[dburna]

But dburna says that the speakers are vibrating on the tops and sides and JLM says that the bass tightened up when put on a solid bass. You might not hear distortion but clearly some basic physics is effecting them here - dburna and JLM clearly say so! And that makes me the bad guy?

Well, if you want to quote me accurately, I did indeed say that the sides of the 708s (and the 305s I have) vibrate when playing. But I also said I couldn't tell any effect that this had on the sound presentation. Other speakers that are designed with thin walls (Harbeth, Audio Note), I can hear the vibrations. Make of that what you will. And do note that I didn't call you a "bad guy". I would say that what you tried with cabinet damping might have an effect. It might also ameliorate one issue and cause another -- dampening/tuning a cabinet is not a simple as some would like to believe. So yes, my observation is in-line with your view, but it neither proves or disproves the validity thereof. And I wouldn't imply that it does if I were you, that does not give credit to your viewpoint. Yours is a theory, and would require further investigation. Every speaker vibrates, some a miniscule amount and some alot. The question is......is it audible? And, if so, does it add or subtract to the enjoyment?

For the record, there's no such thing as a perfect speaker due the peskiness of a thing called physics. JBL hasn't broken the laws of physics with their new designs, but they have gotten remarkable results at their respective price points. And that's all I have said (above) and am going to say on the subject. I don't have time for holy wars -- I am too busy listening to my music and living my life. Plus, I don't have any answers.....only an endless stream of questions.

-dGB  (currently beta-testing Qobuz as we 'speak')

[charmerci]

Oh, I wasn't including you there, dGB. I wasn't saying that one could or could not hear the distortion. And as you said the JBL engineers did a fine job.

If you guys love the speakers, I'm not telling anyone to not like them - more power to you or to anyone. I have thoroughly enjoyed much less expensive speakers myself.

[Russell Dawkins]

It's interesting to hear faith-based statements from people who seem to otherwise be objectivists.

Is this aimed at me?

[Russell Dawkins]

LP-8 currently $200 each at Zenpro audio:
https://www.zenproaudio.com/kali-audio-lp-8

LP-6 is $149 ea and the LP-8 is $249 ea at msrp. LP-6 got an impressive review at Sound On Sound magazine in Britain.

[Tyson]

Is this aimed at me?

Oh, not at anyone in particular.  But I also hang out on the Klipsch forum (since I recently bought some Heresy IIIs) and Klipsch Heresy cabinets vibrate a fair bit.  Obviously it's better to have an inert cabinet than a vibrating cabinet.  And over there (like here), they say things like "well the Klipsch/JBL engineers must know what they are doing so it can't be bad".  Or "If they wanted to brace the cabinet better, they would have, so therefore the speaker cannot sound better or be improved because engineering!"
 Haha, its just funny that's all. 

[OzarkTom]

And then you have Meridian who places a coin on edge and it never falls down at very loud levels. For 80K, I hope that would be the truth.

[mr_bill]

Oh, not at anyone in particular.  But I also hang out on the Klipsch forum (since I recently bought some Heresy IIIs) and Klipsch Heresy cabinets vibrate a fair bit.  Obviously it's better to have an inert cabinet than a vibrating cabinet.  And over there (like here), they say things like "well the Klipsch/JBL engineers must know what they are doing so it can't be bad".  Or "If they wanted to brace the cabinet better, they would have, so therefore the speaker cannot sound better or be improved because engineering!"
 Haha, its just funny that's all.

Tyson - how do you like your Heresy III’s?

[Tyson]

Tyson - how do you like your Heresy III’s?

Like them a lot!  I really wanted a pair of low profile and stylish speakers for the living room area, and I wanted something very lively and punchy for a more "rock and roll" focus.  The Heresy IIIs deliver all of that. 

[GRACE RUBY]

way out of my water here, but tend to follow R. Dawkins posts as he looks for elements of sound "Grace"
other's sometimes forget.

 I have questions.

