Speakers to mate with McIntosh gear

XieKitchen, Not to be disrespectful of the Cornwall Speaker, nor of anyone who owns, or likes them, as I do feel this speaker is a timless classic.

They're quite large too, not exactly a "bedroom" speaker, that's for sure.

In my life, I've heard a few pairs of these, and one pair quite extensively over the years (my best friend's), but I will say this in their defense, the equipment that he was driving these with weren't exactly state of the art, very dated, and I'm very sure an Amp like a Mac 402, would certainly sound multitudes better extracting the best that the Cornwall has to offer.

Still, I feel the 4300 Series by JBL was in a completely different league altogether, being a professional product, and one I feel that JBL has never really quite duplicated since.

As they say, hindsight always has 20/20 vision, and my regrets are that I didn't buy a couple-few pairs of these 4300 Series Speakers years ago when they first hit the market.

One company that I took a bit of interest in a couple of years ago, was a Speaker Company called Gold Sound in Colorado. This business makes monitors that are somewhat "clones" to the old 4300's, with custom Oak Cabinets, and usually a choice of either JBL Pro, or TAD Drivers.

I believe there are indeed still in business, do sell kits with assembled cabinets, and sell all the needed Drivers, x-overs, etc, and did sound like a reasonable value for what they were. I believe their largest enclosure was too large to ship though (With an 18"JBL Bass Driver) and for this model they only offered the Cabinet Plans.

I have no idea if Gold Sound sold the Enclosures seperately, but it might be a possibility, and would save some cost if one had the required JBL Pro Drivers lying around? Mark

CanuksO, I do feel offended. Your crying that your speakers don't sound good with all music and I offered you a viable alternative. Paul Klipsch himself uses the CF4s, check Audiogon to see how often these speakers are offered for sale & how fast they sell. Your too hung up on asthestics, which is precisley why you are not satisfied. By the way what is wrong with the asthetsics of Klipsch?

Happy wife, happy life.

Most home speakers don't look too offensive nowadays, but yes, there are some beautiful speakers that come to mind that would really set off a room, and no doubt become instant conversation starters when one walks into a room, take Advantgarde, a pair of $40,000 B+W Nautilus, the MBL Radialstrauler as a few.

I can understand, somthing like a pair of old JBL Voice of the Theaters with a 23" sectional Horn bolted on top of a nasty painted Bass Cab won't have much of a WAF! (wife acceptance factor) no matter how killer hey sound. (great speakers though, if you have a listening room the size of a Gymnasium)

One speaker that I've always admired for their striking beauty, beautiful wood veneers, and reputed build, and sound quality are the Legacy brand. Downside, is I don't believe they have much of a dealer network to see, and here these in person, unless you live close to where they're made. mark

Mcintosh is Crap!!!! Just kidding, I think any mac stuff works real nice with a lot of speakers in general, they even help fix some issues of certain designs, magic dust or something. But really listen to some designs of varying values in speakers, mcintosh seems to be pretty smooth and really never offends on anything I have heard them paired too, almost the safest audio investment both sound and value wise seems to be mcintosh, now I am not saying some stuff is not better in given situations, but.....Just take a listen to some different designs, horns, straight dynamic speakers whatever, they will all be a bit different, but if you want big attack, speed, and volume horns and some full range drive stuff will be the ticket.