Replacement for vintage JBL L20T bookshelf speakers

The place I'd go if I was looking for that info is the JBL website - product page

http://www.jbl.com/en-us/products/pages/subcategorylist.aspx?cid=speakers_cat

I did. Allan referred me to Bill who told me to buy Wharfedale Titan 8's. Since nobody seems to carry these in my area, I'm not willing to buy something without listening to it first. I would like someone who knows the sound of these vintage speakers and would be able to confidently tell me which JBL's today are comparable.

I'm not sure who Allen or Bill are. If someone at JBL can't help you, I'm not sure what to tell you. i know that model of JBL speaker was a gem of well-balanced small speaker that sounded as good as speakers 3x the original price in the mid-'80s timeframe .

As an audiophile with familiarity enough with Wharefdales in general. Their reputation as a high quality mfr that makes a good-sounding speaker. I can't testify about Wharf Titan-8s other than regferring you to what is written on audiophile sites.

Here is Wharfedales website. http://www.wharfedalepro.com/default.aspx?tabid=149

Perhaps you can find on that site a referral to a stereo shop in your area that demos those Titan 8 speakers.


iI don't know viable an option this is but have you thought about repairing the JBLs that you have? Or do you no longer have the speakers any more? Many times the tweeters and/or woofers and other components are still available.

I've done repairs to my off-brand 20-yr-old speakers with new component tweeters from VIFA (orig component mfr). They perfectly matched the specs of the origs.

Thank you, Ragman. Yes, the L20T's and L80T's were very highly rated and are still a collector's item. According to JBL, mine are not repairable... however I did locate a pair of rare ebony piano polish JBL L20T's in excellent condition for $135 and am in the process of getting them shipped so they will do for now. However, using a vintage speaker on the road is not going to work for long, so must continue my search in the meantime. I will be travelling in the US very shortly and will try to locate a major centre who carries the Titans.

Was just hoping someone would be familiar with both, and save me hunting...

The L20T Titanium-domed tweeter was awesome. I'd try to find a similar component tweeter if I were you.

For whatever it's worth - Ebay has some used Rosewood L20Ts for sale for $400:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Vintage-Electronics-/14998/i.html?_nkw=JBL+L20T


I looked over the Wharf Titan 8 specs. While they are good specs on paper (very efficient (96db sensitivity) , I don't think you'll find their characteristic sound to be similar or even close to L20T. The nature of how it's built and the design engineering would make for a far different sound.

The Titan 8s cabs are injection molded plastic or some composite, has very different tweet arrangement. I think it's like comparing fish and foul judging from the specs sheets and brochure.

I'd look at KEF (Q300 around $625), Polk or Rogers (English monitors).

Further research shows these excellent bookshelf speakers to consider:

Paradigm Audio Mini Monitor ~ $339
Polk RTI series
B&W (Bowers & Wilkins) 685 ~ $600

I researched the KEF Q300 and it looks like a good prospect. I listened to the Paradigm in Sight and Sound and found that it did not compare to my JBL's.
With reference to the used speakers on Ebay, I saw those, but the black piano finish L20T's (further down on the list) were from a reputable audio store, probably a trade in, and those are the ones I'm negotiating the shipping on.

Thanks for all your advice! I will definitely listen to the KEF Q300's and eliminate the Wharfedales (I guess you get what you pay for...).

Cathie

I have a set of the old JBL "Aquarius Speakers" They were a great set of speakers and every bit as good as my Bose (In fact, they balanced deeps and brilliance a lot better cuse these newer speakers go for "flat" sound.
I have the JBL's in the attic all wrapped in heavy cotton blankets. ABout 10 years ago (I ws still using em) and the mountings on the woofers just gave out. They started buzzing" I called JBL and they had me ship emn to their repair facility in (I think) Palo ALto. They fixed em free and sent em back free.
Id tell the world about JBL 's a great ole speaker.
Bose says that you cannot distinguish where the bass comes from. I beg to disagree.

IMHO Bose is all smoke-and-mirrors. I used to live near their factory in Framingham Mass and knew an engineer that had worked for Bose. Their performance is mostly about drama as they dress up their sound. To say the least, it's not an accurate speaker. One can tire quickly of their sound in a home system but I felt that on a dance floor they used to be pretty exciting. Of course I was often in an altered state then anyhow and focused on other moving shiny objects.

