JM Labs Electra 946 lack of high-end detail

Aball, I think the 80's speakers he is refering to is the Bostons, not the JM Labs.. Focal drivers used in all JM labs I have had are anything but forgiving and low detailed highs or Crisp mids.. Mostly they are normally pretty midrang and Hi's heavy, so something else is going on here in my opinion.. Maybe a speaker Short to a wire inside or you have them Out of phase hooked at the amps, but that would normally make them even more Thin and bright..

Uh, guys, I'm sure the archetypal "80's speakers" Lmhlaw was referring to are neither Bostons nor JM Labs in his mind -- that was just a pejorative description of the sound. And I really don't think someone took out a healthy 6.5" mid and left a skinny little 5" shivering in its place. Every not take things so literally dudes? And yes, lots of bass and no highs does not indicate out of phase hook up...As I said, there is probably something screwy going on with the tweeters, which are more easily damaged. Well, in any case at least we all agree this ain't right...

Thank you all for the instant feedback. The mid-range speaker is indeed 6.5" measured from to the outer edges (beyond the screws). It just looks approximately like a Boston 5" speaker. At any rate, on your suggestions I unscrewed (use metric hex) and pulled it out a bit and to the side to make sure it was working. It was, although it may be blown for all I know. I then examined the 6.5" mid-range in both speakers and noted that the cone was detached from the center concave post "button", i.e., the cone moves back and forth along the center shaft. I've never seen an arrangement like this, but it seems right, since the center convex hard plastic button does not move in and out to the touch.

In sum, unless the mid-range is clearly damaged, I may just replace the tweeters and see if that improves the high end. Any suggestions where to get them? (I understand this is a grossly subjective judgment, but what I mean by high end is a certain bell-like clarity which may be an artifact of the Adcom/Boston combination.)

Lastly, by '80 speaker I had in mind the big Infinitys -- the kind of speaker Cream sounds just right on (as opposed to, say, The Clientele.)

Yeah, the midrange is supposed to work that way. So, you're getting plenty of sound from both tweeters and both midranges if you put your ear up to them? Hard for me to judge what you're hearing wrong then, because I certainly never heard "a bell-like clarity" to the high end of the Boston/Adcom combo back when I used to sell that stuff, but that was 11 years ago now. Anyway, the JM Labs shouldn't sound so deficient, so it seems to me the most likely candidates are either damaged but partially working drivers, or somehow damaged crossovers. Really the only way I can think of that both crossovers would be 'damaged' the same is if somebody deliberately altered them. This doesn't seem very likely either though. Only other easily conceivable option, as has been mentioned, is that your perception of hearing the speakers is what's off. Who/where did you buy these from, and have you recontacted them about this? I think what you may need at this point is a second, in-person opinion from an experienced listener.

You can get exact driver replacement from Zalytron.com in new york, if they are still in business.. Also back when I had some Midrange drivers from Focal, I think they were what is called the Polycarbonate type or something, basically had a grey sand like feeling surface, they did not have the greatest quality control for some reason.. I would get a driver here and there when building kits that would actually make a scratching noise when moved by hand in the piston like pumping motion, this was a hung up or slightly out of center voice coil, and I guess it would make them not perform as well as a super smooth piston movement and made them sound like More Restricted..

I ended up getting them replaced and then they sounded better, I would assume having something like that out of whack and supposedly being the Hi quality tolerance FOCAL driver the gap and resistance.. etc in the speaker was off. By the way JM labs are FOCAL drivers, and can be found at other places as well, like Madisound.com ..

Other than that Zaikesman could be correct in the crossover, maybe a out of tolerance resistor or Cap??