Congrats Jeff
We need a shootout! 19's L300's and the new ones!
I can give my non-scientific comparison having lived with two of these pair for some time. Note however that I'm comparing three great speaker systems, two from the early '80s and one from today (which likely need more break-in as they've only been drinking from the McIntosh well for about 3 hours). Comparisons therefore are less about shortcomings and more about differences perceived.
The L300As: Wonderful highs, spacious sounding, very good soundstage and excellent dynamics. The strongest point however is the quantity and smoothness of the bass. Go lower than the 4367s and the Nineteens and are tighter than the Nineteens. Horns compare well to the other speakers. Dynamics when seeing the needles hit 250W are so clean on any music, well done JBL! 93dB sensitivity.
Model Nineteens. These seem to beat the L300s in low volume, the slightest sounds show up even when playing quietly. Voices, horns, strings, everything is so involving and all of the subtleties come through from the spit in a horn to the ring of a wooden drumstick. Whether the huge soundstage is all real or not is hard to tell but these are the most amazing sounding non-dipole HF I know. They are also extremely sensitive and need flea-power for a lot of my listening, I've peeked over at the meters during a listening / reading session and see them at 45mW. The downside (strictly in comparison to the JBLs) is that the bass doesn't go as low (34Hz?) and isn't as tight. The most warm and inviting sound of any speaker I've ever owned.104dB sensitivity.
4367s? I had to choose yesterday between these and a new pair of S4700s. I really want 2-way speakers and at one point was seriously considering new M2s, got a price quote and was okay with that but didn't want to run Crown amps (before Mark Levinson amps were approved & calibrated for the job). The S4700s are great speakers I'm sure, but I don't really want a supertweeter and the main downside to me is the rear port, I don't want to give up more space putting speakers far from the back wall where the 4367s are designed to be able to place them near a back wall (as a monitor should be designed) with a front port. Going a big step up to the dual-woofer models is not in the budget.
So far the 4367s do everything well. My son was DJing last night for a while, he has excellent ears as he is young and a musician. We played everything from Telarc jazz/classical to my alternative favorites (which I use for comparisons), and of course my son's accoustic and electronic selections. Mostly fairly high SPLs seeing the meters peak above the 45W mark (94dB sensitivity anechoic). Today they're just playing at conversation level (which was the Nineteens' strength) with the needles dancing around the 45mW mark.
No room correction, playing flat. So far they give up nothing. I wanted the involving detail of the 811B in the altecs with the tighter-lower bass of the 2235Hs in the L300As. I believe that I got a little of both. The bass is not as low as the Summits (at least not yet with low-hours) but it is very tight. The horns don't seem to involve me as much as the Nineteens, but that
might be a more accurate horn? Hard to tell.
In both comparisons / goals I'm very happy with how they sound. The soundstage and imaging are excellent, and I haven't even done the twist and move adjustment dance yet, it seems that the placement is super simple with these (as with the Nineteens). Are they what I wanted to replace the JBLS and Altecs? I will say yes (and prove it on BT!). Are they worth the price of a nice used car (or a few new ones)? I will say that there are used cars out there that aren't worth it but speakers seem to cost what they do so I'm satisfied. Still, if it were easy to have both the Summits and the Nineteens in the room at the same time and swap at the flip of a switch, I would never have looked as its pretty hard to justify spending more for one pair than two excellent pair are worth. The goal is however to have one system that I like as well as everything else I own / have owned, and I believe I'm there.
Model Nineteens = most involving and detailed mids and highs, most sensitive.
Summits = best & lowest bass
4367s = tightest bass, best LF-HF integration with no audible crossover point and pretty much the best of the above in one package. Downside = price.
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