Might be a bit more cash , but the current model JBL L100 CLASSICs ( pre-owned) are tailor- made for your music genre.
the original models released in the early 70’s were recording studio monitors with a pronounced bumped-up frequency curve to best reproduce the classic rock of that golden era .
a walk down memory lane ….
Yep …. Back in the Jurassic Age of this crazy hobby (the early 70’s …), there were two polar opposite “signature sounds ” being produced in the USA by the major leading speaker manufacturers .
NEW ENGLAND SOUND : (East Coast );
Think ACOUSTIC RESEARCH ( “AR”); Acoustic Research was a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that manufactured high-end audio equipment. The brand is now owned by VOXX. Acoustic Research was known for the AR-3 series of speaker systems, which used the 12 in (300 mm) acoustic suspension woofer of the AR-1 with newly designed dome mid-range speaker and high-frequency drivers. AR’s line of acoustic suspension speakers were the first loudspeakers with relatively flat response, extended bass, wide dispersion, small size, and reasonable cost.
The AR-3 was widely regarded as the most accurate loudspeaker available at any cost in its time , and was used in many professional installations, recording studios, and concert halls. Many professional musicians used AR-3 loudspeakers as monitors because of their excellent sound reproduction.
These were faves for the classical, jazz, easy listening fans. Their main shortcoming was
- they were comparatively quite inefficient and thus harder for a home audio receiver to drive them
- they were anything but exciting for rock and pop. Frankly, they were comparatively boring in this segment. With the explosion of students in university clamouring for punchy speakers, they had a limited new fan base.
CALIFORNIA SOUND ( West Coast );
Think JBL-L100’s) ( I had back in my uni dorm) …. Driven by a MARANTZ 2245 receiver / ELAC MIRACORD TT with a SHURE V15 cartridge …. They were the cat’s ass for 60’s pop and 70’s rock popular genre music taking over the airwaves ….
In 1970, JBL released the iconic L100 Loudspeaker. Over the years, the L100 became the bestselling loudspeaker in JBL’s history.
The “California sound “ is a popular music aesthetic that originated with American pop and rock recording artists from Southern California in the 1960s and 70’s. Later, the sound was expanded outside its initial geography and subject matter and was developed to be more sophisticated, often featuring studio experimentations below.
These were everywhere in the early 1970s and onward, because they sounded great, thet were small compared to other speakers that sounded this good, and they played very loud without needing much power. (a perfect recipe for the college cohort budgets now buying the new gear)
The L100 was designed for rock & roll, efficiency, power handling, sine waves frequency responses (…heavy boosted treble, another peak in mids, AND a big boost in bass ) and sharp musical transients.
Think surf pop, British Invasion pop, 1967 Summer of Love pop, …then hard rock …Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Deep Purple, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Moody Blues, CCR, Jethro Tull, and reproducing the solid fundamentals of Genesis’ Taurus bass pedals, old & new Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd and everything deep and punchy.
KEY POINT. They were renowned as THE studio monitors in that era springing up in the west USA studios BECAUSE they dramatized / emphasized the recording industry engineers approach back then capitalizing on the prevailing music genre and purposely punching up the top, middle and bottom with peaks and valleys. Your favorite classic rock acts were probably recorded with JBL monitors, when L100s ruled the world.
Their easily identified sound, the so-called West Coast sound, was once a highly touted marketing feature.
- JBL speakers identified immediately as having a very pronounced treble peak
- JBL speakers as having a somewhat ragged and peaky midrange that could put the vocalist in your lap,
- booming bold bass
- Ad copy claimed that musicians and recording engineers were buying or stealing the original model 4310 (a professional studio monitor that preceded the L-100s) for home use.
- JBL did succeed in installing these monitors in most large recording studios in the 1970s, including Angel, Capitol, Deutsche Grammophon, Elektra, EMI, London/Decca, MGM, RCA, Reprise, Vanguard, and Warner Bros.
- Although they may have been responsible for some bad studio mixes from the ’70s and ’80s, even by today’s standards, they do amazingly well for a 3-way speaker with only 2 crossover components. Their relatively high sensitivity generates an incredible attack giving music an energy and presence that few other speakers could reproduce back then …
- They were sine curve frequency response party speakers that boogied AND PLAYED ROCK LOUD …full stop ..and anything but a flat response AR-3 above for classical and smoky basement venue jazz.
Limitations
While 1970s L100s are awesome rock speakers and were often used as monitors in the studios where our favorite classic rock was recorded, they never sounded that great for serious classical music or jazz , or EZ listening. They always sounded like the music was coming out of a box from paper drivers, which these are.
These JBL speakers holds a nostalgic good vibe in my memories, and although I later upgraded into more linear and restrained flat response speakers paired with much superior electronics as I moved into “high end” audio, I’ve never forgotten the fond memories of the JBLs because of the foggy nostalgia of a mixed smell of beer, wafting wisps of Maui Wowee, and pizza in the dorm.
Would I rank them as performance peers to what I now have, or even consider to go back to them now, after ascending to a $50K 2-channel system with my HARBETH M30.2 XD’s with their exalted top-class midrange?
No …. My HARBETHs and a ATC subwoofer smoke the JBL’s and many others , but the L100’s were fun in their time as nostalgia pieces .
PS
I had the NAD C370 as a predecessor model to your amp, so I know its signature sound very well. With its dark properties and rolled-off top end, the enhanced treble in the L100’s will be a welcome compensatory offset to better flesh out your music satisfaction IMO.
