JBL L300 - true myth?

They are wonderful speakers. Do a google search for lots of information.

The capacitors probably should be replaced in the crossovers

If you know you like the classic JBL sound, they are a great choice.

If you're not familiar with the JBL or "west coast" sound, then you'll want to give a listen to some examples before you commit.

JBL has a strong following for their very characteristic, punchy quality but not everyone is so taken. Tube amps are a good choice. Some solid state amps (especially the transistor ones that were popular 20 and 30 years ago) could sound extra strident.

JBL's rock, period.

Hell most of the rock music made in the 70's used some kind of JBL to mix the albums in the studio. Mr. Townsend himself commented on how good the big 4350's were in mixing Quadrophenia.

Wonderful classic speakers. Loud and Proud!!!!

55 & 57 Chevies, Airstream Trailers, Bamboo flyrods, and big JBL speakers with classic mac tubes. HEAVEN!!!

...most of the rock music made in the 70's...

Just a reminder that: 1) there are other styles of music besides rock, and 2) there are recordings made before the 1970s and even afterward... ;-)

Hey Mlsstl,

You can listen to anything you want. I am very cool with that. I have Fleet Foxes, Ryan Adams, Glasvegas, Greg Brown, Bjork, Walter Trout, Sigur Ross, Tragically Hip, etc, etc. etc.

He asked for opinions, I gave mine. JBL's and rock go together like salt and pepper, peanuts and beer, take your pick.

AND, maybe he likes the Beatles, Who, Zep, Tull, Cat Stevens, who knows????

So, just a reminder, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

He can buy mini-monitors and listen to Shubert. He asked about JBL's. I owned JBL's. I love JBL's. I have heard L300's numerous times in different environments. I would own JBL again gladly. Just an opinion given in a forum.

What would your opinion be on L300's?????

You apparently missed the ;-)

What would your opinion be on L300's?

I'm in the take it or leave it category with them. I don't dislike them but they are not my preference. I spent a fair amount of time on the professional sound side many years ago so got my fill of those and similar speakers early on.

However, as I noted above, there are certainly a lot of people who love 'em. Hence my suggestion that he spend some time listening to the unquestionably distinctive "JBL sound" before he makes a firm commitment with his pocketbook. Seemed like a reasonable proposition to me. ;-) (there, I did it again...)

great dynamic sounding speaker killer on rock and jazz cabinets were top notch beautiful finish...plus these were also one of the best and most unique looking speakers and especially on the matching stand.. with tube gear wow paid 1600.00 for my pair 1977..THERE ARE ALOT OF FUN..

Love'em but for what they are going for look for something else.

Punchy yes. Wide dynamics, NO.

I've owned a pair in the past and at the time they sounded great on some of the classic McIntosh receivers, Marantz, Yamaha, and even Pioneer and Harmon Karden. I still own a pair of L65 Jubals. Although not the same as the L300s I find them at least a cousin (some here may disagree). I do recall them fondly.

When I play through the L65 Jubals in direct comparison to the McIntosh XR7s and XR5s I have from the same era, the JBLs immediately show their weaknesses, PLUS, they cannot even handle the full music range in anywhere close to the Macs before they "peak out" at high volume. [And I must say that these Macs don't get a lot of Audiophile respect themselves.]

To me they only perform satisfactorily within a limited bandwidth. They sound best with rock and certain jazz music.

I recall the JBLs as good studio equipment but just above average for home reproduction.

What's the good price for them? A guy in Moscow sells a pair for $7600 - ridiculous rip off or...?

I own a pair of L300s. I drive them with a pair of CARY SE 300 monoblock amps, an Audio Research SP25 MKII, a Cary PH302 phono stage, Origin Live table and arm with a Shelter 90x. I have built a new, external crossover for the L300s with Duelund resistors, Duelund Cast inductors and Mundorf Silver\Gold\Oil caps in the signal path. I listen to Female vocals and old rock LPs. I also own a pair of stock JBL 250Ti’s and a pair of Alec 19s. The other speakers cannot touch the L300s! I am planning to update the 250Ti’s with the same quality parts that I used to upgrade the L300s. The 250s are at a higher starting point so they may beat the L300s.

