Why Crazy Prices paid for Pioneer 100 JBL L100 AR1 AR3 AR3A

Stacks of JBL speakers powered by many many McIntosh amps were the preferred system for the Woodstock music festival.

Stupid people pay stupid money for speakers that are ANCIENT HISTORY!!

Here is some background information and then I will shut up:  For those not in the know, the JBL 4344 studio monitor was made for a brief period between 1983-85. It is similar to the 4343 studio monitor, but with better drivers and a reconfigured layout.  It is a four way design, with a 15" woofer; a 10" cone mid-base, a compression/horn midrange and a compression slot loaded tweeter.  They weigh over 200lbs each. It has a Greg Timbers designed crossover (he was a genius with crossovers, because before him no one believed that a four way could be as transparent as a good three way).  Most of these 4344 speakers have been exported out of the U.S., because they are very popular in Japan.  As far as I know, JBL has only raissued two of its speakers over the years: the L100 Gold in the 90s (and L100 more recently) and the 4344 mk2 also reissued in the 1990s.  Obviously, no one can say you are wrong for liking a given type of sound or a give speaker brand, but I listen to a lot of live music and that is my reference. 

I also have a pair of 4344 studio monitors.  They are to die for, but again, they require very good electronics to sound truly amazing.  I driven them with a 250 watt tube amp and a very good tube preamp (telefunken NOS tubes) along with meridian's top of the line digital source equipment.   No speaker I've heard sounds more alive and it is not fatiguing - you can listen for hours and hours - it's addictive.  Just for point of reference, I think Vandersteen 7s are amoung the best sounding of the modern speakers that I've heard (including big Wilsons, etc).  I also have lower powered single ended tube gear, and Spendor Sp100s, so I know that sound too.   Those big JBL studio monitor from the early 1980s are apples to oranges when compared to the Spendors, but they easily compete with the very best of what's out there, IMHO. 

The 4312 can pass for an "audiophile" speaker because they had three improvements over the L100s: (1) better crossovers (much more transparent and neutral sounding); (2) the three drivers were grouped together in the middle of the cabinet (providing much better imaging and soundstaging); and (3) the tweeter was ungraded (it was the last of the fabric domes before JBL switch to titanium tweeters).  Most people have never  heard how good these speakers can sound, because they have only heard them run with a lower quality receiver, and they really need high quality and powerful separate electronics to sound transparent and relatively uncolored.  I would say they are still competitive with new speakers in the $1k to $2k range - indeed people are paying up to $4k for reissued L100.  I've not heard the new ones but I own a pair of L88 plus 12 from (which I bought in the 70s) and a pair of 4312's (with the last of the fabric tweeters) which I bought about 10 years ago for around $300.  I also own a slew of moder "audiophile approved" speakers and 

It would be well to consider that a lot of the people buying vintage speakers and cars are those who had them forty years ago. They’re in their sixties and seventies now and they remember what happened in the back seat of a ’67 GTO or on the carpet in front of a pair of L-100s playing One Stormy Night...

With the old speaker systems you purchased Craftsmanship, quality, and are built to last, when you put furniture polish on the wood you see REAL wood glow.not paper vinyl over MDF and the TONE IS TO DIE FOR, i still have my AR9's and my Altec 19 and they look good in the living room and bedroom, i love the sound of JBL'S and their punch of the bass, but when i listen to CHARLES MINGUS OR OSCAR PETTIFORD on that double bass i have to listen to my AR9's

jnorris2005121 posts08-09-2020 7:39pm

People that rave about Pioneer speakers will also wax poetic about "vintage" Radio Shack speakers. They’re all over the audio Facebook pages and get very gnarly if you challenge their beliefs. Forgive them. They are just boneheads who don’t know any better.

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Watch the name callin’,  I see you have the MC brashness sometimes too!  I know better, I’m not a bonehead. They are  great speakers. They were the speakers of the time. Rock and Roll was abound... And yes RS (Realistic) speakers were quit good also for their time, with a few tweeks, they both could hold their own, with anything of their time, and certainly in their price range...

