Think JBL CLASSIC 100
I had the original L-100 speakers in my university dorm days in the 70’s. They were fine audio components for that evolving early home audio era as popular “party “ gear. The music genre of that Jurassic era - a half century ago - was geared towards radio and evolving FM performances . That was pop and rock genres (…think Jethro Tull, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Doors, Doobie Brothers , British Invasion pop, and West Coast / California Sound pop and rock.);
IMPORTANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE “VINTAGE” JBL-100’s: The 1970s L100s were awesome rock speakers, and were often used as monitors in the studios where your favorite classic rock was recorded,
Back in the Jurassic Age of this crazy hobby (the 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 ‘em in my university residence dorm) …. They were the cat’s ass for 60’s pop and 70’s rock popular genre music taking over the airwaves ….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.
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.
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 1970s because they sounded great, were small compared to other speakers that sounded this good, and played very loud without needing much power. (a perfect recipe for the college cohort budgets now buying the new gear)
KEY POINT. Your favorite classic rock acts were probably recorded with JBL monitors, when L100s ruled the world. 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.
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.
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,
- boomy strong 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 Gramophone, 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.
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