In Reply to: the worst speakers ever!! jbl 4655 posted by replay on November 15, 2001 at 17:20:53:
Well, if you look at the JBL response graph (which is way too small to be of much use and probably smoothed a lot - no way of really knowing, though), there's about a 5dB dip that's fairly broad (getting close to half an octave, maybe?), probably at the crossover frequency. I would call that significantly NOT flat. Then at around 3khz (around where the ear's most sensitive), it looks like the response is up about 2-3dB compared to the woofer. That's a lot, IMO, and probably accounts for the nasal and piercing sound you comment on. Then, the high end (above about 11khz) just dies. There's also not much real bass according to the FR graph. Of course, that's the trade off you make for high efficiency and a not-very-big box. One other thing - the impedance graph seems a bit funky - there's a big broad impedance peak in the midrange. Depending on what kind of amp you're using (tubes?), that could be another source of problems. Of course, the actual components you have may not do all this, considering manufacturing tolerances. My advice would be to measure the components and then redo the crossover, my personal preference being an active line-level crossover. This may be a bit more of an undertaking than what you're looking for, though.John
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