Most of the guys making music, used JBL/Mcintosh monitors/amps. If they were doing their own record making, mixing, they always used what the audience was using at the time for playback.. The ones that were WAY ahead of their time anyway.. Beach Boys, Santanna, GDead, James Brown.. Call me a boneheaded maybe. Not a bone head. It goes in, It DON'T bounce off, AY? :-)

Regards

There are a lot of JBL speaker models that sound much better than L100s and are a relative bargain, including some truly great studio monitors home models featuring some of the best compression drivers ever made. I sometimes run across bargain JBLs that sound truly great but are relatively inexpensive because they are not one of the hot fan boy models. Keep your L100s. I'll take baby butt cheeks all day long.

I had a pair of HPM 100’s in college back in 80, I got rid of them in a few months. I bought them from a friend on the cheap. They didn’t sound good, nothing about them impressed. I was running them with GAS equipment and an SL 1500mk II with an Ortophon MC cart.  There were a few JBL’s that were decent but for the same money I thought there were better choices. 

Ive seen people pay stupid money for these speakers and can only surmise they are hearing nostalgia.  Same goes for Japanese receivers, people buy them because they look cool or maybe they couldn’t afford one back in the day. The sound quality of most of these is average mid-fi. There’s nothing wrong with that but when they go on about the great sound, etc., I lose interest. 

I sold hi end back then.  I heard a lot of theories on Japanese speakers but it was common knowledge there was maybe one good speaker at that time from Japan. And I believe it was designed by an American. 

YMMV

What does this stuff have in common with the pyramids?Its all ancient history.

I asked where the market was of a guy who repairs and sells classic components and speakers.  His reply was that hipsters buy them because they are cool and classic. They want to impressed their hipster friends that they too can go retro. Hence the demand. Ahh, capitalism.

I have a pai of L100s that I bought in 1975 with an expensive crossover upgrade that made them sound really very good. I use them in the living room to impress my friends. :)

What must be remembered is that for many of us, we first listened to music on portable or table-top AM radios, later on FM radios. Once you were able to hear music reproduced using a receiver and two speakers of whatever kind, you were hooked. I think that sound was imprinted in our brains and to a large extent accounts for much of the demand for gear from the early-to-mid 70s. I have many pieces from that era (just bought a pristine Sansui TU-517 tuner that looks brand-new and sounds great) and I use large Advents and a couple of pair of ADS speakers to bring back
that sound. With the right music, I enjoy that as much as listening to my Audio Research/Accuphase/Vandersteen system. I know I'm a dinosaur, but then they ruled the earth for millions of years, so I figure I'm in good company.

  Recently watched a 1965 Ford GT350R serial number 1 go for $3.5 M. I can’t afford a vintage car but I have a pristine pair of 80’s JBL 4312A’s with custom Sound Anchor stands 26” tall . And they’re in the closet because they don’t sound like I remembered from my youth . Eventually I’ll rebuild the crossovers .  But since they are a near field studio monitor used in a horizontal array , maybe they just won’t sound “GOOD”. Friends with the big 15” stuff that’s bi-amped with tubes on top and A/B or class D on the woofers and running digital correction do sound pretty good , if you like the ZZ Top live sound . I had Vintage Klipsch and Large Advent . Gave  my Klipsch Heresys and a vintage Sansui to my daughter. Gave the Klipsch KG’s and a vintage Marantz to my son . Both received Schiit DAC’s too. They’re happy , I’m happy . Running 12wpc SEP tube to Zu’s now. Growing up in Fresno I remember Quadraflex , and Sun Stereo’s DWD’s. DWD built stuff for ESS. Also  Vandersteen is made in a nearby town . Now that’s a vintage speaker worth owning ! Cheers , Mike B. 

I owned a pair of AR3's for about 5 years(years ago.....don't remember exactly but probably in the early 1970's)....sold them and bought a pair of original Quad ESL's from Jonas Miller in Los Angeles. The first piece of classical music I played was almost not recognizable....the Quads were that much better than the AR's

Lots of reasons.   Quality, nostalgia, balance.   Back in the day, both the JBL L100 and AR3a were reference speakers, albiet for different purposes.  Both were descended from a family of speakers that set new standards for performance, and both speakers are regarded as points in time when everything fell into place.  A true whole being greater than sum of parts.

