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Originally Posted by Table 5
Awesome insight, thanks!
Funny you show that link as I've come across that guy on Kijiji, and he always seems to have some interesting looking stuff, and it all seems to be fairly well priced considered the effort.
A few follow up questions:
1) Is there any rhyme or reason to the JBL speaker nomenclature? Ie. what's the difference between a 4301 and 4401? Also, sound wise do you find a big difference between the JBL monitors and the Loudspeakers?
2) Any thoughts on British/BBC-type speakers like Spendors or Harbeths? From what it sounds like they might be closer to the East Coast sound as well.
Ie. https://www.kijiji.ca/v-view-details...dId=1598600436 New versions of these are in the 6-8K range, but it sounds like they are not that different from the older models.
3) It also seems like Canada had (or perhaps still does) have a pretty good history with speakers, but you don't hear about them as much these days. How do Canadian speakers compare to the West coast" or "East Coast" sound? |
(1) 4301 has an 8" driver; the 4401 has a 6.5" driver. The 4301 is the studio version of the consumer L19 model. The 4401 is the studio version of the consumer L15. The 4401 is more highly regarded than the 4301 and is ideal for smaller rooms and was used as a near field monitor in studios. I use it in my office where I run sound out from the PC into a Pioneer receiver.
I set the 4301s up at work and they are connected to an Audiosource amp and a little tube preamp I bought off Amazon.
Yes, there is a difference in sound with the equivalent consumer speakers. The monitors are "neutral" and so their crossovers are different than their consumer counterparts. The monitors have high frequency tuning knobs as well. Otherwise, I do not know the methodology JBL used to name their monitors.
(2) I don't know enough about British speakers to make any recommendations. My only experience with them was with a Kef sub-woofer which worked fine for me. The difference between new and vintage is not so much the design philosophy but the components used to make the speaker. Drivers are better today and so are the capacitors in the crossovers.
(3) Canadian speaker manufacturers enjoyed a working relationship with the National Research Council and benefitted from the NRC's work with speaker technology. Therefore, Canadian speakers from the 80s and 90s are excellent. Again, I never owned any, so I comment on any particular brand, but I have been looking for some Mirage speakers. Paradigm, PSB, and Energy were the other major speaker brands I can remember back then. I think they had their own sound, distinct from west or east coast.