"Phil Allison" wrote in message
...
Iain Churches wrote:
Yes I remember that too. Clever advertising, and
by all accounts successful. A lot of people bought
the JBL Century 100's for home use.
** That would have to be a lot of Americans who bought them.
Back in the early 70s, I worked briefly for a store in Sydney that
sold electronic components, kits for magazine projects and a couple
of speaker kits.
One of these happened to be the KEF kit 3 containing the drivers and
crossover needed for a KEF Concerto, minus box. Particle board boxes
were also available as pre-cut kits.
A built pair kits was on constant demo, A-B switched with a pair of
JBL L100s with their bright orange front grilles - see pic:
http://product-images.highwire.com/8593684/2748-2.jpg
Despite a price difference of more than 2:1, the JBLs sounded very
poor, " thick and coloured like tomato soup" was one comment and
with remarkably little bass. The store sold many KEF kit 3s and no
JBLs on the basis of that demo while I was there.
I bought a pair of KEF kit 3s then too, later improving them with
rebuilt crossovers plus massively deadened the cabinets. Sold them a
couple of years on at a small profit, after buying a second hand
pair of ESL57s.
I kept them for nearly 30 years.
A colleague of mine built a pair of transmission line cabinets using
the same kits based on the design published by Dr Arthur Bailey of
Bradford University in Wireless World in 1972. Whilst they were less
good at stereo imaging than many other (mostly two-way) designs they
produced a naturalness of sound that I have ever heard from any other
speaker save Quad ESLs and possibly one of the Philips MFB designs.
My colleague got married and moved into a terraced house where he did
not have the room for them so I bought them off him for £55 in about
1976 (the drive units alone were worth well over £100 retail) and we
kept them until my Management decided they were too big and had to go
somewhere in the early 90's. I was heartbroken and as I could not sell
them I removed the drive units and broke up the cabinets - I still
have those drivers boxed up in my (very dry) garage!
My F-in-L is an organist so there is a love of organ music around
here. I have never heard any speaker that can reproduce organ pedals -
particularly the reeds - with such clarity and realism. Real window
shakers at 10 paces from a 20W amp!
Since then I have had a pair of Spendor BC1's (still have them) and am
currently running a pair of KEF Q55's but neither were/are anywhere
near as pleasant and comfortable to listen to as those TL's.
--
Woody
harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com