Yamaha MX-600U + JBL L100 = No Love

well yes they did. maybe your right. i grew up with my dads l100s remember them as great speakers.i was very surprised when i got the 4311, sounded like crap before i switched cables on the mid.
but was still very hars. replaced the caps but to no vail. oh well they are long gone!
 
well yes they did. maybe your right. i grew up with my dads l100s remember them as great speakers.i was very surprised when i got the 4311, sounded like crap before i switched cables on the mid.
but was still very hars. replaced the caps but to no vail. oh well they are long gone!
I realize not everyone has this option but a tube pre-amp really smooths the L100 out.
 
Never tried. But i can imagine that.
Built a tube pre in a sattelite TV receiver chassis. with a single ecc88 and walnutveener front some years after. I still have it somwhere. Im surprised how Good it actualy sounds. I guess less can be more
 
Interesting, I was reading a discussion about L100 crossover overhaul and someone stated he found the midrange wired out of phase as well. Mine were from the original owner, I don't think anyone messed with them. They sound much better now with a proper source.

Bear in mind that some crossovers create 180 degree phase shift at the crossover point so the midrange is intentionally wired in reverse polarity.
 
Spent more time listening to my DAC and Yamaha/L100. The amount of details I'm hearing is mind blowing, at times it seems it's too much and actually distracts from music. I haven't yet decided if this is the kind of sound I want to live with, but it no doubt makes listening very interesting. Thinking about adding a tube buffer, or maybe trying a darker sounding DAC. The sound is very 3D, the speakers pretty much disappear when I close my eyes, well literally and spatially.
 
The JBL needs a less brash, less overbright sounding amplifier to sound best. Yamaha is not a good match. I find Yamaha a bit bright, but that is personal tastes. I find Bryston much more neutral and accurate when I need forensic (i.e, the Studio in working mode)
 
I realize not everyone has this option but a tube pre-amp really smooths the L100 out.

I'm now in complete agreement with this statement. I started off with my Sony phone as the source with disappointing results which led me to starting this thread, I then tried a stand-alone DAC - Centrance DACMini CX, it was a major improvement but I wasn't quite happy still, it is a nice resolving DAC but it tends to be a bit accented and dry in the midrange which yielded somewhat nervous presentation with the L100s, it is fun to listen to at first but in the end turns out a bit tiring and distracting from music. I then got hold of Arcam rDac which has a slightly different sound signature, it is more low-end happy and overall not as smooth as the Centrance but somehow it resulted in a more coherent sound. There was some mushiness in the low end the highs were a tad sibilant but I was mostly satisfied with the results. Then finally I threw in a tube pre-amp, well it is actually more of a headphone amp with line-level output. It is the Darkvoice 336SE from Massdrop, Chi-fi it is but one of the better specimens. Not very impressive sounding with the stock Chinese tubes, but extra $20 worth of old USA made replacements goes a long way. That was it. The vocals came alive, bass tightened up, and the highs smoothed out. There is definite synergy between tube coloration and L100 sound signature. Same Yamaha amp. I realize my system isn't going to win any critical listening contests but I can't stop listening to it is so much fun now, guess it makes me another happy L100 owner, but not without some trial and error.
 
I'm now in complete agreement with this statement. I started off with my Sony phone as the source with disappointing results which led me to starting this thread, I then tried a stand-alone DAC - Centrance DACMini CX, it was a major improvement but I wasn't quite happy still, it is a nice resolving DAC but it tends to be a bit accented and dry in the midrange which yielded somewhat nervous presentation with the L100s, it is fun to listen to at first but in the end turns out a bit tiring and distracting from music. I then got hold of Arcam rDac which has a slightly different sound signature, it is more low-end happy and overall not as smooth as the Centrance but somehow it resulted in a more coherent sound. There was some mushiness in the low end the highs were a tad sibilant but I was mostly satisfied with the results. Then finally I threw in a tube pre-amp, well it is actually more of a headphone amp with line-level output. It is the Darkvoice 336SE from Massdrop, Chi-fi it is but one of the better specimens. Not very impressive sounding with the stock Chinese tubes, but extra $20 worth of old USA made replacements goes a long way. That was it. The vocals came alive, bass tightened up, and the highs smoothed out. There is definite synergy between tube coloration and L100 sound signature. Same Yamaha amp. I realize my system isn't going to win any critical listening contests but I can't stop listening to it is so much fun now, guess it makes me another happy L100 owner, but not without some trial and error.
Glad you saw the light.I had used my L100s with a variety of 70s receivers and after an initial love affair the shine began to wear off.All the shortcomings mentioned about the speaker started to show.Especially when compared to another set of speakers in rotation.So much so that they fell by the wayside...never got used for a couple of years.Then someone recommended tube amplification.I didn't have tube gear but happened across an Audio Research SP8 tube pre.Played a Chick Corea clean first pressing of " Return To Forever" lp.Wow! I was blown away by the sound of these speakers.
This is what they were meant for.The other gear in the lineup was a Hafler DH200 and a Sony 8750 tt.These L100s that I listed an cl briefly before changing my mind are now a permanent part of this setup.You'll always have your detractors of the L100 but I think for the most part they haven't heard them in an optimal setup.
 
