JBL XPL90 Speaker Review

[andreasmaaan]

Are those....bypass capacitors??

According to this random guy on the internet, JBL was or has been using these in the majority of their pro and consumer gear for decades.

TBH, this is the first I've heard of it. I guess a lot of their crossover schematics are published, so it wouldn't be hard to find out.

 

[gr-e]

According to this random guy on the internet, JBL was or has been using these in the majority of their pro and consumer gear for decades.

TBH, this is the first I've heard of it. I guess a lot of their crossover schematics are published, so it wouldn't be hard to find out.

They use them in studio 5 series as well

 

[Robbo99999]

Was really surprised to see the laying down panther of approval until I got to the last part of the review: "I think this is the first speaker I have liked that has some clear response errors. What it gets right must be what I pay attention to and in that regard, this was an enjoyable speaker."

I find that quite interesting, but for any speaker purchases I'd probably want both the measurements and the subjective to both be in approval.

 

[Slare]

New guy here but I've had quite a few JBL speakers from this era, and was never particularly fond of the sound of the 2-way designs. Honestly I'm surprised this measured so well in so many ways. I am curious about the effects of age vs. measurements... this is a ~25 - 30 year old speaker after all.

I know the titanium tweeter has a foam plug behind it meant to tame some resonances that is long since dried out/crumbling, and the ferrofluid could be toast as well as someone else pointed out. Some folks replace the foam plug, these tweeters are quite common so there's lots of knowledge and restoration craft to be done on them. The neoprene like material on the front is also likely quite a bit harder than originally intended. What about the crossovers at this age? Do they deteriorate?

This XPL line and the L (L1, L3, L5, L7) line were around in the same timeframe and I fondly recall the local hi-fi shop having them all at the same time, wishing I could afford such things. At least in my area they really were the last of an era, as the Best Buys of the world took over and all the makers started pumping out mass market lines. JBL always had gems in their lineup but so much damage was done by the Best Buy lines...

The JBL L5 tower from that timeframe was my absolute favorite, I'd love to see one of them measured. I ran a pair of them for a very long time and ended up moving out of them mostly due to the lack of a matching center channel and overall concerns about the remaining life of the low end drivers.

 

[Hiten]

Newbie query out of curiosity.
I understand from other threads in ASR about old capacitors still holding there original capacitance value. But could the 3khz dip may be due to drifting capacitance value in crossover ?
Thanks and regards.

 

[GXAlan]

I know the titanium tweeter has a foam plug behind it meant to tame some resonances that is long since dried out/crumbling, and the ferrofluid could be toast as well as someone else pointed out. Some folks replace the foam plug, these tweeters are quite common so there's lots of knowledge and restoration craft to be done on them. The neoprene like material on the front is also likely quite a bit harder than originally intended. What about the crossovers at this age? Do they deteriorate?

Hard to know. You can still get replacement units which are in sealed packaging in controlled environments which should maintain function. I was planning on doing the ear test and deciding what to do. There is a question if the tweeter is wired out of phase (which would indicate a repair) but more testing is needed.

1) The foam plug behind the tweeter (inside the tweeter) "damper pad" is there to "kill the specular reflection off the pole piece, which leads to a sharp and deep resonance up near 20KHz." I don't see that in the measurements so at least this specimen.

2) Not sure about the ferrofluid -- I have always been told that how hard you drive the tweeter affects the condition of the ferrofluid and the XPL-90 was rated at 400W transients. It is possible that the distortion seen at 0.5-1.5% range is from dried up ferrofluid VS. it being a limitation of the driver technology at the time. (People used to say that "titanium tweeters" were harsh. Maybe this is why).

"If the fluid just "dries up" and goes away, you are dealing with a straight-up air gap with no damping and would likely sound "bright" or "harsh". The handful that I have rebuilt, the FF had turned to "grease" and made them "dull". -#9

The brightness we see in the measurements may or may not be from this. The JBLs are consistently voiced brighter than Revels.

The JBL L5 tower from that timeframe was my absolute favorite, I'd love to see one of them measured. I ran a pair of them for a very long time and ended up moving out of them mostly due to the lack of a matching center channel and overall concerns about the remaining life of the low end drivers.

Chris Hagen developed the L5 (along with the current L100 and L88). The L1 vs XPL-90 were similar, but the XPL-90 was better sounding due to different crossovers and cabinets. This was at the Harman Outlet in Southern CA.

Today, as long as you don't care about country of origin, many L7 owners who want to stay with the JBL sound have moved toward the Studio 590.