The JBL L100 was a consumer version of the primary studio monitor in use by top Rock and Pop Music studios.  You were literally hearing the same sound as recording engineers !  Combine that with bold styling, punchy bass and relatively high efficiency and you have a speaker that inspired wet dreams among pre-teen boys, at least until they discovered girls, then the speakers were a means to another end.....   If you like classic rock from 1965-1980, then you will love this speaker.

The AR3a was a redesign of the groundbreaking AR3, which was the first speaker to use dome midrange and tweeter drivers.  There is some controversy, but AR is believed to have invented dome drivers.  The AR3 offered true 30hz-15khz frequency response, with minimal distortion, and wide dispersion that modern speakers struggle to match.  Competing speakers were twice as large, and struggled to go below 50hz, and above 10khz.  At one time AR had about 30% of the entire speaker market.  The 3 and 3a rewarded serious listeners.  They were simply the most accurate speaker one could buy at the time.  They were true reference speakers for jazz and classical recording engineers.  They were used for sound reinforcement when backing acoustic instruments, ballet, recitals etc.  "Serious Music".  They were not rock speakers and that led to seeing their market share slip away as the market changed.  

AR speakers were designed for mid -far field listening...about row 10-15 in a concert hall.  They sounded best in a moderately sized living room, about 10-15 feet away from the listener, playing acoustic instruments.  Used within their limits, they sound wonderful even today.   The problem is the newest example is at least 45yrs old, and most are 50yrs+.  The suspensions of the mid and tweeter domes dry out over time, and the level controls become corroded.   There are people that can rebuild the dome drivers, and there are drop in replacements for the level controls.  Once serviced, one would be very surprised at how good they sound even today.

I have one pair of AR 3 and one of AR 3a, and have listened to neither yet because they were rescued from a recycling place and I want to rebuild-them-some-day.  The AR 3 (early ones) have two salient features: AlNiCo magnets much heftier than later models, and at least very early ones had cabinets made of a Navy post-war overstock of teak wood or some wood very dense and impervious to the elements. 
As for the JBLs, I recall they were great for disco music but not really suited for classical music - maybe for jazz.  They were great in their days, but if one could show me a JBL Paragon system, now that was the nec plus ultra then, and perhaps even now, with all due foam and crossover rebuilds as mandated by all these dinosaurs. 
Pioneer? I had a QX-949 pseudo-quadrasonic, or tetraphonic (but not quadraphonic, a misplaced, mixed-roots neologism, as marketing mavens lured us to remember the technology). I said "Meh!" and sold it.  I preferred my Kenwood KA8006 and KT8007, very elegant design and I think at least equal performers to the aesthetically boring Pioneer corresponding amp and tuner.  Not to speak of my unequalled Marantz 2275, or better yet my 2270 (two phono inputs awaiting my Empire 498 and B&O 4002), which are awaiting the same fate as my ARs some-day-soon. 

The nostalgia craze hits most hobbies after 30- 40 years. Anything that was desirable when people were growing up becomes attractive when they are older and have money. Try buying a vintage 70s muscle car these days! Old crap receivers are going for more money than separate amps and pre-amps of the same era. Garbage turntables are being gobbled up, when true high quality ones remain unknown by the masses. LPs are in demand and prices are crazy. Big brand speakers like you mentioned are the rage -but were not always the better performers of the day. They were what the masses wanted, but most could not buy. People forget that most of the old stereo gear they lusted after in their youth was made cheaply to sell at places like JC Penny’s, Macy’s and at the hi-fi chain stores. Most of the low to mid level big brand stuff was mediocre then, and not worth the asking price today -if it’s my money. But you have seen the prices people get for it, and nostalgia is why. If you have any of that stuff to sell, now is the time. This will all end as new fixations pop-up as the nostalgia timeline moves forward. Don’t sell off your CDs! They will be the rage again soon🤑

I have owned AR-3ax, AR-4x, JBL L100, JBL Decade36 over the years. I still have AR-4x and Decade 36. These speakers have the same sound as their siblings for WAY less money.

