Ever discover cheapo speakers actually sound...

Interesting statement RockyV. I have a couple of questions. Since the lion's share of distortion comes from the speakers, no matter what brand or price range, and speaker characteristics vary far more than electronics, how can good gear overcome poor speakers? Since the speakers are the actual transducers of the electronic signal back into audible sound waves, and that transduction and subsequent interaction with the room introduces complexities far beyond what occurs in the electronic signal path, how can upstream components overcome these factors?

Two different speakers in different price classes can be "night and day" but still each sound good in their own way.

The less expensive speakers should likely have more limitations but they can still sound "good" and do the things they do well.

Pedrillo, Shadorne may be on to something. From your pictures, I've long suspected your room acoustics could be quite challenging.

The jury is also still out for me also regarding the benefits versus disadvantages of hanging speakers from bungees rather than coupling them more tightly to the room and it's acoustics.

Have you tried a more conventional approach to locating the speakers as an experiment in particular since having heard the MBL sound that you like?

When I first turned on the inexpensive jbl's, they sounded horrible, but after some time improved tremendously?

I missed this post....clearly you do have a problem somewhere - it us likely intermittent from what you report. Speakers do not sound horrible and then sound good.

If it was not clear distortion or similar noise you heard early on, its possible that the speakers just sounded better after a while because your ears adjusted to the different sound.

I'd like to see a picture of your entire listening room, but I'm suspecting that you might just have tight quarters that might call for a smaller box in order to breathe and sound open and free. That is a good thing perhaps because in general a smaller speaker should cost less to get right than a larger one.

A lot of people fear omnis and their room interactions, but with my pseudo-omni Ohms, I'm finding these are actually less sensitive to room acoustics and easier to place for good sound than other box and planar designs I've used. So I think omnis, again if not too large, are not a bad thing to be considering, but a smaller conventional box speaker design might be able to fit the bill as well.

Ojgalli

Like the formula for Coca Cola, your point is written down and locked away in a vault somewhere deep within the Bose corporate headquarters.

Bravo!

cwlondon