 

[Slare]

It's funny, I had a pair of L1 and XPL-90 speakers at the same time and preferred the L1. But the pair of 90s had obviously had a very rough life and the L1s were like new. I always wondered if the tweeters were off on the 90s but never got that far into them. Also never realized how expensive they originally were, I can't imagine abusing such an expensive set of speakers like that. I think I paid around $75 for the pair... but they were in exceptionally poor condition.

I also had L5 and L7s at the same time. The L7s were absolute monsters and if you put a strong amp behind them would peel the roof of your house back. But the speakers were huge, and with the side firing woofers demanded perfect placement. No doubt they could be far superior but the L5s were just easier to place correctly enough in regular sized rooms. I was quite fond of them and would still be using them had I not stumbled into the performance series. Frankly I'd probably still have them if not for concerns about the life of the surrounds. I loved those speakers.

Also agree about the current studio 5 series. Have a pair of the 530s and am quite fond of them at the sale prices. I'm afraid we may not see such bargains again (along with the last infinity line) from the new overlords.

 

[anmpr1]

The back panel is interesting: Can you see it? Let me zoom in...

My first reaction was that you were referencing the "Made in the USA" blurb. LOL Are any JBL loudspeakers made in LA, anymore?

The Monster thing must have been a marketing deal with Noel Lee. Back in the day this sort of thing was not uncommon. I owned an Acoustat MOS-FET amplifier that I think had some Monster Cable in it. Or maybe it was the electrostatic loudspeaker interface. Or both.

This might be more for the 'high end' cable thread, but I recall my dealer was showing me a boutique amp (don't recall the brand) that used some of Ray Kimber's twisted wire for connections. There were five or six strands on his special wire, however two were disconnected, capped off. The dealer claimed the amp designer determined that his creation sounded better with two of the multiple wire threads disconnected. You can't make this stuff up...

 

[Slare]

I still have a couple spools of different monster cable purchased for pennies on the dollar when circuit city went away, along with a few runs in use from before that. They made speaker wire with a soft pliable squared casing that I really liked. I think it has some funny extra element spiraled in with the copper strands, but the stuff is probably 25 years old by now and is still flexible and good. I bet the cables in these 90s is still fine and flexible.

The stuff was stupid overpriced back in the day but at least they were generally decent products. Puts them ahead of all the snake oil stuff that was somehow both expensive and garbage. We didn't always have the internet...

 

[bigx5murf]

I've got a bunch of the monster cable you've described as well. I renovated a home that had the stuff ran to a pair of 901 hanging on the ceiling. Homeowner told me to trash everything. So I kept the 901 and the monster cable, parts of the cables were painted pink.

 

[GXAlan]

My first reaction was that you were referencing the "Made in the USA" blurb. LOL Are any JBL loudspeakers made in LA, anymore?.

Northridge closed in 2010 for manufacturing (both JBL and Revel). The 4319 reviewed here was among the last JBLs made in the US.

 

[GXAlan]

@amirm .
You were right to avoid changing the tweeter. I unscrewed the front 4 posts and I still couldn't remove the tweeter easily, suggesting that it was glued. It would have been a wasted effort.

Edit: For convenience, these were just tested on a Marantz Nr1608, a budget amp. It may measure differently on my real setup (note the impedance in this region).

I ran some measurements and the mustache dip at 1-3kHz is there on both speakers. Additionally, if you look at the XPL-160 (same tweeter, different midrange/bass driver completely, but same "voicing") measurements from Stereophile, it also has that same dip.

With a "flat" estimate, it's -5dB at 3Khz and with a "Harman curve" it's about -3dB there.

I ran THD measurements at 75 dB and they were pretty reasonable. I will need to see how it performs at 96 dB, but that will have to be for another day.

So I do think that the 3kHz distortion peak is a reflection off something on the Klippel.
@andreasmaaan @Dennis Murphy

 

[Jayce996]

I own and use a pair of XPL200 for HiFi & HC.
these speakers are beautiful but giving their best only when bi-amp and with the use of their dedicated crossover the unfindable JBL DX1.
So I'm struggling like hell to mimic the DX1 particularities with an active DSP, until yesterday I used a DCX2496 which I tuned with the following values collected from different places such Altec Lansing heritage, JBL Forum, etc...

Low-pass: "L-R 12", fc=303Hz
EQ: -1.9dB, Q=0.5, fc=303Hz

High-pass: "Butt 12", fc=352Hz
EQ: -0.5dB, Q=0.71, fc=352Hz

Main system is composed of a XMC2 for all the sources, and only the R/L Front are redirected to the crossover.

Anyone have tried to do the same? same parameter? same crossover?