JBL Synthesis 4367 - oh mama...

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to put these speakers into perspective a reminder in what people used to move around in 1930s

torquay.jpg
 
They should make a mini version (like the Tannoy Autograph mini) so it works well in normal rooms.
 
JBL have only very rarely combined a proper compression driver/horn system with anything less than a 15inch bass driver, The Lancer 101 from the early 70s used a 14inch driver and 'pepper pot' horn in a reasonably compact enclosure but it was not that successful, sounding a bit fat and undynamic, a real crime for speakers of this type.

Until now that is, the LSR708i passive monitor is a genuine horn loaded system in a compact enclosure, only an 8 inch bass driver so not quite the full 'bin and horn' experience. About £3k pair for passives though active versions are available. Not exactly pretty though...

jbl-lsr708i-angle_r.jpg
 
And not domestic. Clearly aimed at professionals only. But at least they are black, so if you ignore the gapping horn they seem pedestrian enough (ish).

My JBL LSR305 have soft dome tweeters in the same horn, which is an even bigger oddball.
 
hope I did not violate too much your jbl devotion and you carry on to have orgasm while watching them online and adore your jbl lsr305 until you can afford these monostrosities

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I think I’d rather have gazzips big pmcs than those jbl’s, if gazzip would care to do a swap for my pmc twenty5 23s
 
lpv said:
to put these speakers into perspective a reminder in what people used to move around in 1930s

All the audio hardware we use today was invented before the 70s. Dome tweeters in 1954, solid state in 1947, optical media before vinyl etc. Since then it's been all refinements and small improvements, thus the new impressive drivers installed in the JBL professional studio flagships - M2 and 4367. Such drivers may existed many decades before, but the performance of the current ones surpasses the old by a large margin.

The real progress has been in psychoacoustics theory and measurments. You should be aware of Tool's and Olive's work at Harman.

Pass this on the AVI forums so we battle ignorance.
 
I wouldn't mind those PMCs either. 🙂
But if I had to pick between these two monsters, I'd go horns bb.
 
lpv said:
hope I did not violate too much your jbl devotion and you carry on to have orgasm while watching them online and adore your jbl lsr305 until you can afford these monostrosities

The 4367 would look nice on my desk. You have a point there.
 
Maybe no where in the league of speakers being mentioned here. But I was interested in them for a long time before I bought my present speakers. But these are massive speakers in all respects. Anyone heard them here
 
lpv said:
to put these speakers into perspective a reminder in what people used to move around in 1930s
The 15" bass cone with compression midrange driver type speakers were actually high end professional speakers. Consumer grade speakers of that era would have been built into radiograms.

If we were comparing radiogram speakers to typical modern slimline consumer grade speakers, your 10 HP Crossley car analogy would be reasonable enough. But we're not. Therefore a better analogy would be to compare high end professional cars against modern consumer grade cars.

For example:

260px-Mercedes-Benz_W_125_Donington.jpg


The 1937 Mercedes W125 F1 car. With a 5.6 litre supercharged 8 cylinder engine, producing 595 HP.

In a race round Spa, what do you think would win? A W125 or a 2017 Ford Fiesta?

Especially if we were to apply a few modern tweaks? Just as there's nothing to stop an owner of 1930's theatre speakers from applying a few modern tweaks.
 
Yeah and Altec Vott's were typical average Joe speakers too.

That's the thing about buying vintage speakers today. Anyone can cherry pick the very best ones from yesteryear. The ones that are the nearest speaker equivalent to a Mercedes W125.
 
QuestForThe13thNote said:
I think I’d rather have gazzips big pmcs than those jbl’s, if gazzip would care to do a swap for my pmc twenty5 23s

What if you heard both and the jbls were better sounding?
 
lindsayt said:
Yeah and Altec Vott's were typical average Joe speakers too.

That's the thing about buying vintage speakers today. Anyone can cherry pick the very best ones from yesteryear. The ones that are the nearest speaker equivalent to a Mercedes W125.

Where do you ever get to hear this kind of loudspeaker. I’d be happy to give vintage hifi a try, but god I’ve heard some shite from that era in my time that is purported to be amazing. Are there any vintage hifi shows or is it genuinely buy it on eBay and pot luck?
 
There is a awful lot of people that think you can buy vintage stuff that generally sounds as good as most modern hi Fi. There are whole forums dedicated to it, and it doesn’t make any sense to me too. My dads old castle speakers sound horrendous .
 
We came across these when a few customers started using them with our amps over on the US Audioshark Forum I could tell from there reaction they were good.

I got to hear a pair and they are amazing! Ugly as hell but the sound.

We have another company in Austria creating an immersive sound demo system using the M2’s with 16 channels of bridged 1400W amps!

I want a pair!
 
Gazzip said:
lindsayt said:
Yeah and Altec Vott's were typical average Joe speakers too.

That's the thing about buying vintage speakers today. Anyone can cherry pick the very best ones from yesteryear. The ones that are the nearest speaker equivalent to a Mercedes W125.

Where do you ever get to hear this kind of loudspeaker. I’d be happy to give vintage hifi a try, but god I’ve heard some ***** from that era in my time that is purported to be amazing. Are there any vintage hifi shows or is it genuinely buy it on eBay and pot luck?
There was a pair of Klangfilm theatre speakers at the Scalford Show a couple of years ago. They were great sounding speakers. With potential for improvement by adding high quality tweeters / super tweeters to fill in the uppermost couple of octaves in the frequency spectrum.

There's also the Munich show.

Plus using Google and contacting the owners of such speakers and arranging to visit their homes.

And the ebay educated punt, buy for yourself, route that you mentioned. Be aware that it is horses for courses. No speaker is the single most best ever. Do you want a speaker for commuting in Central London? Or for racing as quickly as possible round Spa? Or for getting from A to B on the Autobahn as fast as possible?

I totally agree on the not so good vintage speakers. It's the 595 HP Mercedes we're looking for. Not the 10 HP Crossleys.
 
QuestForThe13thNote said:
There is a awful lot of people that think you can buy vintage stuff that generally sounds as good as most modern hi Fi. There are whole forums dedicated to it, and it doesn’t make any sense to me too. My dads old castle speakers sound horrendous .
They were the equivalent of a Ford Cortina. Fine for what they were. But not purist, outright sonic performance speakers.
 
can you give us few visually acceptable/ not wardrobe style examples of merx speakers please?
 

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