides (vertical) of the front-seat bottoms. Where good-old real leather would still be supple and compliant, the "artificial" leather had dried out and cracked. And if you think the Japanese have a better solution, I'll send you a photo of the vinyl seats on my Toyota truck with 80,000 miles on it.

On the contrary, the leather seats in my 1995 daily driver BMW 5-series are soft, supple, and perfect. Even the leather on my once-daily-driver 1987 BMW 5-series is in good shape, and it's never seen the inside of a garage! The "artificial leather" dashboard? Not so good!

Oh well. I'd like to see some comparisons in performance with and without KRS Artificial Leather surrounds. Maybe you've actually got an improvement over the original JBL transducer design. I'm willing to be enlightened. Meanwhile, I'll just continue to enjoy the foam surrounds on 18-inch and 10-inch drivers on my 4345s the way they are.

:beerchug:
 
Oh boy, Frankenwoofer! Are you sure these didn't come from Russia? :D

Well, KRS simply refers to KenRickSound. I wonder why "artificial leather" is assumed to be an improvement. How does it affect the performance of the speaker with respect to its original parameters? I'm assuming this was done to improve on the life-span of the original foam surrounds?

BMWCCA, That's correct. KRS = Kenrick Sound. Kenji ran various tests and offered them as an upgrade along with everything else. Will they sound any better? Probably not.
 
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That's correct. KRS = Kenrick Sound. Kenji ran various tests and offered them as an upgrade along with everything else. He told me they would not give me any trouble, nor will they dry up if cared for correctly. The life expectancy will apparently be many times greater than stock, too.

So . . . what does "cared for correctly" require?

And, since in general I seem to get over twenty-years out of a foam surround (and I doubt at this point in my life I'd need anything with a longer life than me), I'd be curious to know how or why this is an "upgrade"?

Thanks
 
Jeeze , this guy post photos of incredibly beautiful speakers and all you guys want to do is bash them.

For the OP, beautiful speakers, amazing system, everyone here is jealous, some people just show it in different ways! well done!
 
Very nice setup. Thank you for sharing your system, beautiful speakers, amplifier and all. :thumbsup:

I do have a few questions:
How big is the room they are in?
How far back from the speakers do you sit?
With the speakers on the stands as shown, is the tweeter at ear level, above or below?​
 
We're talking about a company that restores JBL speakers in unimaginable ways, aren't we? The material the OP mentions isn't the same material used in cars, clothes, coffee mugs, or anything else. I'm sure it would be interesting to hear from Kenrick Sound about the benefits they bring, but I would trust Kenrick Sounds judgement before I trust someone's experience with clothes or cars. :thumbsup:
 
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Great thread OP, thanks for sharing. Love what Kenrick does and wish I had enough dough to do what you did. Surrounds I would not worry about as some on here would suggest. I am guessing Kenrick knows more about JBL speaks and drivers than AK brethren do. Enjoy the new equipment!
 
I mean, what does Kenrick sound know about restoring high end vintage JBL's? Obvious amateurs.
That would assume that Kenrick knows more about JBLs than . . . JBL. To change surround material and make a claim of "better bass" is easy. Proving it would be simple by measured parameters of the new configuration. To assume (or claim) that Kenji et al know more about JBLs than JBL, or Greg Timbers, late of JBL and the designer of many of the systems we're talking about here, is borderline silly. Just as it is silly to parrot the sales pitch that JBL's expertise in network design peaked in the '80s and went downhill ever since.

And I'm a fan of Kenrick, and own a pair of 4345s with cabinets built by the Rick of KenRick, populated with new and original JBL components with custom-built charge-couple crossovers from a circuitry designed by Greg Timbers as an improvement over the technology available at the time the originals were designed—also by Greg Timbers! So, I'm not opposed to improving on the original, where it can be done. I'd just like to know a bit more about the improvements and how they compare to the original design, and measurements of the modified driver versus the original would be easy for someone in the business. Many with 4333s have improved the bass response by substituting the original 15-inch drivers with the later 2235.

I'm not jealous of the OP. I'm happy he's happy, and I understand how proud he is of his new acquisitions. It's just a bit disingenuous to make claims of superiority, to sanctimoniously claim that only this system is worthy of respect, and that snake-oil surrounds are "better" without even comparing them to the originals.

I love my JBL KenRick 4345 "clones". They're not "original" either, since they only made some 200 pair of my style monitor. But, like Lioh, I love mine, I'm transfixed by their audio performance, and I simply love looking at them and knowing they'll be with me forever. They've also been with me for eight-years, next month, so I'm not one to claim I've reached audio Nirvana every few months!
 
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