Looking back on my review of popular speakers of the '70s - '90s, I feel that JBL L20T and L80T and L100Ts were some of the best balanced sound in the reasonably priced market. They were accurate without sounding clinical or dull.

I agree! I did an AB test with my Bryston Amp and JBL L20T speakers with a friend, way back when... he was (still is) a Bose fan and even he had to admit, that the sound that came out of the JBL's was dramatically different. I just can't go that route. I REALLY don't like the warm and fuzzy sound that comes out of a Bose setup.

I think that the speaker systems are geared today toward home theatre (living room only) sound with components cluttering up the TV stand, and the professional systems are heavily weighted toward PA systems that weigh a ton. Even the more expensive (comparable to what we paid for our JBL speakers in the early 90's) are towers weighing in at 40 to 55 lbs. So, I guess that middle market is gone!

I will keep looking... and researched all your suggestions, Ragman, on the net, but for now, am waiting for those ebony piano finish (used but in good condition) JBL L20T's to be shipped to me from Illinois! I like that sound and will stick with it until I find something that sounds the same, does more than a living room, in a portable package!

Hey, Farmerman, glad to hear that there is another JBL fan out there from the old days. I'm feeling the same about the newer speakers... and definitely the same about the Bose. Am keeping my old ones for parts... and will enjoy the newer (used but in better condition) ones for now. If you find a new speaker that measures up and weighs under 22 lbs., please let me know...

I listen to mostly digital music anyway so I dont think Id even know the amazing capabilities of serving up digital music through a really great set of speakers like JBL's. Its all flatness today and then all the salesemn say your nuts if you want to have brilliant AND deep bass (Cause thats the way the fuckin world sounds -for real) .
Ill never get rid of my JBL's but hooking them up with the newer digital crossover networks gonna be a bitch. They do have some adapta-packs I guess.
SO, should I keep looking or just settle for my Boses? I think the latter.

My JBL aquarii weigh about 75 lb without the additional walnut floor base. The speaker boxes were made with a dense particle board and a walnut (1/4"--I think) Laminate over that. They were so anal about their sound that they didt even want to have their woods have different grains to **** up the sound distribution.

Youre older than I so Im sure your ears are as blown out as mine (course mine arent blown out from music) so , alas, talking about anything re: accurate sound repro to me now is like describing the color red to a blind man.
LOsing the upper range while failing to pick out "brushy sounds" of the bass violin or hammered kette drum is something I miss in my listening experience. COurse using "downloaded music ' or CD's as my principla media anymore it matters not what speakers you use, the sound is gonna be flat anyway. I refuse to listen to 33's grind out accurate sound while piping it through digital sound reduction. Whats the entire point?

Yeah I'm 61, on a good day. Yeah, I recall a few yrs ago your discussion here about how you lost part of your hearing. Did you lose much or all of the highs and part of the midrange too? That would mean there's a chunk of a loss for you of the exciting sibilance and ring of cymbals.

However, having done some recording and playing with equalizers I was surprised to see how little the portion of some music is over 10 khz, depending on the type of song or type of music. Sometimes, with much of rock music and rock concerts sound mixing, you're better off not hearing it due to the awful recording and mixing that is done, but I digress.

Oddly enough, my hearing survived pretty well intact, though I'm not saying my brain is all intact. Can't win 'em all, I guess. I still have a shocking amount of the high frequencies left considering that my friends (garage band listening) were musicians. I learned to keep the volume down on my headphones. my military time exposed me to zero loud noises, if you don't include the yelling from officers or NCOs. Most of my prof work was office (computer ATE repair) or sitting in quiet cube farms. Luckily, I hadn't too much exposure to heavy machinery or street noise.

With your high freq notch of freqs being lost, I'm sure you can still hear the violin and particularly the cello as well as women's voices nicely. There's a lot of heaven to hear there in a speaker system.

However, vinyl lps still beat the pants off cds for warmth and 'inviting you in'. I have proven the listening preference this dozens of times with testing lsiteners choices of LP and CD versions of well-recorded albums like the recording of Dire Straits Brother in Arms.

