You refer to the work of the Russian engineer Alexander Voishvillo. He describes problems with horns. And ways to solve them. Moreover, already working in JBL as a result of computer simulation, he created the latest horn sound driver with two voice coils and two diaphragms for the M2 monitor. If you think that this monitor absolutely does not correspond to your ideas about the quality of playback, please urgently contact him to refute the results of his work M2 | JBL Professional Loudspeakers
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I hope that the blind test also took into account the difference in price about 4 times.
https://3e7777c294b9bcaa5486-bc9563...tech_decadesexperience_april2013_original.pdf
https://3e7777c294b9bcaa5486-bc9563...tech_decadesexperience_april2013_original.pdf
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Heard a pair of c. £3 grand Revels at a show. Have to say I did not like them one bit.
So many modern loudspeakers sound ‘forward’ not as in an overemphasized treble, but as in they are ‘shouting’ at you. When you hear a truly transparent speaker, the sound is relaxed, big and easy on the ear.
Far too many horns sound ‘cardboardy’ to my ears or like they being played at the other end of a large pipe. Occasionally it can sound appealing for some strange reason and sure, eventuallly your ear-brain will ‘tune in’ to the sound, but I expect speakers to be accurate. Another huge disappointment were the big Magico’s. Everyone raves about them. I thought they were terrible.
Still others, like the Kerr Acoustics offer super etched mid and treble and deep bass which on first listen sound incredible but after 10 minutes I’ve had enough - get me outta here!
For £800 I’ve yet to hear anything that comes close to the KEF LS50’s provided you augment the bottom end with a sub bass (they go down to about 80 Hz IIRC). The old B&W 801/2’s from c. 2000 also sounded fantastic, but the sound of the newer ones has also tended to ‘shouty’. For rap and that sort of crap, fine. For classical and jazz, no good.
But, speaker preferences are incredibly subjective. YMMV.
So many modern loudspeakers sound ‘forward’ not as in an overemphasized treble, but as in they are ‘shouting’ at you. When you hear a truly transparent speaker, the sound is relaxed, big and easy on the ear.
Far too many horns sound ‘cardboardy’ to my ears or like they being played at the other end of a large pipe. Occasionally it can sound appealing for some strange reason and sure, eventuallly your ear-brain will ‘tune in’ to the sound, but I expect speakers to be accurate. Another huge disappointment were the big Magico’s. Everyone raves about them. I thought they were terrible.
Still others, like the Kerr Acoustics offer super etched mid and treble and deep bass which on first listen sound incredible but after 10 minutes I’ve had enough - get me outta here!
For £800 I’ve yet to hear anything that comes close to the KEF LS50’s provided you augment the bottom end with a sub bass (they go down to about 80 Hz IIRC). The old B&W 801/2’s from c. 2000 also sounded fantastic, but the sound of the newer ones has also tended to ‘shouty’. For rap and that sort of crap, fine. For classical and jazz, no good.
But, speaker preferences are incredibly subjective. YMMV.
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If the audio system sounds too far ahead or vice versa too far behind, this may not be a speaker problem at all. My friend's B&W speakers used to sound too forward. I told a friend that the musicians will soon occupy your sofa. After a few changes, the sound is now too far behind B&W. I tell him that it would be nice to make the speakers somewhere in between. And this is the problem of anything but definitely not the problem of the speakers.
The only thing I'm not sure about is the good quality B&W, so I will not insist on it for now. But with the cables VDH, it turned out to be not such bad speakers as I thought before.
What you hear at exhibitions is often extremely poorly tuned and selected purely because of marketing.
What you hear at exhibitions is often extremely poorly tuned and selected purely because of marketing.
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They’re all good speakers and they are all well engineered.
My take is peoples music tastes are changing (younger set coming through) that prefer a more forward sound. You get the same thing with headphones.
The closest approach to a pair of Stax are my Audio Technical ATH 900 ‘Air’’s. I haven’t heard any modern ones for a grand and under that make me go ‘wow’. Maybe at 2 or 3 grand, but I am not going to spend that when my 10 yr old ones still sound so good and are in mint condition.
My take is peoples music tastes are changing (younger set coming through) that prefer a more forward sound. You get the same thing with headphones.
The closest approach to a pair of Stax are my Audio Technical ATH 900 ‘Air’’s. I haven’t heard any modern ones for a grand and under that make me go ‘wow’. Maybe at 2 or 3 grand, but I am not going to spend that when my 10 yr old ones still sound so good and are in mint condition.
And how much do they cost you?
No, my taste does not change. As a child, I was brought up in lamp technology, then I had many different inexpensive speakers with paper cones, everything was not the way I wanted. Then I bought the Soviet clone OTTO SX-P1, it was a breakthrough. I still think these were great speakers. I heard the sound of Revel, they are very good, but also very expensive. The Cabasse Java MC40 sounds very cool from low-cost speakers. These are my favorites for today.
No, my taste does not change. As a child, I was brought up in lamp technology, then I had many different inexpensive speakers with paper cones, everything was not the way I wanted. Then I bought the Soviet clone OTTO SX-P1, it was a breakthrough. I still think these were great speakers. I heard the sound of Revel, they are very good, but also very expensive. The Cabasse Java MC40 sounds very cool from low-cost speakers. These are my favorites for today.
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I stopped going to hifi shows when I realised that if I were lucky one room would have a system in I would want to listen to again. And I couldn't afford that system ever...
Thank you for putting this up Bill. The Revel conforms somewhat to the ideal of an as unrestrained as possible loading of the drivers, although it is not the endpoint of designs with that lofty goal in mind.
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Research has shown that subjects' preferences align fairly well, with in order of importance: flat frequency response, room appropriate down sloping sound power (= determined by dispersion profile), acceptable distortion figures.
Where from now again? And what exactly did Bill write? Where is the link? With such success, it can be argued that in the blind test, JBLM2 is four times superior to Tannoy at the same price.
JBL M2 Sensitivity (1 W, 1 m) 92 dB
M2 | JBL Professional Loudspeakers
Revel Salon 2 Sensitivity 86.4 dB SPL with 2.83 V @ 1m (4 pi anechoic)
Where is the conclusion about the ideal load of Revel drivers here?
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GUNFU it is interesting that you have a designer colleague at JBL. The new JBL horn driver is truly an improvement over the original drivers perhaps designed in the 40's or 50's. They were problematic even in the 1970's, and that is why we eliminated them from the Grateful Dead Wall of Sound system, back in 1973. The old drivers suffered from inherent horn throat distortion and very limited high frequency extension. Adding a tweeter made as many compromises as it fixed. Horns will always have SOME horn throat distortion, but they don't suffer from significant Doppler distortion like direct radiators do. Why doesn't everybody know this?