Bought a pair of AR-3A's in 1973, powered by a 55W/ch Sansui 8 Deluxe receiver & Thorens TD160 w/Shure V15 Type III. My first high-end system.
I loved the sound of the AR's at the time but, in retrospect, perhaps they needed more power (55 watts was a lot of power back then).
It's fun to reminisce about the old equipment, but how does one accurately recall the sound of speakers not heard since 1981....?

In the mid-1970s I was in retail at Pacific Stereo (a big chain retailer, with 84 stores, mostly throughout California but also with 10 in Chicago and 8 in Texas).  I sold a ton of the JBL speakers, plenty being the L100.  No doubt, they went loud, even with just a medium powered receiver.  I never liked their sound, it was big and brash.  The AR speakers didn't sell as well as the JBL speakers because they were much more tonally balanced.  At Pacific Stereo we had several sound rooms, all with "switching" for A/B comparisons.  Switching from AR to JBL and you were hit in the face with sound pressure.  Customers loved that and most often opted for the JBL.  However, those who were more patient wanted to listen to a full album on the AR speakers.  Only then would they change over to the JBL and listen to that same album.  In that method of demonstration the AR often times got the sale.  They were much more comfortable to listen to for a period of time.  JBL caused listening fatigue while the AR sounded pleasant.  And yes, as others have mentioned, the Advent speakers sounded great and we sold a lot of them, too.  The best method was stacking them, two pairs, placing the bottom speaker box with the tweeter up and the top speaker box with the tweeter down, essentially having two tweeters in the middle and a 10" woofer up top and on the bottom.  That was probably the best "bang for the buck" that I sold.  Of course, the absolute most speakers that we sold was the house brand, Quadraflex.  The ST-19 was a 12" 3-way speaker for $199 each.  They actually sounded pretty decent, and they had a $20 spiff for the sales person.  What fun days those were.

I had HPM100’s and JBL 4312’s. I prefer a bright speaker, but something in the upper midrange in both bothered my ears. A buddy listened to them with me and ended up buying them- said they sounded great. I assume both bring good money these days, but just wasn’t for me.

The old large Advent sounded better to my ears, I can see why people covet them.


Stay safe in these crazy days-

My Friend has AR3’s, a 3 way,, from the 1970;’s, he has changed out a midrange I believe,, they sound warm, Not bad, they sell as **oldies but goodies*,, = not my cup of tea,,,but back then, they were **The Bomb**,
Pioneer’s JBL’s my guess is close to AR’s,, but again, some folks are still in love with those oldies but goodies... No I would never pay top $ for old technology.
SEAS set the New Standards and blasted the oldies to pieces<<< in a fair shootout. But some folks are either ona tight budget and/or still have fond memories for that old nostalgic stuff

Seems as if the nostalgia bug is also going around. I worked at a couple of shops that sold both the JBL's and also the Yamaha 1000's. Thank god we carried a couple of other lines that were actually listenable. I can't understand the demand for these. Also, prices being asked for some of the turntables of this era are just nuts. If it was junk in the 70's it is old junk today. 

@tannoy56 yes for Tannoys jensens Altec dont need much power but i was referring to those inefficient 1970s speakers mentioned. I have a post about tannoy red and black if you choose to comment.

The L-100's were okay. I had a pair of L-166 Horizons, which were similar, but had a way better silk dome tweeter. I inherited a pair of AR 4AX's. The surrounds were just barely intact, but still worked. I thought they were pretty good with dome mid's and tweeters.  Needed lots of power to work. Very flat compared to modern speakers.

Pretty good 1972 JBL 100s -$500 2020 JBL 100s $3,000.....

Quality vintage speakers - Tannoy Dual Concentric Autograph/GRF, JBL Hartsfied, Jensen 610 Empirial, WE 753 monitors, 755A full range drivers and a few field coil speakers are extremely reviling, with excellent micro/macro dynamics and very musical/emotional sounding speakers. However, those speakers are made for low power tube amplifiers, and have to be correctly matched. Many serious audiophiles around the world are using speakers of these caliber. Even, the legendary, Nelson Pass is troubleshooting his new amplifiers with vintage Tannoy speakers, although solid state amps will not be a perfect match. Many of you, will blame good sounding speakers because their equipment will sound better with less reviling and more forgiving speakers. In other words. good speakers can sound like crap if your amplifier/preamplifier front end and cables are not up to par. In addition, you have to ask yourself, how come one of the best recording from the 50/60’s were made with vintage equipment? Are these recordings demand high price only because they are collectable? 

