JBL L100 Classic
Loudspeakers
Thank heavens, orange speakers are back at last! We were starting to think it would never happen. We relish in the sound of JBL’s revived classic.
With turntables doing their part in delivering a refreshing spin to hi-fi nostalgia, how much further might the trend be pushed? Is there a realisation that the whole idea of leisurely critical listening has been lost? That Spotify playlists through a wireless speaker may not be quite the ultimate way to enjoy your music? Let’s go from one end of the hi-fi chain to the other and look at loudspeakers. Big boxes are now out; slimline is in; sheer physical volume is verboten. Some people are hiding their speakers in the walls and ceiling, for heaven’s sake.
Let’s make a stand. Let’s go back to the way things were. What speakers did you lust after in your youth? Big studio-style JBLs? Well you’re in luck — they’re back, and they’ve brought their foam-fronted grilles with them. We’ll be honest; we couldn’t wait to play with the JBL L100 Classic.
In fact, JBL is one company that has never stopped making its Studio Monitor-style loudspeakers; you won’t find them on JBL’s main product site, but they’re there in JBL’s ‘Synthesis’ range, from the bookshelf 4312MII with five-inch drivers up through our Editor’s favoured 4429 standmounters to the floorstanding 4367 model with its monster 15-inch driver. Nothing much slimline in that range.
But the JBL L100, now that is a classic. Known by one and all as the ‘Century’, it became the best-selling loudspeaker in the world for its time. So JBL is today trying to capture the hearts of older audiophiles who lusted after a pair of L100s back in the 70s, or is perhaps hoping that younger audiophiles might be interested in a speaker that looks (and sounds) different to anything they’ve ever experienced.
Equipment
Mind you, while the JBL L100 Classic reviewed here looks a little like the original JBL L100 Century, it’s actually a complete re-design. The cabinet is different, the drivers are completely different and the crossover is totally different. But crucially JBL has used the same ‘Quadrex’ foam (in a choice of three colours — black, ‘burnt’ orange and dark blue) as a grille material, cut like a waffle. JBL was the first company in the world to use a grille like this, the result of work by a loyal employee called Carl Davis, who spent his own nights working out a way to cut foam using high-tensile heated wire, because foam manufacturers at the time couldn’t meet JBL’s design tolerances for the complex ‘V’ grooves required. The whole L100 project was put on hold until Davis worked out the solution.
Behind the grille (see overleaf), things look more recognisably like a modern JBL design. the L100 Classic uses a newly-developed 25mm titanium-dome tweeter fitted with a waveguide, a 125mm-diameter midrange driver that has a cast frame and a pure-pulp cone, and a
305mm diameter bass driver with a creamcoloured wood pulp cone. This sizeable cone is terminated by a rubber roll surround with a large dustcap at the centre, unusual in also being made from wood pulp rather than a synthetic material. The cone is ribbed, which improves rigidity without increasing mass. The wood pulp is not necessarily a nod to ‘retro’ status; it is an excellent driver material superior in many ways to the oft-used polypropylene and metal.
The stands are optional ($599), but would be near-essential given that normal-height stands wouldn’t work; they put the speakers approximately 180mm from the floor, and tilt them backwards at an angle of around 15 degrees. The reason they’re not included, perhaps, is that the L 100 Classics can be used sideways, so on a (fairly deep) shelf, and of course this would have a certain recordingstudio look. But you’d better make sure those shelves are sturdy, because each L100 Classic cabinet weighs 27kg...
The 125mm midrange driver is made of polymer-coated wood pulp, and is unusual for having a pleated fabric surround suspension — highly compliant, eliminating edge reflections and more environmentally robust than modern-day equivalents such as rubbers and foams (most particularly foams, which famously disintegrate after prolonged exposure to ultraviolet light).
What differentiates this design from most of the associated JBL ranges is the tweeter, a 25mm dome tweeter rather than a high-compression horn driver. But the dome is made from titanium, is fitted with a waveguide and has its output increased by virtue of being positioned at the apex of a shallow horn.
The bass reflex port on the front baffle is 85mm in diameter and 125mm long, with plastic flares at both ends to reduce the chances of chuffing and other port noises. Also on the front baffle are level control dials that allow owners to separately adjust the output level of the midrange driver and the tweeter. These might also be considered retro were not similar controls present on many modern JBL ‘Studio Monitor’ designs in the Synthesis range, to tweak the output of the horn drivers.
The multi-way goldplated speaker terminals on the rear are recessed and rather small, so it’s tricky to connect any type of speaker wires other than banana plugs, and surprisingly there are no separate terminals to allow bi-wiring or bi-amping of the L 100 Classics. An ID plate notes that this new JBL is ‘Designed and Engineered in the USA. Made in Indonesia.’
