Chane "Audiophile"speakers.

[MrBoat]

They've been owned by Harman since 1969

I am sure it's not the same Harman that was around in 1969. Maybe so. But I've almost always been at least a decade or more behind everyone else. The JBL speakers I was subjected to in the 70's, were likely before Harman. The town I grew up in, was at least a 90 minute drive to the nearest city. In 1978, I was still driving a '65' Ford Falcon and thought of that as a relatively modern car.

 

[MrBoat]

Wow Boat. I didn't know you were THAT old...

I grew up exposed to my uncle's gear that he had started acquiring in the late 40's and through to the 60's and he stopped there somewhere. What my uncle was into, and even my oldest brother owned was pretty much unobtainable to me working a reg job. I bought a Fisher rack system in the earlier 80's, based on the name from seeing some old amps my uncle had thinking I was buying something great. At that time, we had no internet and not a lot of research outlets and had very little knowledge of what corporations were doing and who owned what. I just knew it was worlds above that stuff my parents had.

Once I found out what the corporate buyout hatchet job model was doing to consumer based goods, I kind of lost interest, which is mostly what makes DIY so attractive to me.

 

[Tankman]

All speakers, and everything you drop a nickel on has marketing hype. Just look at the trendy language associated with everything we do these days. It gets people to basically throw away, perfectly good speakers with at least another 10-20 years of use left in them.

Possibly 99% of this hobby is not audiophilia, it's spendophilia. Comparatively, my uncle owned and maintained the same tube gear and speakers for over 50 years. When he passed, they discovered he had enough spare, NOS parts, to keep them going for another 50. When his audio supplier caved to the big box stores, the owner 'gave' my uncle all the parts stock he was interested in instead of sending it off to the auctioning block.

Whenever I look at speakers, I look at how serviceable they are for the long term. I have not followed JBL in recent years, but if they are still involved on the service end as they once were, at least on their higher end gear, I'd just end up going with them.

ETA: I guess JBL is now owned by Harman? Ok, that's not the same JBL I grew up with.

It is and is way I have stayed with Polk Audio..Matthew Polk started out with just an Idea, to bring affordable home HI FI. Now JBL was on the seen back then also. As where some of the "Box" B&M locals. With the internet involved on the market end now All the snake oil out there is ramping up to make the bucks to help their bottom line.

Mike

 

[lovinthehd]

I am sure it's not the same Harman that was around in 1969. Maybe so. But I've almost always been at least a decade or more behind everyone else. The JBL speakers I was subjected to in the 70's, were likely before Harman. The town I grew up in, was at least a 90 minute drive to the nearest city. In 1978, I was still driving a '65' Ford Falcon and thought of that as a relatively modern car.

Here's the JBL history from the Harman site http://www.harman.in/about-us/jbl-history/

First JBL home speakers I heard were in the early 70s so maybe a little before and after Harman....

 

[MrBoat]

Here's the JBL history from the Harman site http://www.harman.in/about-us/jbl-history/

First JBL home speakers I heard were in the early 70s so maybe a little before and after Harman....

Thank you for prompting me to read that. I would likely buy JBL pro speakers these days with confidence. Always have liked the sound of their products.

 

[lovinthehd]

Thank you for prompting me to read that. I would likely buy JBL pro speakers these days with confidence. Always have liked the sound of their products.

Am quite happy with my JBL Studio 590/530/520 set...altho when I was a teenager thought nothing could beat the JBL L100 let alone my neighbor's Jubals.

 

[shadyJ]

If you want a more in-depth history of JBL and all of the other companies in that family, read through the Lansing heritage site, it is a great resource.

 

[GFOViedo]

I owned the Arx A3's. I had 4 Arx A3's and 1 Arx2 for center channel and a PSA-XV15 sub to complete my 5.1 set up.

I ended up selling the Arx at a really low price. They were difficult to sell since I couldn't ship them out. I then ended up buying the now Chane A5rx-c and a Chance A2rx-c. I've got a pair of Cambridge minx21 for surround, and my PSA-XV15 to complete my 5.1 set up.

The A3's were excellent speakers. I love that the ribbon/planar tweeter is neutral and not bright like my previous Polk Audio Monitor and RTiA's series.

The A5rx-c's sound way better. More mid-range, and sound great for music. Not much bass out of the 5 1/4" woofer. They sound great with the PSA-XV15 in stereo.

I almost sold my A5rx-c and the A2rx-c because I wanted to buy the Polk Audio LSiM 703's and 706c while they were on sale. However, I would of lost too much $$$ doing this, and in all honesty, I don't think the LSiM would be much of an upgrade.

I've also been thinking of selling my towers and going with bookshelves instead. I have a kid on the way, and I'm afraid he will tip them over once he starts messing around. My niece tipped over one of them.

I guess this is the area I don't really like about the Chane speakers. The veneer gets damaged pretty easily.