JBL Paragon

[dirtmudd]

29 minutes ago, richieb said:

The JBL Paragon and Klipsch Klipschorn seem to come from opposite ends of the spectrum. PWK used readily available and rather inexpensive drivers to engineer superb sound where James Lansing manufactured his own superb drivers and designed a mediocre cabinet around them. Although some of these same drivers can be found in very formidable JBL's from the past. 

Years ago when on the JBL Heritage forums I made mention that I sold a pair of custom made cabinets housing JBL Professional line drivers for my first pair of factory LaScala's. Members there asked if I was writing from a mental institution?! To say I was flamed is an understatement.

I read their forum before they didn't

like klipsch at all....and stated klipsch was a cabinet maker...

 

well I find funny klipsch's original designs....or heritage....are still

going strong 70 + years.....

 

 

[garyrc]

17 hours ago, Marvel said:

It started as a two way, but tweeters were added later. I heard one back in the day and it was PDG. Superb drivers and craftmanship. 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBL_Paragon

 

In Spring 1959, my school friends and I heard a Paragon at the HiFi Fair.   The two best sounding hotel rooms (the Hi Fi Fair's companies demonstrated their stuff in unequal hotel rooms!) were those of JBL and Klipsch.  The Paragon was elevated on a curtain draped platform.  It had  the 075 (super) tweeters installed.  The rep said they went to 25,000 c.p.s. ("cycles per second" -- they hadn't started to use Hz yet).   Later, JBL rescinded that misleading claim about the 075..  I believe, but don't know for sure, that the 075 had a moderate peak at 11K, and was pretty good out to 16K, above which it dropped.  To our very young ears, the Paragon seemed to have very, very clear sound, but not a lot of bass.  Down the hall, in the Klipsch room, the Klipschorns seemed to have better balance. 

The Wikipedia article has problems; perhaps the French article they are citing is the source of the difficulty.   First, the Wikipedia article calls the H5038P-100s "horns," then calls them "drivers."  They are horns.  The midrange drivers were the superb JBL 375s, clearly labeled in the drawing, probably the clearest midrange drivers I have ever heard, on each of the four different horns through which I've heard them.  Then the article says the drivers "start rolling off at 15 kHz," they actually take an incredible nose dive a hair above 10K Hz.   JBL confirmed that in later professional spec sheets, with a frequency response graph.  IMO, that is why they included the 075 tweeters, and may have included them from the beginning.  If they didn't, it may have been because many recordings had dicey performance above about 10K.  The response above that was threatening to enjoyable, fatigue free listening, because distortion often lurked in that top octave, unless the pressing was good, the phono cartridge had great tracking, etc.  Even magnetic recordings sometimes had problems up there, which is why it was O.K. for JBL to install 375s, with no response above about 10K, in the original, mag sound, 6 channel, 70 mm Todd-AO theaters (1955).  It was just about in 1957 that people started featuring "supertweeters" (I think I remember a drawing of the 075 in a red cape -- anybody have that one?   Wasn't that the year when PWK started selecting "hi-test" T35s to become K77s?    .  

 

When they replaced the 154C woofers with the LE15As, they gained bass, but lost 6 dB of efficiency.  They started supplying them with either 40 or 60 watt RMS "Energizers" in about 1964 that also provided final adjustment to frequency response and damping.  In the S.F. Bay area several stores had Paragons for sale.  In Oakland/Berkeley there was Fisher Electronics (originally Stairway to Sound, right next door to Stairway to Music), then a store in downtown Oakland with a  Paragon equipped with an Energizer, and finally, The Good Guys in Berkeley, where the Paragon was between two Klipschorns.  Contrary to some reports, the Paragon had excellent imaging [although that term hadn't been invented yet].  The problem was that it was only 8 feet, 8 inches wide, so you had to sit close, and in a low chair, to boot.  The flanking Klipschorns were at least 6  feet farther apart than the mid horns of the Paragon, so as far as imaging and sound stage size were concerned, it was no contest.   When I finally bought Khorns, it was from a better store than the Good Guys, Pro Audio in Oakland.

 

 

[Marvel]

I still have my 4311s that I got around 1971 (not sure... my memory is a bit hazy about what happened back then). Superb build quality, drivers and cabinets. I was a low pay tv news photographer, and the $329 ea. for the JBLs was substantial. i did, however, have two CF Martin guitars.

 

Bruce