For several years I had the pro 4 way JBL .ONE step up from the 300 Summit. I bought those at 1980 price of 2K for the pair. The speakers were called the 4343 JBL Studio Monitors. Back then that was alot of money for me to lay out.Actually my new Fiat wasn't to much more then that.LOL
The speakers just were to much for my small dwellings I had them in. I was getting ringing in the ears. These speakers would rock. The bass slam was unreal and the midbass was very powerful, and of course the midband with the horn compression driver was great. I used them mostly with my Marantz 4400 Receiver in 125 watt Stereo Mode.
Later after I finally departed with them I was told tube amps were nice with them as well. Some dj's used these with Phase Linear Amps. I think I even remember them using the L65s in the night clubs as well at ear shatering levels,
But the ig monitors would clip and sound nasty if u drove them to hard.

The L300's are all time classics, but jbl had plans for L400's. The Bean counters at Harmon Intl killed them .
They are available as the 4343's. they had 10" lower mids,
and were 4 ways. same woofers, mid drivers and tweeters, just the pro vertions. they also were biampable with the
optional jbl electronic xovers.They did have a much larger footprint, and they would play much louder.I use tube amps on the high end and a good quality 200+ watt Ss amp on the
woofers.
The 4343's although much rarer go for around the same $ on
ebay.If you can deal with the large size and 185+lb weight
look for them

I have lived with these JBL L300 speakers for the last 6+ months and have to say that I have become a real fan of the JBL sound of yore. Putting a 32 watt push-pull tube amp on them has made them sound fantastic (and play pretty loudly). In the next few weeks I'm going to put a high-powered solid state amp on them to see if I can really get the woofers moving.

Imaging is so-so, but overall tone and timbre seems very right. As somebody mentioned earlier, they have punchiness in spades. Incredibly good looking speakers too. Highly recommended, but be willing to pay a premium to get them in really nice condition. This is a beautiful speaker that even domestic partners will not balk at.

I had a pair of these speakers. I loved them, the looks, the design, and the name.

I have a very large family room and they did not do the room justice. Im 18 wide and 28 deep, 9 foot ceilings and fairly active room. These speakers did not do my room justice. Ultimately they were not in the same league as my late 80's Wilson Watt2/Puppy3's.

At he time, I had some world class electronics driving them (arc Ref 2Mk2, Krell KMA-100 Mk 2) and they just sounded confined and like they needed a larger room.

If you can get the L300's in to the right room then you can have something, but IMHO it has to be large.

They were a good speaker, we used to have a set. I replaced them because they were great but not up to some other speaker's standards, and the asking prices on them today are ridiculously high.

Any advice would appreciated,
I want to buy a pair of jbll300, because I bought a pair in 1979 for a grand per speaker and my roomate through them out while I was in hospital from car accident. Just 2 years ago. Ebay they are going for 6 or 7 grand.my advice I need is are there better out there for same. And which one.I am going to try to replace them cause they were best I listened to they rocked the house like a earthquack.

I worked in audio in 1975-6 when these and the JBL L100s were at their peak popularity. The L300s were in the "high end" room in the back, sharing space with the Dahlquist DQ-10, Ohm F, ESS AMT1b, and AMT Tower (with transmission line), driven by the customer's choice among  Accuphase, USA-made Marantz Pro, and Crown. Sources were Tandberg R2R, various turntables with a Fidelity Research MC cartridge and Supex step-up. With those other speakers in the room, the L300s didn't stand a chance; by comparison their colorations were obvious. It didn't help that they were twice the money as well. $1600 in 1975 is almost $7200 today. We sold the DQ-10s at $600/pair ($2700 today). 

About a dozen years later my wife and I used to hang out with another couple, and he was an audio and classical music enthusiast. His rig was a stack of Denon separates and a pair of the L300s in a pretty large great room. They still sounded as I remembered them, with a very narrow sweet spot and therefore an inconsistent power response with suckouts and peaks depending where you stood. Overall they presented a very artificial sound. I was always aware that I was listening to electronics and loudspeakers, unlike experiences I had back then from Dahlquist, ESS, Ohm, and ADS. 

