JBL L300 - thinking aboout mcintosh mc60

Hi, I am using a pair of L300's as well with a newer mc275 and it is just amazing just keep in mind that the older mac gear will need to be gone thru (caps, etc) the only drawback I can tell you is that the older mac gear has a much higher noise floor; and the JBL'S are very efficiant speakers so some low level hiss may be heard on music with quiet passages in a quiet listining room which may be unacceptible. The MC60'S can be made much quieter then it was when new but this will require updating many of the resisters/capacitors/tubes, parts have come a long way sice those amps where made (approx 60 years ago) as far as the mac MC2205 which is the metered version of the MC2200. I belive that these units are amoung the first to have the Mcintosh (POWER GUARD) and as a mac tech I can tell you that it is almost impossible to drive the amplifier past 2% distortion (great feature) for those unexpected loud music passages. Hope this information helps you out. Mike

Tube8417
Do you still own the 300's ?
Can you tell me what you are using with them ?
thx

Wow JBL-300, one of my favorite speakers of all time, used to go to the hi-fi shops as a kid and drool over them. Never sell them :)

It's funny that you would remind me that I used to do the same thing. I went to RadioLab in Glendale, CA. They had several versions of the oversize JBL cabinets with 15" woofers and passive radiators. They had the Olympus and Apollos. Years later, I bought a pair of Olympus enclosures with JBL 001 system inside. They had the wooden fretwork grills and were in mint condition.

I didn't want to sell them but my wife insisted, saying they were just too big for our living room. I finally gave in and sold them. I had paid $1500 for them ten years earlier, so I thought $800 was a fair price. The guy who bought them didn't even listen to them. He took one look and said, "I'll take 'em." No wonder, even today they would sell for much more. I still miss them, but my wife doesn't.

Whenever I see ads for JBL L200s or L300s, I read carefully, trying to justify a purchase. In the end, I settled for Sonus Faber Electa Amators, great speakers in their own right, and I plan to hold them forever.