Did the JBL-1400s have room-shaking tight bass?
It is interesting that you said the more expensive JBL K2 actually did not sound as good to you as the JBL-1400s.
I recently listened to the Revel Salon2, which I thought was phenominal.
Some folks were saying that the JBL Synthesis K2 would sound even "better".
I thought, "And this is based purely on cost of the speakers? That more $$ means better sound?".
They had the 1400s set up in a medium sized well damped hotel room, and the K2s were in a reflective truck. The K2s were part of a multi-channel home theater setup where they were showing a western shoot 'em up scene, but the Harmon guys in the truck were kind enough to put the system (all JBL Synthesis gear) into 2 channel bypass mode for me and use the same demo disc they used up in the Venitian suite. The K2s sounded excellent, but they didn't seem to image as well as the 1400s. I think it may be the vertically oriented midrange horn, which I was told was stumbled upon by accident by Greg Timbers. They said Asians won't buy vertically oriented horns, so they don't even try to market the "Array" series over there. Hell, they don't really try to market it here, they had no literature at all at the Venitian, and almost nothing in the truck. They had to dig around for a few minutes to find anything.
So the rooms were hugely different, and the electronics were hugely different, with the benefit in both cases going to the 1400s. And the K2s are gorgeous, while the 1400s are butt ugly. They look like a cartoon duck to me, but man did they sound amazingly real.
Someone asked about bass, and it was very good, but they're down 3dB at 32HZ so they're not going to get your pants ruffling in the wind. The mid/hi horn assembly is sold separately and has a rated efficiency of 98 dB, while the 1400s are rated at a surprisingly low 89dB, so they're padding the hell out of the horns to bring them down to the efficiency of the woofer, but they're still incredibly dynamic.
And yes the Salons sounded excellent too, but just not as "real" as the ducks. I heard the Salons in both locations BTW, and they sounded pretty similar in the drastically different listening environments.
