Something great happened! So I’m a poor man’s audiophile, I love music. I’ve got a great system for a truck driver I guess. So I have JBL L7 speakers and I used to power them with a crown 1502 amplifier. It sounded really good, then my wife bought me an incredible set of second hand amplifier’s Wired4sound sx1000r’s, she’s the best. They made my system sound incredible. I know most have no clue as to what I’m talking about. So anyway disaster happened and our basement flooded and the stereo while not damaged was put to the side. So wanting something I dug out some old equipment and put it upstairs to get me by. Everyone needs time away and time for themselves. To be quiet honest I probably focus to much on the destruction of our country and it sickens me and music is my escape. My wife really loves Christmas and decorated the upstairs, so my trash stereo ended up out of reach. So my wife is out of town and I’m needing to get away from the crazy. So the speakers I have upstairs are some Bic Venturi V62’s “again you probably have know clue and that’s understandable”. These speakers I picked up at a yard sale for ten bucks and only bought them because music is my release, I love everything from punk rock to classical. So anyway these are my upstairs speakers until the basement is redone. The upstairs speakers are powered by a trash 1980’s amplifier and doesn’t sound great, but it’s music right? So given the situation I pulled the speakers out of the corner and left the other equipment because it was to much trouble to move. I went downstairs and grabbed the Crown amp and pieced a stereo together. Now the crown is a good amp and very powerful so I grabbed some cables and hooked up the small Bic Venturi bookshelf speakers, and started it up. I wasn’t impressed to say the least, the bass was muddy, they sounded like crap like always but it was better than nothing. Then over the next couple of hours something wonderful happened, the bass became incredible the speakers went translucent and the most glorious sound started emerging from these $10 garage sale special’s. Is it possible that these thirty year old speakers wer really never broken in and needed the power of my crown to jujitsu them into shape? I know it sounds like I’m nuts, but listening to Itzhak Perlman play Le Quattro Stagioni almost has me in tears listening to $10 speakers. It’s almost as God knows I need this and answered my prayer. Sorry for the silly vent but I’m all alone and have to tell my fens.
Wow seriously, that's some serious classic kit. I used to be really into car audio and... um... those amps you mention are monsters meant for home cinema. And you've got them in your truck? LOOOOOL, that's so great. Nice work. Those amps always seem to show up for sale in pairs. The specs are impressive, TONS of clean power with a whopping 1.140W into a 4-ohm load, a dynamic range of 118dB, and a THD+N of just 0.2% at full power. Wow. I bet people can hear you pulling into a truck stop!
Discussion on the L7s. Interesting. Apparently they slurp whatever power you can throw at them so the Crown driving them decently makes sense (for those unaware this is a live PA amp pushing ~500 high-current WPC)(damn!).
OH I missed that in there. Heh/DANG. Interesting, those are pretty serious, and actually pretty reasonable considering the specs. Also well beyond what my speakers could even take, heh.
Probably not "never broken in" but you probably "warmed" to how they sound, started noticing more etc. I find that sometimes even small/crappy speakers bring out something unexpected - such as my computer speakers which are 3.5" (requirements: one power switch/volume control knob which rules out most even slightly-larger actual studio monitors).
I've not heard the L7s but those look like things from before they kinda went downhill/where they are now (can you even buy speakers like this from JBL anymore)?
BIC - I'm familiar with that brand from the Parts Express catalog (great outfit). I've not heard them but they seem reasonably-spec'd esp for the price range (low). My rough read would be they probably sound as good as things 4x the price but with a brand name (e.g. Polk).
Music is the best and if your system makes it happen it's obviously working.
(I have a secondary system with Polk monitor 5s built 1985, Yamaha - talk about punching above the price point - 80WPC integrated, and a Yamaha CD. Some stuff simply sounds better on this system than the main one.)
(I bring up main system because I am TOTALLY a poor-man's audiophile. I've got a few bucks more in my setup than you, but not by orders of magnitude - which these guys happily spend. Because they can hear the difference when you pay $100/ft of cable. So first it's Klipsch* - blasphemy! - RP8000Fs, Adcom GFA545 amp, Vincent hybrid solid-state/tube preamp, Martin-Logan powered sub, Pioneer DVD drive, M-Audio Super-DAC 24-96 - this was $200 like 15 years ago, and I'd put it up against pretty much anything "hi-fi" costing 10 grand or whatnot - then in vinyl land 1210s/Rane Empath/Ortofon Concorde Elites - mmmm.)
*Edit: I recently had an encounter with an audiophile snob - when I said I've heard a lot of systems and tbh mine is right there with the top 2 or 3 - MAX! - I've heard in shops - he said "well it depends on the shop" then proceeded to bore me with a huge story about how he likes ListenUp and blah blah blah. I eventually just wandered off mid-sentence. I am here to assure you, I auditioned a set of the B&W Nautilus speakers - I want to say $20k/pr at the time - they were not the top of line $50k ones - in Phoenix and they were like an obviously-much-huger-but-same-wet-teabag-sound that NoAudiophile (linked in other comment) calls them out for in his reviews.
