JBL or Boston Acoustics?

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Vintagegeek

Vintagegeek

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I acquired a set of JBL 4312 control monitors last weekend and have been using them daily this week. Tonight I dropped my A400's back in front and realized why I have had a hard time letting them go! I love the JBL's but the A400's are a lot easier on my ears. The 4312's do not hide anything in the mix and are very accurate but the A400's seem smoother. Of course now I have a perplexing scenario on which to keep. The A400's sound really good with the Kenwood KA-701 amp that is powering the system.
 
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I believe the 4312's use a titanium tweeter...I am a huge fan of JBL but suffer ear fatigue with any JBL's with titanium tweeters after about 15 minutes. My L40's or L100's...I listen to for hours on end with nothing but a smile on my face.
 
The A400 is a tough speaker to beat, I've listened to L77 and L100 and to my ears the A400 is a definite step up in smoothness.
 
Which 4312s are they: the older ones with cones or the later ones with domes? I suspect the older models have the same midrange peakiness as the 4311s and L100s. I've heard the dome models (of which there are many types) are actually quite good. :dunno:
 
The only ones I can compare are the ones I've owned/own, JBL L80t's, JBL HLS-620's, Boston T830's and Boston A150's.

I still have both JBL's and do not have either Boston.
 
RossW said:
The A400 is a tough speaker to beat, I've listened to L77 and L100 and to my ears the A400 is a definite step up in smoothness.
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Agreed. A400 are very accurate, very hard to beat. Rare too. I love their look - they are huge and flat, beautiful speakers.
 
The only Bostons I'll ever buy again, if not to flip if I found something dirt cheap, are maybe A200's if the price is right, and A-400's for sure. I want to hear a set of those.
 
Vintagegeek said:
I acquired a set of JBL 4312 control monitors last weekend and have been using them daily this week. Tonight I dropped my A400's back in front and realized why I have had a hard time letting them go! I love the JBL's but the A400's are a lot easier on my ears. The 4312's do not hide anything in the mix and are very accurate but the A400's seem smoother. Of course now I have a perplexing scenario on which to keep. The A400's sound really good with the Kenwood KA-701 amp that is powering the system.
Click to expand...

Actually, Control Monitors are anything but accurate, by design. They are meant to copy the sound of the old Altec coaxial drivers that were the mainstay of early recording studios. Big bump in the mids and a bit of boom in the lows, with a fairly quick rolloff in the highs. Now days a Studio Monitor is what gets used, without all the legacy "make them sound like what I'm used to" in-your-face "clarity" of the Control Monitors. They are still very useful in high noise environments, like TV stations where the "clarity" cuts through all the server fan noise in the equipment room. They are used more for making decisions about the timing of edits and cuts between program sources, and less for the creation of programs than Studio Monitors.

I realize that the term Studio Monitor has been hijacked by the consumer speaker manufactures for their own marketing purposes, but the term still has it's original meaning in pro circles, that of an accurate reference for recording. Basically a speaker that does not lie about the lack of "tone" in your source sounds...

So, no surprise that you would prefer the "more accurate" speaker that you are used to compared to the peaky Control Monitor.
 
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Thanks for the insight 4343! Appreciate it and I read your post a couple times and understand what you are pointing out in comparing them. The speakers are the early version of the 4312 with the soft domes. They are in really good condition for their age.
 
Dump the JBLs and keep the Bostons.

As a side note, I have multiple JBLs and BAs, and the big A-series speakers like the A200s and A400s are quite good.
 
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