I just left the zen site and I am noting some of these are self powered D amp speakers (and i love d amps) meaning they are gonna take a long wire from a pre amp, console board  (or phone Wtf) is not that a real no no to have a low level voltage go a great distance down a wire to speaker, not to mention a amp banging around in a cabinet.

Also, I have seen speakers whose whole sound was made or broken by the ability of the cabinet to vibrate resonate sound that when added made the whole over all sound a deliriously lush experience, I am hearing on this page/thread cabinet vibration is a no no.

I love tone more then detail, detail is for me too easily attained with digital and D amps,  but tone with body is a harder hill to get up.

GR

[Rocket_Ronny]

Russell. Are you hearing about how good the Zenpro's are on pro audio forums like GearSlutz?

Rocket Ronny

[mr_bill]

Tyson - how do you like your Heresy III’s?

Thanks Tyson, I’ve been wondering about the new Forte III or JBL L100 Classsic myself as well as Heresy.

[Tyson]

Thanks Tyson, I’ve been wondering about the new Forte III or JBL L100 Classsic myself as well as Heresy.

Fortes are even better than the Heresies.  Heard them (and the JBL L100s) at the last RMAF - both were great, but I'd give the nod to the Fortes for being more refined in the mids/highs.  Really great sounding speakers. 

[Russell Dawkins]

Russell. Are you hearing about how good the Zenpro's are on pro audio forums like GearSlutz?

Rocket Ronny

Hi Ronny,
They aren't Zenpros they are Kalis. ZenPro Audio is one of the few US outlets selling them at the moment, along with zZounds, Musician's Friend and Guitar Center. Sweetwater doesn't cary them yet. They're due in Canada very soon, but when they get here the same situation might exist that did for JBL LSR 3 series: you won't find them on the shelves; you have to have them ordered in at major retailers like Long & McQuade, I think because they would be hard to sell against.

I'm not sure where I heard about them—I think it was diyAudio in a thread discussing the JBL 7 series. There are numerous mentions in Gearslutz, though, easily found with their effective search window.

Given the lineage I would be very interested in hearing the LP-8s. I like the design goals of generous (20 dB) headroom at intended listening levels (80 dB) and low distortion and, of course, flat response—resisting the urge to impress the masses with a rising top end as so many monitors do. Seems to me the main downside is that they are rather large compared to most of the competition, but that's a price I will pay for performance.

I see that you can buy from Kali themselves and at the moment they offer free shipping to the USA and Canada. That's unusual.
https://www.kaliaudio.com/lone-pine-order

[poseidonsvoice]

You all might be interested in knowing that Charles Sprinkle, who was the acoustic design engineer on the 7 series of JBL speakers, is the design engineer for a one-year-old company called Kali Audio. They have just come on the market with two extremely competitively priced powered speakers for the studio market: the LP-6 and the LP-8. Their pricing is about the same as for the LSR 305 and 308. The design criteria include—apart from tonal neutrality—"controlled directivity, low distortion, and boundary compensation", according to an email I received from Charles in response to a query of mine.

Kali are publishing some fairly detailed specs, too. The LP-8's distortion specs are better than the already low LP-6: https://www.kaliaudio.com/lone-pine-detail
graphs for LP-6: https://www.kaliaudio.com/lp6-technology-frequency-response
graphs for LP-8 have not been published yet; it has only been on the market for about a month.
Initial reviews have been very good.

If I didn't have a pair of 705Ps and were on a tight budget I would be looking very closely at these.

This.

Thanks for posting. At first when I watched the video with “Charles” Sprinkle being interviewed I didn’t know if it was the same “Charlie” Sprinkle who had designed the M2/708/705 series. And now that’s confirmed! Great find, thanks once again. Like you, I have a pair of 705’s that I will install in my soon to be workshop or else I would be all over the Kali monitors.

The single most important factor here is that Charlie Sprinkle had his hand in the engineering.

Best,
Anand.

[JLM]

Miscellaneous responses:

I've long repeated that there is no perfect speaker, but for $2000 and 4000/pair with amps, DSP, and DAC included the 705Ps and 708Ps embarrass lots of other speakers and their manufacturers (even more so for the high value 305/306/308 monitors).

