JBL L300 - true myth?

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