Once upon a time on usenet Phil Allison wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:

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** That would be the L100 "Century" - based on the similar 4310 and
4311 studio monitors.

JBL must have sold thousands of those. One still sees them in some
very respectable set ups. They have a very distinctive 70's East
coast sound, a bit bright for my taste.

I was offered a pristine pair just recently. The front grilles are
missing but the walnut grille surrounds are there. I am wondering
what they are worth. Does 650e sound reasonable??

Replacement grilles for L100 arr available on e-Bay.

As to their sound I agree with Phil, bloody awful.

When I worked with the band JBL were looked upon as the best PA
*drivers* you could get. It took me a few years (and a few dollars)
after that to realise that most of their boxed home audio products
are crap. I read somewhere that JBL stands for "Junk But Loud" and I
must say that I agree when it comes to home audio.



** LOL - the first time I heard "Junk, but Loud" explained was in a
leading Sydney hi-fi shop called " Kent Hi-Fi " in 1971. A young
Asian salesman pointed at a brightly coloured JBL box and explained
what the acronym really meant so most of the room heard it - and
got a big telling off from his boss !!

FYI:

JBL's component drivers for live sound use have always represented
the best available and the standard to judge others by. JBL's design
engineers have broken new ground over and over in this area with
things like 4inch dia voice coils, rectangular section aluminium or
copper wire, massive magnet structures and titanium diaphragms for
horn drivers.

But mostly, and more importantly phenomenal quality control.

Damn expensive but worth it.

Like RR engines.

Yep. I certainly had no complaints about the JBL drivers we used in live
gigs, they sounded great - which is why I bought JBL speakers for home use
initially after the band split and I stopped touring. That didn't last long.

(I'd had offers from other bands to do both mixing and lights for them over
the years but it was more than a job for me. The guys in the band were like
my brothers. You spend so much time on the road in each others pockets that
there's more to it than simply getting a pay cheque.)
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)