So of course the 705P and 708P could be improved upon, but very doubtful it could be done successfully by a DIYer or small time builder/kit seller.

The 705P weighs 12.5 pounds, the 708P 25.2 pounds.  Yes, weight is more important to the professionals as monitors can frequently get moved around and shipped to job sites.  But putting them on solid stands (the previous stands weighed 50 pounds) and getting better performance is not a fault of the speakers themselves.

Having a good designer is a great start, and a good review from Sound-on-Sound is promising, but it takes more than design to make a great product.  What's the component, materials, workmanship quality like?  Will there be service after the sale years down the road?  Are these one hit wonders?  Perhaps he'll be sued by JBL for intellectual theft.

Concerns regarding long interconnects is why professionals use balanced (XLR or TRS) cabling which are immune to these issues.  The 705P and 708P use XLR analog and AES/EBU digital inputs.

[Rocket_Ronny]

Thanks Russell. Yes I saw that the speakers are Kalis, thanks. On youtube, one reviewer liked the LP-6 over the LP-8s because of their greater speed and smaller size. As long as they prove reliable, long term they look like a super choice for the cheap and cheerful buyer. Thanks for sharing.

Rocket Ronny

[Tyson]

JLM is right - balanced interconnects are much better choices than single ended cables for long runs. 

[Rusty Jefferson]

Nice thread concerning good speakers.

I do appreciate and understand why these self powered monitors are in the marketplace. Personally, I'd opt for the passive version for home use, however.  I had this conversation with JLM recently.  My concern is simply the durability of the electronic amp modules.  JBL (but this would be true of ELAC or anyone else), used to maintain spare parts for their products for decades.  Now, not so much. I imagine these speakers will not be serviceable in just a few years, if needed. The little Class D amps and the overseas companies that make them come and go weekly. In the pro world, if they go a couple years, they've paid for themselves. Something new and better has come along, and it's also not worth replacing stressed diaphragms. Time for new speakers.

My example of this was a purchase of an ELAC soundbar and sub speaker combo that was highly rated, designed by Andrew Jones and cost a few hundred dollars.  I used it only a few times per week when watching a movie or sporting event, but at about 20 months (12 month warranty) the amp failed. The struggle I had to endure to get it repaired including shipping the entire system cross country was ridiculous. The amp module was the size of a tv remote and held in with 4 screws, and simple plug connectors, but had been changed and wouldn't work with my now only 2 year old speaker. None of the original modules available.

I'm sure most of these speakers will outlive their original owners, but I fear many will end up in the landfills far too prematurely (which is ultimately what happened to my soundbar), and that's just a waste of resources imo.

I recently purchased a pair of small 2 way powered monitors, but the speaker cabinets are passive and there is a separate power amp/crossover box. I sent the speakers to Danny Ritchie to measure, and make a set of passive crossovers as well so I can also run my own front end equipment for the enjoyment of it, or out of necessity in 5 years when one of the 4 amp modules in the factory unit dies and can't be replaced.

[Russell Dawkins]

Very good points really worth considering, Rusty.
Parts for passive speaker crossovers will be available long after the electronics of any active speaker become impossible to find.

I guess the bottom line is "unless you can think of the active speaker you are considering buying 'disposable', you should be shopping cheaper or passive".

[Tyson]

The broader point of this thread should not be lost in the discussion of amps.  And to me (at least), the biggest paradigm shift I've had re: JBL (and Klipsch) is that horn/waveguide speakers are no longer "boom and screech" designs.  You can get very nice sounding speakers with controlled directivity that sound every bit as good as the "audiophile" speakers using Danish drivers in a box.  That's a massive shift, IMO. 

I mean, in the past, it was always possible to modify one of these speakers to sound good for our purposes and there's a pretty large cottage industry that's sprung up around that.  But nowadays it's possible to get a JBL or Klipsch speaker that sounds good out-of-the-box.  That's pretty amazing, I think.