I have a Marantz sa8005 cd player, they did a real nice job with that one. Has about 99% of their ultra high end cd players, I wish it had balanced output’s but you can’t have it all, but it does have a really good DAC. I’m tempted to get a turntable, but the thought of building a vinyl collection at this point in life is more than I could handle. SACD is enough I guess. I like having physical media, but I do have a computer attached to the usb input on the cd player which is nice. Now if I could get a fresh set of ears, mine are getting old. I am thinking of upgrading the L7’s to ceramic tweeters and a custom x-over “foil caps” exc. it would be fun to see what they’re capable of. On the other hand I’m really looking at Tekton speakers as a upgrade, I’ve heard nothing but good things about them.
Heh, balanced outputs really are just the latest fad, you don't need them for 3' - 6' cables. They are useful for long runs in PAs. Anyone who claims they can hear the difference in a home setting (unless long runs to a different room or similar) is lying and won't be able to in a blind test (this goes for $100 interconnects vs $2 ones as well).
About the only time cables matter is a) if one insists on tiny gauge wire for speakers or b) instruments like guitars where the cable impedance does have an effect on the whole system (I think more so with passive PUs but don't quote me on that)(this is how Monster manages to make "bass" cables for people who are very stupid/apparently don't have tone controls on their amp).
I wouldn't probably bother with vinyl if it wasn't for the fact that's what all my stuff from DJ days is on (90s). There is the OCCASIONAL thing other than that stuff you can't get otherwise (early ZZ Top even the latest remasters have their critics) but sound-wise it's more a wash than the pure-vinyl guys would care to admit, even with regular CDs.
Now it does crack me up how many high-end turntables run fast - it's just like how they crank the specs on TVs at Best Buy, all trying to out-shout each other, rather than having them tuned correctly. The ear prefers how things sound sped up so basically they all do it, like around 1% - not insignificant.
Have you ever looked into Tekton speakers, the Encore’s are ones I’m interested in. I would really like to listen to them before purchasing, a trip to Salt Lake City to listen to a set is a little much and explaining that to the wife. Every once in a while they show up on US Audiomart, it kills me how these guys run through audio equipment like changing underwear. The cable thing is the biggest racket going.
Something great happened! So I’m a poor man’s audiophile, I love music. I’ve got a great system for a truck driver I guess. So I have JBL L7 speakers and I used to power them with a crown 1502 amplifier. It sounded really good, then my wife bought me an incredible set of second hand amplifier’s Wired4sound sx1000r’s, she’s the best. They made my system sound incredible. I know most have no clue as to what I’m talking about. So anyway disaster happened and our basement flooded and the stereo while not damaged was put to the side. So wanting something I dug out some old equipment and put it upstairs to get me by. Everyone needs time away and time for themselves. To be quiet honest I probably focus to much on the destruction of our country and it sickens me and music is my escape. My wife really loves Christmas and decorated the upstairs, so my trash stereo ended up out of reach. So my wife is out of town and I’m needing to get away from the crazy. So the speakers I have upstairs are some Bic Venturi V62’s “again you probably have know clue and that’s understandable”. These speakers I picked up at a yard sale for ten bucks and only bought them because music is my release, I love everything from punk rock to classical. So anyway these are my upstairs speakers until the basement is redone. The upstairs speakers are powered by a trash 1980’s amplifier and doesn’t sound great, but it’s music right? So given the situation I pulled the speakers out of the corner and left the other equipment because it was to much trouble to move. I went downstairs and grabbed the Crown amp and pieced a stereo together. Now the crown is a good amp and very powerful so I grabbed some cables and hooked up the small Bic Venturi bookshelf speakers, and started it up. I wasn’t impressed to say the least, the bass was muddy, they sounded like crap like always but it was better than nothing. Then over the next couple of hours something wonderful happened, the bass became incredible the speakers went translucent and the most glorious sound started emerging from these $10 garage sale special’s. Is it possible that these thirty year old speakers wer really never broken in and needed the power of my crown to jujitsu them into shape? I know it sounds like I’m nuts, but listening to Itzhak Perlman play Le Quattro Stagioni almost has me in tears listening to $10 speakers. It’s almost as God knows I need this and answered my prayer. Sorry for the silly vent but I’m all alone and have to tell my fens.
Wow seriously, that's some serious classic kit. I used to be really into car audio and... um... those amps you mention are monsters meant for home cinema. And you've got them in your truck? LOOOOOL, that's so great. Nice work. Those amps always seem to show up for sale in pairs. The specs are impressive, TONS of clean power with a whopping 1.140W into a 4-ohm load, a dynamic range of 118dB, and a THD+N of just 0.2% at full power. Wow. I bet people can hear you pulling into a truck stop!
Nope they’re home kit, with ac cord. They are monsters though, class D ice power amps.
ALSO - a couple fun links.
This guy hasn't posted in awhile. Darn. So good, worth reading this site with your feet up. A favorite:
http://noaudiophile.com/FieldTrip-William/
Discussion on the L7s. Interesting. Apparently they slurp whatever power you can throw at them so the Crown driving them decently makes sense (for those unaware this is a live PA amp pushing ~500 high-current WPC)(damn!).
https://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?4209-JBL-L7-Review-Experiance-Sharing
EDIT: I missed amps see below - DANG.
