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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!herbie
From: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS])
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: A/B CD, Bose, etc.
Message-ID: <1355@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-May-85 20:43:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1355
Posted: Tue May  7 20:43:13 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 8-May-85 03:33:09 EDT
References: <1209@houxm.UUCP> <3626@alice.UUCP> <320@rtech.ARPA> <1322@watdcsu.UUCP> <249@uscvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS])
Organization: U of Waterloo
Lines: 47
Summary: 

In article <249@uscvax.UUCP> mohan@uscvax.UUCP (Rakesh Mohan) writes:
>
>> the key here is GOOD.  does anyone know how many studios still use
>> Altec Lansings and old JBL's for monitoring?
>> 
>> Herb Chong...
>
>WHAT is wrong with JBL speakers?
>
>R. Mohan

notice that i said *OLD* JBL's.  new ones are fine speakers with good
efficiency, extended response both in the lows and the highs.  i don't
think that phase linearity is as good as some of the best so imaging
suffers somewhat, but many people would not notice either because of
quality of source material or transducers.  OLD JBL speakers are
another story.  it was not unusual to have a measured listing room peak
of some 20 dB below 250 Hz and a high frequency peak of up to 10 dB
around 12 to 14 kHz and a rapid roll off above 16 kHz.  in between was
nowhere near flat either, and phase was a word that was barely heard of
in the speaker design business.  to say that they were less than
accurate is an understatement.  of course, there were literally
hundreds of speakers like them at the time.

the origins of the terms 'west coast' and 'east coast' sound came about
because of the comparisons between the two types of speakers that were
commonly available at the time.  the west coast sound was typified by
JBL and Altec-Lansing speakers.  the east coast sound was literally
created by Advent.  springing from people who left Advent were
companies like Allison, Acoustic Research, and Boston Acoustics.  west
coast speakers were known as "rock" speakers because of the punch in
the bass and sizzle on the high end.  east coast speakers were
synonymous with classical music tradition.  while the fallacy is still
propogated by some dealers, speaker systems in general today are much
better systems than only ten years ago.  there is really no such thing
as a rock speaker or a classical speaker except with respect to
efficiency and power handling.  a speaker that reproduces all music the
best is the best speaker.

Herb Chong...

I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....

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