New JBL Summit Speakers

[Bugal1998]

Yes. It is a wideband waveguided hornloaded dual diaphragm coaxial compression driver.

Plus a woofer.

The D2 diaphrams play the exact same signal, so I'm not sure we should call it coaxial any more than we would say two woofers playing the same signal crossed over to a tweeter makes a three way. However, D2 is point source over a very wide frequency range. Maybe even better than coaxial in some ways because no crossover processing is needed in the HF driver?

 

[Flaesh]

Could the M2 driver be considered coaxial?

I think it's completely unnecessary.
Although a subwoofer with two opposite drivers is geometrically coaxial))

 

[thewas]

First third party measurements of the Makalu:

Source and more: https://audio.com.pl/testy/stereo/kolumny-glosnikowe/4233-jbl-makalu

 

[kyuu]

That's... not great. Why were they not able to avoid the big suckout at 800Hz on a 3-way speaker? Crossover from the tweeter to the midrange is at 1100Hz, seems like that's either too high for the mid or too low for the tweeter? Or both?

 

[JRR]

That's... not great. Why were they not able to avoid the big suckout at 800Hz on a 3-way speaker? Crossover from the tweeter to the midrange is at 1100Hz, seems like that's either too high for the mid or too low for the tweeter? Or both?

Should be neither. What on earth!?!

 

[HeadDoc12]

This looks like a money grab. JBL knows that the highest profit margins are with ultra-expensive speakers that look like furniture. They expect the potential customer for this line to be comparing them to Sonus Faber or B & W, as opposed to say Magico, so they voiced them not to sound bland, dry, cold, or any other adjectives people assign to neutral speakers after listening to over-priced garbage with a huge midrange dip. Disappointing...

 

[JRR]

In fairness, can you blame them? Do you thinkus ASR types are a lucrative market.

Get a pair of M2’s veneered professionally.

 

[Mr. Widget]

This looks like a money grab. JBL knows that the highest profit margins are with ultra-expensive speakers that look like furniture. They expect the potential customer for this line to be comparing them to Sonus Faber or B & W, as opposed to say Magico, so they voiced them not to sound bland, dry, cold, or any other adjectives people assign to neutral speakers after listening to over-priced garbage with a huge midrange dip. Disappointing...

I actually find absolute neutral a bit lackluster. After room correcting my D&D 8c speakers I took advantage of the voicing feature and massaged the curve a bit (just a bit). Now they sound perfect for the only person that matters.

I think these JBLs are the product of a marketing campaign and not a product derived from new revelations or from the decades of Harman's impressive engineering work.

 

[Duke]

I think these JBLs are the product of a marketing campaign and not a product derived from new revelations or from the decades of Harman's impressive engineering work.

The incorporation of a midrange driver didn't make sense to me, coming from an M2/4367-friendly paradigm (with its emphasis on radiation pattern control). On the other hand a 15" midwoofer probably makes no sense to people coming from more of a "conventional-speaker-centric" paradigm. And that's by far the larger segment of the audiophile market.

So I think you're right; I think the creation of the Summit line was a marketing-department decision rather than an engineering-department decision.

The dip shown in @thewas's post number 83 above looks to me like the sort of thing that could occur in the crossover region if the polarity of one of the drivers was incorrect. So I'd wait for a "second opinion" to come along just in case.

 

[Digital_Thor]

View attachment 452090
View attachment 452091

JBL Pro M2 en version "rococo sauvage à moumoute": l'enceinte monitor High End façon Trump Mansion

Des poils, du bois exotique... les fans du copilote Wookie de Han Solo se reconnaîtront peut-être dans cette version customisée de l'enceinte monitor Pro JBL M2. Mais on la verrait bien aussi dans la décoration des appartements de la Trump Tower de l’actuel président américain...

www.on-mag.fr

Maybe a bit harsh, but the color make it look like an ****

 

[Dinkydau]

First third party measurements of the Makalu:

View attachment 504476

Source and more: https://audio.com.pl/testy/stereo/kolumny-glosnikowe/4233-jbl-makalu

I'm not surprised, after hearing these at an audio show. It was the first time for me hearing JBL present their best, so I was very curious. I have the s4700 at home. When I heard the makalu I really thought "is that all?" My s4700 sound better. There's something about the believability of the space and the directness of the sound (dynamics?). When I left the audio show I blamed it on the JBL team probably being hired very indirectly, with no inherent motivation to make the brand perform at its best. I went through that effort myself. It's difficult to get the s4700 to sound right, because they are so extremely direct, or in other words they are revealing. I read someone describe the tweeter as that it can "cut through mylar", which is understandable given a bad source. You can hear any noise very easily. You can maybe tame that with a dark sounding amplifier, DAC or whatever, but in my opinion that's not the way to go. You just need to get rid of noise and distortion throughout the chain. Then the s4700 are extremely powerful, neutral, convincing, detailed and smooth.

 

[Puddingbuks]

I'm not surprised, after hearing these at an audio show. It was the first time for me hearing JBL present their best, so I was very curious. I have the s4700 at home. When I heard the makalu I really thought "is that all?" My s4700 sound better. There's something about the believability of the space and the directness of the sound (dynamics?). When I left the audio show I blamed it on the JBL team probably being hired very indirectly, with no inherent motivation to make the brand perform at its best. I went through that effort myself. It's difficult to get the s4700 to sound right, because they are so extremely direct, or in other words they are revealing. I read someone describe the tweeter as that it can "cut through mylar", which is understandable given a bad source. You can hear any noise very easily. You can maybe tame that with a dark sounding amplifier, DAC or whatever, but in my opinion that's not the way to go. You just need to get rid of noise and distortion throughout the chain. Then the s4700 are extremely powerful, neutral, convincing, detailed and smooth.

You draw all kinds of conclusions from hearing these speakers at an audio show?

 

[Dinkydau]

What do you mean? I don't conclude anything.

 

[sebackman]

It would be interesting to see a write-up on how they measure. I can't find it on their web site.
They seem to be using a Clio system by the logo on some of the graphs. It is difficult to compare graphs from different systems, below 4349 measures from them and Amirs Klippel.

 

[egellings]

If I should ever feel the urge to add a veneered refrigerator to my living room I’d be all in.

You need one for each ear, though, so that's two fridges.

 

[Short38]

First third party measurements of the Makalu:

View attachment 504476

Source and more: https://audio.com.pl/testy/stereo/kolumny-glosnikowe/4233-jbl-makalu

Oopsy

 

[Tom C]

I’d like to see a distortion measurement. Seems like that dip is in every measurement of a JBL with compression driver. It’s about where the woofer crosses over to the mid or tweeter, right? Amir has pointed it out before. As I recall, distortion rises on that region.

 

[steve59]

I'm currently trying to get a pair of Summit Pumori's after hearing them at Axpona last month. It could take some time as i'm pretty stubborn about giving dealers the massive markup baked into msrp, especially mail order that requires almost no effort from dealer.

 

[thewas]

Some measurements of the JBL Summit AMA:

Soure and more https://audio.com.pl/testy/stereo/kolumny-glosnikowe/4300-jbl-summit-ama

 

[Purité Audio]

Audio ‘jewellery’ then?
Keith