For those here who like/love the L300s, I respect your opinions; I just have a different one. We hear and perceive things differently. I only offer my personal experience to illustrate that you'll probably either like these speakers or you won't. So I agree with the prevous poster who advised not to buy them without an audition.

So, what is this so called "west coast sound" that as referenced earlier? I still have my L40 that I bought new back in college in my second system and it sounds fine but nowhere near the higher end speakers that are out there. By comparison, my other "vintage" speaker, the ADS L520 sounds more natural, albeit with less punch.

JBL L300 is Nelson Pass’s all time favorite speakers, he says. It must be really good. I would like to hear it.

If any of you really know anything about jbl speaker’s, there is one model line under the radar that in my opinion makes the models above sound like garage audio, the JBL L7 speaker’s are incredible, sold first pair to move to so called uber expensive speaker’s, only to recently to buy another pair in mint condition with the original plith’s that go under them, these are biamping 4 way speaker’s that do true 30htz to 27khtz , placement is very difficult, I run a modified krell 700cx amplifier with dedicated lines and 30 amp single pole breaker for the amplifier, running direct a Vincent cd-s7 tube/sold state hybrid digital player modified, taralab’s omega gold speaker cable’s, omega jumper cable’s, zero gold interconnect balanced, furutech ncf gtx-rhodium outlet’s through out, taralab’s 3ft cobalt power cord with oyaida termination’s on it, room is 14 by 26 ,, very little natural room treatment, this rig sings!, I also just bought the L1 book shelf speaker’s to play with on my other systems, love em!, btw, these are the last extreme high-end dynamic, none horn speaker’s jbl has made!, this is my  avatar picture, enjoy the music 😎

JBL L300 is Nelson Pass’s all time favorite speakers, he says. It must be really good. I would like to hear it.

And yet he designed an alternate crossover for it. The murky sounds and  poor in-room power response I heard out of stock L300s probably comes from a crossover that's not well-matched to the drivers, especially how high the crossover point is for a 15" woofer. Guaranteed beaming.

As a kid, it was always my dream to own a pair of L300’s. I would love to pick up a nice pair today. The smaller L110 and L65 were nice too.

I just picked up a pair of L300 and L200 at the bargain price from a local audiophile.  They were quite abused and damaged outside and inside as well.  But they look wonderful from at least 20 feet away.  I have listened to both L200's and L300's with a little Pilot tube amp. They sound fine but not the greatest I have heard so far.  They are not perfect. They have some strengths for certain areas and weaknesses for other areas, like our children. I will try to enjoy them while refinishing the cabinets and cleanup the mess inside. I have to live with them for a while to learn more about them. My first impression is that they have more strengths than weaknesses. I would like to enjoy their strengths more than their weaknesses.  At some point I am going to pass them on to someone else, so that they can experience what these are. Happy Listening!

The JBL L-300s were the best sounding JBL Speaker I ever heard.  I built some JBL Lancers with the 14" Aquadag coating LE 14A  JBL 5" Mid and 1" Pro Titanium tweeter.   I thought the Lancers sounded better than most sub - $1000 / Pair speakers at the time but the L300's were what I wished I had after hearing them.  The Lancers really put you into Pink Floyd's "The Machine" but the L300's were thunderous Majesty.   Top notch components throughout. Beautiful case work. Great everything.

Hello, has anyone seen replacement 15" woofers  in the L300 available ?
As like in Henricksound in japan.

Sorry Kenricksound Japan.

Drop in replacement = JBL 2216nd. It blows away the original 2231 or 2235 hands down! 

everybody should own a pair of vintage JBL at some point in life..

Never heard of the 2216 which cabinets did they come from ?

2216nd used in the JBL M-2 studio monitors.

I didn't know that they were Nelson Pass' favorite speaker.  Interesting because when I worked in the studios, we used to joke that the JBL 4311's were so bad that if you got the mix sounding good on them, it would sound great anywhere.  So maybe that's why Pass makes such good-sounding amps. 

I think he made the statement that they were his favorite back when they were current. He redesigned the crossover for the L-300 some years ago. Got rid of the auto former in the mid-range circuit and changed the tweeter section to a first order instead of a second. Other then that, as he stated, JBL crossovers are hard to improve on in their large monitors, which of corse includes the L-300 which is just a 4333 in a home friendly cabinet.