Performance
The instant we fired up the JBLs
(with rock’n’roll, naturally!), that classic ‘JBL sound’ burst forth from the speakers, immediately recognisable. It’s a truly ‘live’ sound… exciting, dynamic and vibrant. I think at least a part of the ‘JBL Sound’ is down to the very high efficiency of the drivers used (JBL rates the efficiency of the L100 Classic at a very high 90dBSPL) and/or the way JBL builds those drivers, but very possibly it’s because the company is marrying a very large diameter bass driver with a relatively small-diameter midrange driver, whereas almost all other companies marry a smaller bass driver to that size midrange, or if they do use a 30cm bass driver, they match it to a larger-diameter midrange driver. If pushed I’d bet on the large bass driver/ small midrange driver being the greatest contributor, because it’s the JBL models with this geometry that have the strongest ‘JBL’ sonic signature. On JBL’s more conventional designs the effect is lessened, sometimes to the point of being barely audible.
But whatever the reason, the sonic result is that whereas most loudspeakers sound somehow ‘polite’, the ‘JBL sound’ is right up-front and in-your-face. Listening to the guitar/drum intro to Wishing I Had You, the intro track to The Swamp Stompers’ latest album ‘Shadows on the Wall’, it’s really as if the guitar sound is coming straight from Corey Legge’s own Fender Twin rather from the JBL L100s, and with Oliver MorleySattler’s Ludwig kit right behind him, both musicians actually there in your room. Then, when Legge steps up to the microphone and sings ‘I’ve been driving… down south’, the live performance effect is further intensified.
That ‘JBL’ sound is also distinctively crisp and immediate. Listen to the intro to the title track Shadows on the Wall, where all three musicians are playing shortened syncopated notes, and you can hear the JBL L100 Classics delivering the syncopation perfectly — the initial attacks are instantaneous and the ‘stops’ equally so, as both Legge and Ligtenberg damp their strings. Later on in this same track you can hear how deep the JBL L100s dig into the bass by listening to Ligtenberg’s bass and Oli’s kick drum — the bass goes all the way down. When the pace slows on Wave, I revelled in the lovely slide guitar sound that was permeating the air of the listening room courtesy of the JBL L100 Classics. Anyone used to playing music through a wireless multiroom desktop speaker will simply melt in wonder.
Another album that sounded great through the JBL L100 Classics was Dylan’s ‘Planet Waves’, which I think was Dylan’s last great album (but note that I do not include ‘The Basement Tapes’ in my definition of the word ‘album’). If you haven’t heard this album it’s well worth searching out, because the sound is excellent and both Dylan and The Band are in fine form. Dylan’s harmonica work on this album is as good as I’ve ever heard him sound… maybe even better. On Dirge, which has only Dylan (singing and playing piano) and Robbie Robertson on acoustic guitar, the sound was breathtakingly real as it issued from the L100 Classics. If you skip the following track (you can, because Dylan would — he’s on record as saying it has ‘dummy lyrics’), you’ll hear Robertson really bringing it home on Never Say Goodbye. Indeed one of the things that make this album so great is that both Dylan and The Band really gel on it — really, really tight, without sounding rehearsed, so relaxed they could be jamming for the fun of it. Some of the songs are fabulous: Going, Going, Gone, and Tough Mama. The JBL L100 Classics delivered Dylan’s voice perfectly, as well as the piano tinkling away in the background.
The JBL L100 Classics also sounded miraculously good delivering Eleanor McEvoy’s classic album ‘Love Must Be Tough’. The Jagger/Richards composition Mother’s Little Helper will give you a fantastic cross-section of sounds that the JBL L100 Classics excel in delivering, from McEvoy’s cleanly recorded voice to Des Lacey’s drums and percussion, to Philip Myatt’s bass and of course there’s Peter Beckett’s various contributions on piano, organ, keyboards, and guitar. The arrangement (by Beckett) is so beautifully sparse you can hear how the L100 Classics deliver the sound of each instrument to perfection. When the sound fleshes out on the following Love Must Be Tough, the JBL L100 Classics again impressed with their ability to deliver the sonics perfectly.
“They make you want to get up and rip a lead break on your air guitar. Not just great ‘period’ speakers, then, but great speakers, period. ”
There’s one particular aspect of the sound to pay attention to when listening to the JBLs yourself, and you may be surprised to hear that it’s not that classic ‘JBL Sound’… that will be self-evident. What you should listen for is the bass from the JBL L100 Classics. It’s the quality and depth and ‘sound’ of the bass that issues from the JBL L100 Classics that will make you understand why someone invented the ‘12-inch’ woofer in the first place, and why JBL uses it on the L100 Classic and on so many of its other designs. The bass from a ‘12-incher’ sounds so much more real and impactful (if that’s quite a word) than the bass from a 10-inch driver or a pair of 10-inch drivers, or any combination of differentlysized bass drivers you can think of. The other thing to think about if you’re comparing with another speaker is that the JBL L100 Classics can play unbelievably loud without sounding at all overloaded… much less distorted. They’ll continue to deliver clean, clear sound at volume levels that would have other speakers going up in smoke.
Conclusion
The JBL L100 Classics are not just for nostalgia. They are truly exciting speakers, delivering music that makes you do more than tap your foot; they make you want to get up and rip a lead break on your air guitar. Not just great ‘period’ speakers, then, but great speakers, period. greg borrowman