My babies are the wyred4sound sx1000r monoblocks, 1000watts per side and sound incredible. My L7’s can play anything well, very dynamic speakers.
OH I missed that in there. Heh/DANG. Interesting, those are pretty serious, and actually pretty reasonable considering the specs. Also well beyond what my speakers could even take, heh.
It’s really not the watts with L7’s it’s the current they need. They are hungry little monsters.
Probably not "never broken in" but you probably "warmed" to how they sound, started noticing more etc. I find that sometimes even small/crappy speakers bring out something unexpected - such as my computer speakers which are 3.5" (requirements: one power switch/volume control knob which rules out most even slightly-larger actual studio monitors).
I've not heard the L7s but those look like things from before they kinda went downhill/where they are now (can you even buy speakers like this from JBL anymore)?
BIC - I'm familiar with that brand from the Parts Express catalog (great outfit). I've not heard them but they seem reasonably-spec'd esp for the price range (low). My rough read would be they probably sound as good as things 4x the price but with a brand name (e.g. Polk).
Music is the best and if your system makes it happen it's obviously working.
(I have a secondary system with Polk monitor 5s built 1985, Yamaha - talk about punching above the price point - 80WPC integrated, and a Yamaha CD. Some stuff simply sounds better on this system than the main one.)
(I bring up main system because I am TOTALLY a poor-man's audiophile. I've got a few bucks more in my setup than you, but not by orders of magnitude - which these guys happily spend. Because they can hear the difference when you pay $100/ft of cable. So first it's Klipsch* - blasphemy! - RP8000Fs, Adcom GFA545 amp, Vincent hybrid solid-state/tube preamp, Martin-Logan powered sub, Pioneer DVD drive, M-Audio Super-DAC 24-96 - this was $200 like 15 years ago, and I'd put it up against pretty much anything "hi-fi" costing 10 grand or whatnot - then in vinyl land 1210s/Rane Empath/Ortofon Concorde Elites - mmmm.)
u/335K whatchu runnin'?
*Edit: I recently had an encounter with an audiophile snob - when I said I've heard a lot of systems and tbh mine is right there with the top 2 or 3 - MAX! - I've heard in shops - he said "well it depends on the shop" then proceeded to bore me with a huge story about how he likes ListenUp and blah blah blah. I eventually just wandered off mid-sentence. I am here to assure you, I auditioned a set of the B&W Nautilus speakers - I want to say $20k/pr at the time - they were not the top of line $50k ones - in Phoenix and they were like an obviously-much-huger-but-same-wet-teabag-sound that NoAudiophile (linked in other comment) calls them out for in his reviews.
I have a Marantz sa8005 cd player, they did a real nice job with that one. Has about 99% of their ultra high end cd players, I wish it had balanced output’s but you can’t have it all, but it does have a really good DAC. I’m tempted to get a turntable, but the thought of building a vinyl collection at this point in life is more than I could handle. SACD is enough I guess. I like having physical media, but I do have a computer attached to the usb input on the cd player which is nice. Now if I could get a fresh set of ears, mine are getting old. I am thinking of upgrading the L7’s to ceramic tweeters and a custom x-over “foil caps” exc. it would be fun to see what they’re capable of. On the other hand I’m really looking at Tekton speakers as a upgrade, I’ve heard nothing but good things about them.
Heh, balanced outputs really are just the latest fad, you don't need them for 3' - 6' cables. They are useful for long runs in PAs. Anyone who claims they can hear the difference in a home setting (unless long runs to a different room or similar) is lying and won't be able to in a blind test (this goes for $100 interconnects vs $2 ones as well).
About the only time cables matter is a) if one insists on tiny gauge wire for speakers or b) instruments like guitars where the cable impedance does have an effect on the whole system (I think more so with passive PUs but don't quote me on that)(this is how Monster manages to make "bass" cables for people who are very stupid/apparently don't have tone controls on their amp).
I wouldn't probably bother with vinyl if it wasn't for the fact that's what all my stuff from DJ days is on (90s). There is the OCCASIONAL thing other than that stuff you can't get otherwise (early ZZ Top even the latest remasters have their critics) but sound-wise it's more a wash than the pure-vinyl guys would care to admit, even with regular CDs.
Now it does crack me up how many high-end turntables run fast - it's just like how they crank the specs on TVs at Best Buy, all trying to out-shout each other, rather than having them tuned correctly. The ear prefers how things sound sped up so basically they all do it, like around 1% - not insignificant.
Have you ever looked into Tekton speakers, the Encore’s are ones I’m interested in. I would really like to listen to them before purchasing, a trip to Salt Lake City to listen to a set is a little much and explaining that to the wife. Every once in a while they show up on US Audiomart, it kills me how these guys run through audio equipment like changing underwear. The cable thing is the biggest racket going.
Hallelujah!! What an awesome story fren. God is so wonderful and often works in ways we don't expect. God bless you. Thanks for sharing this with us