William Lemmerhirt
Audioholic Overlord
Lol. Sometimes I just do that...
"Let our rigorous testing and reviews be your guidelines to A/V equipment – not marketing slogans"
A
ajemeditor
Audiophyte
With a $5,000, I’d imagine there is lots of competiton from Paradigm . TeKton Wilson etc right ?
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shadyJ
Speaker of the House
Staff member
Wilson doesn't have anything that cheap.
TLS Guy
Audioholic Jedi
And not as good where it counts either!
A
ajemeditor
Audiophyte
Shady- what else would you suggest i look at in This priced range for a box speaker (ie not planar)
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shadyJ
Speaker of the House
Staff member
I think the Definitive Technology Demand D17 is probably pretty good. The Polk Legend series is very good. The Revel Performa3 208 is a very good speaker. The Salk Song3 series is very good. I am sure you could find excellent competition from Monitor Audio, KEF, and PSB in this range as well. That is just what I can think of off the top of my head, and I am sure there are many more great choices.
D
Danzilla31
Audioholic Spartan
TLS Guy what are your thoughts on JTR speakers
Down the road it's going to be between the JBL HDI lineup the JTR lineup or RBH for my forever speakers
After a lot of learning I just believe your spot on with where a speaker needs to be able to perform the best
Based on your expertise does JTR design speakers well?
William Lemmerhirt
Audioholic Overlord
Dan, I have an idea. Send me a pair HDI3800’s and get yourself a JTR setup! We both win!!!
D
Danzilla31
Audioholic Spartan
Hey we could even do it like this send me a pair of JTR and get yourself a HDI setup!!!
Winner winner chicken dinner!
William Lemmerhirt
Audioholic Overlord
Touché!!!!!Hey we could even do it like this send me a pair of JTR and get yourself a HDI setup!!!
Winner winner chicken dinner!
I like your choices. I think the HDI series is great, and is just what I’ve been looking for to upgrade my old JBL towers. I’ve also long been interested in JTR speakers/subs. The JTR’s look a little utilitarian in comparison so that’s a tougher sell to mamma. Plus, I feel rather poor these days so I’ll be enjoying any expenditures via YOU!!! Lol
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Danzilla31
Audioholic Spartan
Trust me bro there's a reason I only bought one PB 2000 pro today
I feel you being essential means my job is guaranteed unless stuff really collapses knock on wood but still I'm really not crazy about spending anything right now
I just couldn't resist
But it'll be a good long while before I do my forever speakers due to the issues we have now
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Danzilla31
Audioholic Spartan
If I do go JTR I'm planning on putting in a bigger AT screen and building an AT front wall to put everything behind simply due as you said to the look
But not so much an issue with the JBL aesthetically I'm really digging the new look
I can totally see piano gloss black in that theater room on them beauties
William Lemmerhirt
Audioholic Overlord
Plus, those 5 series you’ve got should keep you going for awhile.
Yeah. It’s crazy right now fo sho. Just going one day at a time.
Verdinut
Audioholic Spartan
This HDI-3600 with a Denon AVR-X3600H and a pair of SVS or Hsu subs would make an excellent system.Crutchfield (as well as other outlets) has these in 3 different finishes for $1900/ea. or $3800/pr. so very close to 25% less!
The strange thing is Crutchfield does not show this as a sale price so I wonder if this is JBL's actual price?!
@shadyJ do you have any thoughts on where you got the $5000 price vs Crutchfield's price?
Unfortunately, the bookshelf version is not less than $900/ea!
Edit: I am mistaken, this is the HDI-3600 with smaller woofers! See ShadyJ's post below.
William Lemmerhirt
Audioholic Overlord
Yes indeed!
Verdinut
Audioholic Spartan
Three of those HDI-3600 would definitely bring an ideal front sound stage which many audiophiles would enjoy having.
TLS Guy
Audioholic Jedi
I have never heard them. Such measurements as are out there, just very directional speakers. Large sectoral compression horn speaker systems have not had a good track record under domestic conditions. They have fared much by better in large cinemas and theaters.
However of late at least by measurements JBL seem to have tamed the beasts, producing speakers with a very flat mid band response and acceptable dispersion.
So in your list I would be inclined to go with JBL.
As far as RBH is concerned they are an unknown quantity to me. However my suspicions are always on alert when I see so many drivers. I personally favor fewer more potent drivers with superb powerful motor systems. Lets just put it this way. I have a very different design approach.
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SDX-LV
Audiophyte
I am actually VERY disappointed to not see Spinorama measurement of this speaker. To me the whole review looses value if this crucial graph is omitted. Why then go through all the work of measuring the speaker if there is no Spinorama in the end?
Otherwise interesting speaker. Seems that objectively it has issues, but subjectively everyone praises it no matter what. I just don't think it is a significant enough upgrade over my JBL Studio 580.
Otherwise interesting speaker. Seems that objectively it has issues, but subjectively everyone praises it no matter what. I just don't think it is a significant enough upgrade over my JBL Studio 580.
TLS Guy
Audioholic Jedi
That is because Shady does not have access to a turntable in an anechoic chamber.
However, quasi anechoic measurements done with acceptable hardware and software can give very meaning full results. You just can not entirely rely on results below 400 Hz. However you certainly can get meaningful results right across the crucial mid band and higher. You can move the microphone and not the speaker to get off axis measurements.
I think it is widely agreed that if a speakers has a good on axis response and the off axis response to at least 60 degrees mirrors the on axis response, even if there is some LINEAR reduction in HF response, then listeners will very likely give that speaker high marks.
I think the HDI-3800 would be a massive upgrade over the 580s. I can't find and FR of the 580s now, but I have seen it. There are couple of nasty horn resonances one just above the crossover region and another at 9KHz. The 3800 on the other hand have a very good mid band response with an acceptably controlled dispersion pattern. The latter looks to be a good speaker and the latter a relatively poor one.
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shadyJ
Speaker of the House
Staff member
Spin-o-rama requires a full 360-degrees of measurements on both the horizontal and vertical axis. I would need either a microphone array with a 2 meter radius, or a way to rotate the tower speaker on its side and use the tweeter as the point of rotation. Neither are practical. Besides that, the waterfall graphs are more informative than spin-o-rama regarding the speaker's behavior. Spin-o-rama is just a summary of a whole bunch of other measurements, but the waterfall graphs are the measurements that spin-o-rama summarizes. Not only are the waterfall graphs more helpful to understanding the speaker, I would also say they are more intuitive to understanding as measurement information.
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