JBL Horns - The Best Speakers the Brits Have Ever Heard.."

[maxcat]

Well, well well...the UK audio press finally get into some good old fashioned JBL speaker sound.

I damn near fell over in the shop as I broused thru one of the English Audio Magaazines (out right now), when I read the JBL K2 (new model) is the best speaker the English reviewer has 'ever heard.'

Now I love horns - but is this some new kind of trend in high-end audio? Are horns actually on the way back to audio fashion?

There was a time when a public confession regarding horns deemed one to the back of the demonstration room while the real discussion centered on some new high-end speakers featuring a tweeter made from yak's milk and flax from the mountains of Tibet.

Give me horns or give me music.

And give me the $30,000 (UK Sterling) I need to buy the K2s...

What next the Poms loving horns - the US loving cricket?..


Max Christoffersen

[Michael Jones]

Max,

which mag and writer was this?

[michael w]

HI FI Choice a month or three back.

And Hi Fi+ Issue 21, not yet in NZ shops.

The author of the HiFi + praise was one Paul Messenger, he might have also been the author of the Hi Fi Choice piece.

I haven't heard the K2 9800 but have heard the earlier K2 9500 and they are nothing like the JBL sound of old. Pic of the 9500 below.

Jeepers Max , where have you been for the last 10 audio years ?
Too much HT ???

:p

Horns have been back for quite some while on both sides of the Atlantic, especially in favour with the new generation of low powered SET lovers. Whose amps have such flea-like power outputs that a high efficency speaker is a must, high efficency being something that most horns excell at.



cheerio

[maxcat]

I first saw them a few years back on the Barco Cine range of projectors catalogue.

I saw these very 'interesting' looking horns and finally got put onto Jands who desribed them as the K2's and I've had all the specs on them for a while now.

These new ones in the review that's out now, however bear only a faint resembalance to the picture above.

These things have a JBL super tweeter..

Bejeezus I *love* the look of those things. Frankly I don't even care what they sound like..I just want to see Linda's face as she kicks me out the door...

"I sold the beach house dear but just *LOOK* at my new speakers.."


Max Christoffersen

[maxcat]

"Jeepers Max , where have you been for the last 10 audio years ? Too much HT ???" MW

Yeah yeah... :>)

I've noticed the resurgence in popularity and marketing of horns, but I mean *real* horns - not the nambi-pambi-pretty-boy horns designed to appeal to the Ponsonby Rd crowd who want something 'arty' to match their Bang and Olufsen system..:

http://www.avantgarde-usa.com/basshorns.html

I mean real horns baby - horns that are so butt-ugly and industrial, only a roadie could love 'em.

I love horns that throw into your seat and tell you in no uncertain terms that *this* is what live music *really* sounds like baby. 'Sit-down-shut-the F$#@%#*K up and-listen!'

I spent years reviewing bands and living in dirty pubs with P.A stacks up the wazoo and nothing in my experience of domestic audio is remotely close to live music - except horns.

And I've tried really hard to like good domestic gear and Class A amps and so on - but it's all scale model music.

Give me a horn from 20 feet - I'll give you dynamics and punch and such musical articulation you'd think you were there when the band really played.

Nothing comes close to that 'being there' feeling of horns.

Forget PRaT - get into DAFT (dynamics, articulation force and timbre).

You'll thank me for it later.


Max Christoffersen