I got mine in last Monday and they are awesome. You know they're good when you want to listen to music over and over The stands were on back order so right now they are sitting on the floor but I can't wait to get them up and tilted a bit.
Hi, these speakers seems great, i wanted to have your opinion concerning the performance at low level listening, if this is convincing or not. Thanks!
What does that mean? I see there is limited space, and I would probably have them towed in a bit and pulled away from the wall a bit, but it appears he does not have lots of room to play with, what would be your suggestion? Sometimes, many times, there is the WAF to deal with, where only so much space can be available for audio, who knows, but it certainly looks very neat to be sure.
Well i wouldn't put them in front of my couch. Maybe move the whole thing up to the left. EDIT: i see that's not an option. just wanted to point out that it's a shame to position a great pair of speakers like this.
Yep, I do now see what you mean! He just does not have much room or wall options, and as I said he is probably dealing with the WAF. If he towed the speakers in just a bit, it would solve "some" of the couch in the front problem, but obviously not all. I know exactly what he is dealing with, as I have so much less space to deal with now, compared to 10 years ago! His Mac equipment makes up for any speaker placement shortcomings, at least I want to believe that!
Well, it was the only positioning choice I had. The speakers are 8' apart, and the loveseat is 4.5 ft from the right speaker. I still get a great center image, and overall very good sonics. I started here with 4429s. I swapped those for a pair of Focal Utopia headphones, but I really wanted to try the L100s. I've played two songs through the headphones since owning them, because I enjoy the L100 presentation more than headphones. Someday I'll probably need them, not now. There was a pit-stop with the ATC SCM19V2 that looked nice, and stood higher on their stands, but it was a different musical experience overall that I couldn't end quickly enough. I'm more the stickler on room design than the wife, I think everything gets best-served in the current layout. It has to...
I think it is easy to get carried away with speaker placement. Most speakers sit where they have room to fit and where the listener decides it is practical for placement in the room. In a perfect world, I would pull out any speaker at least 4' from the rear and side walls, listen in a space that is at least 400 sq. ft., have 10' plus ceilings and listen from 12 to 14 feet away. But... I have yet to actually do this, though my large Altec A7's are on wheels, so that I do pull them out and sometimes reposition them at night... Most speaker manufacturers do realize that when they design a speaker, they will most likely be sitting in normal rooms and placed close to a rear and sometimes at least one side wall. And, in homes that have a coffee table in front of a sofa. Not every speaker is even intended to be pulled out from walls. Both Altec and JBL have their roots in commercial products where room placement is not a critical design consideration. The JBL Century 100's were designed as studio monitor speakers that were used in small cramped recording studio control rooms with zero consideration for placement. I have always put speakers where I could and never have been unhappy with the sound. The only major exception being Magnapan's, which must be pulled out several feet from a wall and towed in toward the listening position. But, they are easy to move and put back out of the way. Although I do think they sound more spacious in rooms that have high ceilings.
I am a little surprised about the ATC SCM19 V2. I got a pair of the SCM19 V1's way back around 2010 for my video system. They took about 20 - 30 hours to fully break-in and have been wonderful ever since. I'm surprised the V2's would be a step backwards. I know the stands that the L100's on are the recommend JBL stand, however, if you could find two small platforms ( basically two boxes ) that would raise the stands such that the bottoms of the L100's are the same height as the top of the platform that your TV is on I think you would get better sound. When we were just married and living in a "small" apartment my first speakers were a pair of JBL L88's ( 2 way speakers ). I had all kinds of "fun" trying to find the best spot for them. Good luck.
It's like when people try to emphasize that they have matching speakers in a 4/5 speaker surround sound setup. Most stereo setups, the left and right speakers with a mono recording won't even sound the same because of the shape of the room, the walls, and the furniture. They would rather have dinky matching speakers than 2 different pairs of higher quality monitors.
I have a processor that I use for HT. It goes to one channel of the integrated amp and I use the same Polk LSiM707 towers for stereo as for the HT front main channels. I have a separate power amp with two different inputs and a volume control that I use for the rear tower speakers, which are Boston Acoustics M-350's. I prefer to use tower speakers in the rear for the side surrounds and rear channels. I think it adds much more body than dinky side surrounds and small rear speakers. I prefer to use a 5.1 surround mix for this reason
I used to have 6 JBL Control 5's for my 5.1 system, which included a JBL B380 sub. I'd say it was pretty well matched and it sounded OK. Now I've got JBL L100t3's up front, L2ot3's in the rear, and a Studio Center, and the whole kit sounds really nice whether for mono, stereo, or 5.1 music/movies. The center channel is my weakest link and that being the case, I've been looking into the new JBL HDI Series which has a really nice center channel speaker in the line up. At any rate, my front speakers seem to be placed about right for an authentic sound stage.
Recently I was looking to replace my Harbeth P3ESR 40th's and 30.2 XD's, they are both sublime with everything but rock. So, I had the Klipsch Heresy IV, Klipsch Forte III and the JBL L82 on loan for a couple of weeks. Well the winners by a large margin in my room were the L82's they ROCK! They are exceptional with other genres as well. I did consider the L100's but they would have been too big for my listening room. As a UK speaker snob, I never thought I would buy a pair JBL speaker's! I am running them with my Marantz KI Ruby Amp.
I am blown away by mine! Out of interest are you running the speakers with the tweeters inboard or outboard?
Strangely there seems little mention or love for the L82's on various forums, no idea why, they blow my old Harbeth M30.2 XD's away. I only paid £1400 for my L82's and over £4.2k for the M30's! When people say "Wall of Sound" they should listen to the JBL Classics, they redefine this in a domestic situation!
I still have a pair of JBL L112 speakers that I bought new circa 1980. I could only afford them because JBL decided to cut off a discount store called Handy Andy in Sacramento (where my college roommate lived), and he spotted the (then) $1200 speakers on sale for around $350. So he bought them for me and I paid him back. I'd been lusting after these for a long while. I would go to the stereo shop in Berkeley and "preview" them for hours (knowing I could never afford them), but the universe provided. Amazing speakers. Bill
Hi and welcome to the SHF. I got a brand new pair 2 weeks ago.. I think they perform very well at low levels, it's where I do most of my listening. One thing that makes it even nicer is the midrange and treble controls on the speaker... boost or attenuate them to your liking and room needs.
I've had my L100's for almost exactly two years now (Boy, that went by quickly!) and still love them as much or more than I did when I bought them! Like others here have said, I think that they do very well at low levels. Thanks to Covid, my wife now works from home full time (our house is fairly small) so that means the only time I can play music during the week is at night. My night time listening is at what most would consider extremely low levels. The L100's are still quite full sounding even at low levels. One more reason I really love them. For what it's worth, almost all of that low level listening is to Classical music. They aren't just "Rock" speakers!