As others suggested a warmer sounding amp should have probably helped as well but I think adding a tube in the signal path takes it a step further. This makes me curious what equipment did JBL engineers use when they were designing these speakers, was SS already widespread in the late 60s/early 70s?
 
Solid State amps of decent repute were not really available in the late 60's and early 70's, primarily because of the fragility of germanium output transistors, relatively primitive and relatively low power silicon outputs plus very few complementary pairs (NPN/PNP) so many of the first SS amps were quasi-complimentary, and many were still capacitor coupled.

As you may know, the JBL 4310 / L100 / 4311 were designed by JBL engineers to emulate the sound of the then dominant Altec-Lansing 604 Co-Axial driver / speaker system that many US recording and film studios used for over a decade in the late 50's through the 60's. Also, many larger rooms and studios had A7 Voice of the Theater speakers as monitors and playback. When multi-track and multi-channel recording was invented and came into vogue with new Rock N Roll (Beatles, et. al.) there was a need for more compact speakers to monitor each track. JBL worked with Hollywood's Capitol Records needs and came up with the 4310. This speaker needed to be sensitive as the tube and early solid state amps of the time were still in use, think less than 60 watts of decent power, and likely transformer coupled. That's one reason why the crossover is so minimal to minimize insertion loss. So the probability is the L100 series was designed with the better Marantz, McIntosh, and Harmon Kardon tube amps as power.

The speaker does sound like the 604 coax as used in studio environments, and that sound was well known to recording engineers of the era - they knew it wasn't flat but it was a known quantity and familiar. The JBL 4310 and subsequent 4311 were very popular and useful as control room monitors while the larger 4320 (and later L200/L200B) were the big boys when greater volume was needed. JBL soon found lots of the 4310/4311's were making their way to Engineer's and studio folks' homes because they sounded good with RnR and the walnut cabinets (or studio gray) were decent looking - JBL was also recently sold and the new marketing people saw an opportunity to create a consumer model with Professional roots tie-in - and that's how the L100 (vertical array, then the offset array) was created. The bold and unique waffle colored Quadrex was also a great industrial design statement and really brought JBL a lot of recognition and popularity - even today, its one of the most recognizable speakers in the world.

The L100 doesn't suffer early to middle Solid State amps well - many SS amps had poor sounding electrolytic caps in the signal chain, and techniques to mitigate the harshness of SS amplification hadn't been developed till well into the late 70's and 80's. Some older vintage SS amp designs still work pretty well, and judicious rebuilding with good film caps in the signal chain replacing the electrolytics can really improve them.

more about the L100 here:
http://www.audioheritage.org/html/profiles/jbl/l100.htm

l100-431x.jpg
L100.jpg
 
Well, there seem to be arguments claiming SS or tube produce superior sound I think everyone is in agreement that SS and tube gear sound different. Considering it was the tube amps that JBL engineers used to tune these speakers, why would anyone expect them to sound just as good with SS?
 
Well, there seem to be arguments claiming SS or tube produce superior sound I think everyone is in agreement that SS and tube gear sound different. Considering it was the tube amps that JBL engineers used to tune these speakers, why would anyone expect them to sound just as good with SS?

Well, to be fair, not all people felt, feel, or believe there are any differences in the sound of "well designed and well executed" amplifiers, regardless of type of device or amplification technology or topology - a good sounding amp should be a good sounding amp - but sometimes system synergy, ease of drive, and a whole host of other issues complicate the matter.

Certainly, a lot of us have JBL speakers of that era driven by great and average solid state gear and those combos sound pretty darn good anyways. What is most fun is finding the right combo that works for you, then have fun!
 
My L-100s (originals, not "A"s), sounded by far the best with my Fisher 500C.
All my solid state amps, emphasized the "boom and tiz" of these speakers.
That said, Fisher is gone and I still have the JBLs, but no longer in rotation.
Match up is critical with these.
 
There have been some interesting changes to my system and I think this topic deserves an update, perhaps someone will find it useful. I still listen to digital most of the time, some CDs and Spotify mainly, no hi-res. The single most notable change further in the right direction was an addition of a non-oversampling R2R DAC, I pulled a trigger on a 2nd hand Metrum Acoustics Musette some time back and it was a game changer. NOS DACs have a slightly different tonal balance than their oversampling cousins, with some roll off in the treble and less forward but very sweet midrange. It fell right in place with the L100s and helped to tame down those mids and highs to the point I no longer had to use a tube preamp, whose place took an Adcom GFP-565. The GFP is much cleaner sounding machine than the tube pre I was using, with lots more clarity in the highs and deeper bass extension, which is all good. One voodoo change that further helped to clean some digital glare that I find tends to emphasize L100s weaknesses was a better quality USB cable. I also invested $50 in a JRiver Media Center license to took advantage of its powerful DSP engine, and the last nail in the coffin of the L100's nastiness is the use of the parametric EQ, -2db@6.5kHz and +2dB@1.3kHz, which probably takes it half-way to what a L100 crossover update kit can do but without any sensitivity loss. Overall these changes resulted in sound signature that is a tad on the darker side but much easier to listen to and overall more enjoyable with no sign of fatique, to my ears anyway. I find that I don't even need the EQ at lower volumes. I'm pretty much addicted now, all the right buttons were pushed. Thanks for listening.
 
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