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JBL Vintage Speaker Pecking Order ?

A

AudCrshDumy

Well-Known Member
Banned
Trying to educate myself this AM...

Also thinking about my next 'hostage' (read it hear and liked it :) speakers...

For me at least, they should not be black, must be wood, even veneer, but real wood would be preferred...am I ruling out too much ?
 
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Did you want to include the studio monitors as well or the conventional fair?
DC
 
Refill your coffee cup and get thee over to the Lansing Heritage site. Plenty of Sunday morning reading there on the various pecking order of speakers across the decades.

Cheers,

David
 
Well I googled 'lancing heritage' got to something web ring, then ended up nowhere, offers of this and that...can they make it any more complicated ?
 
Though they are low on the JBL totem pole, I truly enjoy the sound of my 2600s.

Rome
 
My personal pecking order, quickly and without a lot of thought, but based on sound quality not status or value:

Real wood veneer, no black, "consumer" stuff only:
Everest-II DD66000
1400 Array
L300 Summit
250Ti (other L250 variants fall short)
Century Gold
240Ti
L150A (not L150)
L200B (not A)
120Ti (L100T/3 lesser interest)
L212
L112
L96
L166
L65 Jubal
18Ti (L20T, etc)
L36
L26
(Note: No L100 variants.)

Pro monitors
4345
4350
4355
4343
4450
4333
4435
4430
4412
4410
4425
Many, many others.


If you include black cabinets with the consumer products:
Everest-II DD66000
1400 Array
L300 Summit
250Ti (other L250 variants fall short)
XPL-200A
L7
Century Gold
240Ti
L150A (not L150)
L200B
120Ti (L100T/3 lesser interest)
L212
L112
L5
L96
L166
L65 Jubal
L1
18Ti (L20T, etc)
L36
L26
(Note: No L100 variants.)

If you ranked pro with consumer, shuffle the decks.
And, I'm sure I've left out some memorable stuff or others so close to some listed as to be near-duplicates and many older vintage consumer models that are great, some I even own, but that you're not likely to be comparing, like the '60's vintage S7, S8, 030, 001, etc.
 
THX Tower Boss...

That's a good list Beemer guy...

Which of those might be over 36" tall ?

Are any real wood and not veneer ?
 
Almost all good speakers are veneer as wood resonates and is very hard to get a flat frequency response from.

You left out the 4313bs BMWCCA, otherwise great list. :)
 
I own a pair of Century L-100. The Century L-110 is quite possibly JBL's most revered speaker, most certainly in terms of being sought after. In mint condition still retail for over $500...
 
poppachubby said:
I own a pair of Century L-100. The Century L-110 is quite possibly JBL's most revered speaker, most certainly in terms of being sought after. In mint condition still retail for over $500...
Click to expand...

That's actually an interesting typo- I have both the L100 Centurys and the L110s, and the L110s get much better reviews for sound quality, and mine get 1,000 times more playing hours than my L100 Centurys.

je
 
Rome said:
Though they are low on the JBL totem pole, I truly enjoy the sound of my 2600s.

Rome
Click to expand...

+1. Particularly with woofers upgraded to Peerless and tweeters upgraded as well (matching sensitivity as close as possible and impedance- tweeters now don't blow, and woofers have improved mids and waaay better bass).
 
sealy said:
I've only been able to afford the cheap ones, to wit, the L36.

Yuck!!
Click to expand...

Not so fast there. :no:

The L36 was part of the JBL "Decade" line. Introduced in the 70's to bring JBL quality to a market that had not been sought by JBL previously. JBL wanted to produce a 2-way speaker system to compete at the $120 each price point.

The result was the L-26 Decade, introduced in 1973. It was a direct competitor to the Large Advent. We referred to it as the "Advent Killer".

Later, a smaller L-16 was introduced to hold the line pricewise, and the L-36 was introduced to bring a 3-way speaker to the lineup.

The L-36, while no L-100, is voiced simularly and again was produced to provide a product at a specific price point, just under $200.

At the time these speakers were produced, there were no "cheap" JBL speaker systems.

Be proud of your L-36s, they are good performers and a proud part of JBL history.
 
Great list BMWCCA.

It's tough to judge the products of a company with as much history as JBL. Sometimes memories and vintage concerns conflicts with establishing a pecking order. General market knowledge and perception often screws with monetary values and therefore perception. The L100, L7 and L100T3 are each a case in point. The latter two drastically undervalued with respect to performance while the former is overvalued because of it's public awareness.

In any case, JBL made some truly great speakers.

The 250Ti is truly a remarkable speaker.
 
70salesguy said:
Not so fast there. :no:

The L36 was part of the JBL "Decade" line. Introduced in the 70's to bring JBL quality to a market that had not been sought by JBL previously. JBL wanted to produce a 2-way speaker system to compete at the $120 each price point.

The result was the L-26 Decade, introduced in 1973. It was a direct competitor to the Large Advent. We referred to it as the "Advent Killer".

Later, a smaller L-16 was introduced to hold the line pricewise, and the L-36 was introduced to bring a 3-way speaker to the lineup.

The L-36, while no L-100, is voiced simularly and again was produced to provide a product at a specific price point, just under $200.

At the time these speakers were produced, there were no "cheap" JBL speaker systems.

Be proud of your L-36s, they are good performers and a proud part of JBL history.
Click to expand...

Oops!! I should have left out the "yuck". I should have said they just weren't to my particular listening tastes. Better?
 
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