Don't get me started on a diatribe of all that post-production noise reduction stuff..and all that processing. Many times it was surely the road to hell. IMHO it took them from 1965 to 1985 or so to get it right even some of the time. That is less true for certain lables of classical or jazz recordings but still far too prevalent.

oops...typos:

With your missing high freq notch of fregs, can you still hear the violin and particularly the cello as well? Can you here the women singers voices OK?

sounds like your choosing the right path for your needs. Your observation are correct to a high degree. The market is decidedly geared towards Home Theater

The mid-priced high fidelity market such as you described has been narrowed considerably. Often times what the market now has is cheap speakers for theater saystems. Critical listeners (audiophile and musicians - not for MP3 listeners) gravitate towards the brands I mentioned earlier.

FWIW, Avid speaker mfr I think is still in business according to google and their website www.avid.com. They used to have an awesome inexpensive accurate speaker. Avid 100 and 101 models were some of the best under $500 EVER.

Lately, a good comparable speaker to those JBLs...look up the M-Audio studio speakers "... are music industry bestsellers"

They have this Avid model as an example,: Avid M-Audio AV 30 2.0 Speaker System. It has not much bass (-3db roll-off at about 90hz ) but apparently does the rest very well, 11.7 lb
http://www.compuvest.com/Desc.jsp?iid=1684668

In a room with controlled acoustics and me handling the balance controls, I can hear those briliant sounds of the very high registers but mostly with my right ear. My left has suffered losses from a particlular explosion .

Much of what is considered "full " sound is from jazz quintets , especialy someone like Miles Davis or Bob James.

yeah. I seem to recall one ear was better... and about the explosion or kaboom that occured around you. Glad to know that you can tailor the system to suit your hearing deficits. It would be a shame if you couldn't because there is so much great music (and joy) to experience.

Yup for my critical listening I like Jazz, acoustic (usually folk or world) and classical music. When I was younger I liked more of the bombastic fare ... bigger symphonic works; however, nowadays my stronger preference is chamber and baroque (smaller) works. I still like the bombast too but not nearly so often. My system really has a very revealing nature. And my old Miles Davis, Billy Evans...etc..Yardbirds and Simon & Grafunkel LPs still sound pretty good...or at least as good it sounded back then.

Re stereo systems I'm still a sucker for the creation of a stereo soundstage and the phenemenon called depth of the soundstage. The fact that you can actually hear a deep soundstage and instrument placement within a recording is still a trip for me.

After spending hours and hours, reading forums on vintage and new speakers, and reading lots of reviews, I came to realize that even if I buy an exact replacement for my vintage JBL's, (for around $300, when you add on the shipping), I am still buying trouble, since many of the vintage sites say that the glues used in the olden days and other junctures will disintegrate, regardless how little the speakers were used.

I've narrowed it down to 5 speakers that would give me a similar sound that is bright and forward, and the one that matches my Bryston 1B (50 watts per side continuous) amp is the Axiom Audio M3v3 passive bookshelf speakers. These high end audio speakers are Canadian made (I'm from western Canada), and have been very highly rated. They price out at $368 ($331 on auction factory direct... with a blemish on the outside finish... scratch and dent sale) By the time I take them out on the road a few times, they will have more than a tiny scratch on the outside! I've checked with techies at JBL, Warfedale and Axiom Audio and they all agree this is the best match both for my amp and my vintage JBL's.

My forum reading has also brought to my attention the fact that the sound that I enjoyed back in the late 80's was hyped and coloured, not an accurate version of what was originally produced by the musicians. That bright forward, arms crossed on the stage sound that the North American public soaked up back in the 80's is what we crave, but now, with the goal being accurate sound, we feel gyped. I guess I need to move on and appreciate that things have improved both in sound and production specs.

I still can't change what I like, what I'm really impressed with, and that is where it becomes a discerning process... a process that involves searching through the reviews to find something that is more bright and forward, like these Axiom M3v3's.

Also, I learned that although my old speakers were 75Watt and seemed to be driven just fine with my Bryston (not so powerful) amp, it is super important that I match these new speakers to my amp, which was $1500 in the early 90's and Bryston is considered a good quality name in professional amps, so not replacing that!

I realize that I'm walking a fine line between home stereo and a professional PA system, given my end use and I guess I must make concessions for what is available, and the current trend in accurate sound, since I'm not into lugging around big heavy speakers, a huge amp and a mixer to adjust all the eq's. My present Bryston is heavy enough!

It's been a learning experience, for sure. It's tough to get old...