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My way (DIY JBL)
- Thread starter rajapruk
- Start date
The story is like this.
I heard JBL K2 S4700 on a hifi-show in my hometown, and fell in love. I must have this. I never heard that kind of "live" sound before. I then did my usual Ph.D dissertation on the subject before buying something. The conclusion I got was that JBL 4365 Studio Monitor had better internal parts, and a much lower price than S4700, at that moment.
So I bought 4365 unheard. I took a chance.
When I got them, I did not like the sound
Too bright and missing bass. Anemic.
So I started experimenting with active crossover to see if I could make it better. @pos entered the scene, and helped me. The results were stunning. The best sound I ever had heard was suddenly in my living room.
Then some time went. Life with 2 newborn kids, and some severe illnesses in the family. I lost the fun of hifi. I sold the 4365. They were too large and too much money bound in them for not using them. The currency rates had during the same time changed dramatically, so I sold them used for the same price I bought them new for
Sadly, I also sold my DIY Hypex nCore amps at this moment.
Shortly after, I started missing them. I started planning for building JBL M2 clones.
Then an add appeared on the JBL-forum where a guy in Iceland sells a kit of 4365 parts, horn, woofers, drivers. I could not resist it in the long run. But I think that add was out for half a year or something. M2 clones would have been the "easy way out". But I choosed my way, with the vision of speakers not so intrusive visually. I also got interested in corner speakers, with the dream of getting the same dispersion into the room for all registers. My theoretical holy grail of sound.
Then it took me a year to get them in boxes. During that time Speakerexchange started selling new 4365 woofers, so I bought a pair more. I like bass. And I was a bit scared of getting a bass-reflex construction "right", so I bought myself out of that problem. There are pros and cons with everything. That is the lesson I learned. There are many many tradeoffs to do when designing a loudspeaker. Balancing them right is the art.
I heard JBL K2 S4700 on a hifi-show in my hometown, and fell in love. I must have this. I never heard that kind of "live" sound before. I then did my usual Ph.D dissertation on the subject before buying something. The conclusion I got was that JBL 4365 Studio Monitor had better internal parts, and a much lower price than S4700, at that moment.
So I bought 4365 unheard. I took a chance.
When I got them, I did not like the sound
Too bright and missing bass. Anemic.So I started experimenting with active crossover to see if I could make it better. @pos entered the scene, and helped me. The results were stunning. The best sound I ever had heard was suddenly in my living room.
Then some time went. Life with 2 newborn kids, and some severe illnesses in the family. I lost the fun of hifi. I sold the 4365. They were too large and too much money bound in them for not using them. The currency rates had during the same time changed dramatically, so I sold them used for the same price I bought them new for
Sadly, I also sold my DIY Hypex nCore amps at this moment.
Shortly after, I started missing them. I started planning for building JBL M2 clones.
Then an add appeared on the JBL-forum where a guy in Iceland sells a kit of 4365 parts, horn, woofers, drivers. I could not resist it in the long run. But I think that add was out for half a year or something. M2 clones would have been the "easy way out". But I choosed my way, with the vision of speakers not so intrusive visually. I also got interested in corner speakers, with the dream of getting the same dispersion into the room for all registers. My theoretical holy grail of sound.
Then it took me a year to get them in boxes. During that time Speakerexchange started selling new 4365 woofers, so I bought a pair more. I like bass. And I was a bit scared of getting a bass-reflex construction "right", so I bought myself out of that problem. There are pros and cons with everything. That is the lesson I learned. There are many many tradeoffs to do when designing a loudspeaker. Balancing them right is the art.
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I have never thought about or experienced ”soundstage depth” in any system I have ever listened to. I am maybe not that advanced listener. Can you explain what I should try to hear?
If I should try to describe how it sounds to me: the soundstage is very large vertically and horisontally. Larger than the room, I think. But not larger than life. The focus is knife sharp in the middle between the speakers. Sharp in a way I have not heard in any other system. The singer stands right between the speakers and sings to me (i.e not standing more out in the room, depth-wise).
Take this with some grains of salt (and lemon and Tequila). I am not the golden ear boy.
If I should try to describe how it sounds to me: the soundstage is very large vertically and horisontally. Larger than the room, I think. But not larger than life. The focus is knife sharp in the middle between the speakers. Sharp in a way I have not heard in any other system. The singer stands right between the speakers and sings to me (i.e not standing more out in the room, depth-wise).
Take this with some grains of salt (and lemon and Tequila). I am not the golden ear boy.
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I've never heard any speaker that wasn't mounted in a free standing manner, with quite a bit of distance between them and the front/side walls, to be able to convey a good illusion of depth.. It may be totally a delusion that is ruined by the visual aspect, I don't know. My Klipsch La Scala's in a free standing arrangement could produce a fantastic soundstage with both width and depth outside the boxes, where I found the classic Kornerhorns unable to do the same.
YMMV
YMMV