Interesting and timely thread as my circa 1978 AR14 speakers were just packed off to the University of TN for the third time today. I first took them in 1978, my oldest son had them there up through his graduation in 2019, and now my youngest moved into the dorms this morning. The one constant is that the AR14s still sound pretty damn good. Crisp highs and tight bass with what was the flattest response curve over the entire response range was their calling card. Though my current system far surpasses them I still very much enjoyed listening to Pink Floyd and Jackson Browne with my younger son over the past couple of months. A Yamaha integrated to drive them was his high school graduation present since my older son had taken the Kenwood integrated that drove them for the past 40 years to grad school - the AR14s were too big to fit in the car headed across country so they passed down to little brother. 
AR14 is a 2-way toward the bottom of the line back in the day with a 10” woofer, 1-inch dome tweeter in a sealed enclosure. I had the woofers re- papered and the crossovers updated about 20 years ago. I paid approximately list price for them in 78 - $320 for the pair. A quick google suggests that would be about $1280 in today’s dollars (4X) and I’m not sure you could beat them today for that cost. 
YMMV. 

People that rave about Pioneer speakers will also wax poetic about "vintage" Radio Shack speakers.  They're all over the audio Facebook pages and get very gnarly if you challenge their beliefs.  Forgive them.  They are just boneheads who don't know any better.

Large Advents still sound good. Heard original JBL 100s. Sounded shrill and boomy. YMMV

Large Advents still sound good. Heard the JBL 100s new- thought they sounded shrill and boomy. YMMV

The 70s was the Decade of the JBL 100s they were fair traded no discounts on them.They were a rock Speaker and the 70s was all about  Rock and Roll.To own them was a statues thing....

The AR-9’s sounded good for the time, but sound somewhat less alive than current high end offerings. They were a cost no object engineering feat at the time that they were introduced. A friend who is the original owner had his refurbished, drivers & electronics. But after testing them we decided that they make great home theaters speakers, where precise tonal reproduction doesn’t seem as critical.

But back to the subject, Classic JBL Speakers... As responsible for me saying what? As other influences from the 1970’s and firearms. 
Here the quality is directly related to the speaker model and the generation of the model, since they improved some over time. In the 1970’s, 95% of the recording studios used JBL monitors, so there was a feeling that when it came to the higher end models, we were listening to the music “as mixed”.  This chiefly relates to the L300 series, although the L100’s were top notch for home audio, the L300’s were the undisputed king. With a dispersion lens baffle in front of the tweeter, the long horn midrange and 15” woofer they blew us away. Even if they were almost the size of washer-dryers. These were released in 3 generations, the final and best of these used Alnico V magnets and had the 2 large red and black rotating speaker binding posts. Some criticize the tonal quality of the horn woofers, but for brass or woodwind instruments I find them profoundly accurate. After having the woofers re-coned and the crossover refurbished, mine are remarkable and compare favorably with every speaker design I’ve heard. Yes, electrostatics produce that broadly accurate, ethereal sound, but like others they are only preferable in given applications (rooms/furniture layouts) and with certain music. That’s not to say they are superior, but they sound different. I like the Wilson Puppies too, but having owned my L300’s since they were new, I haven’t found any speaker that plays loud rock and roll better, which can also sound great at moderate levels (96dB efficiency). Over the years I have tried others and sacrificed point source accuracy by combining numerous different speaker combinations and configurations, but I return to my JBL’s; listen, compare and move them back to my main listening room... Others have proven to be excellent distractions or changes of pace, but like relationships very few meet the test of time.

I must admit that first time listeners of my system, recognize the electronics, but then start with, what kind of speakers are these, are these really JBL’s, turn it up; oh my God, can you play this next. Then when they’re chosen system analysis selection plays, that smile appears... “Wow!” With the advanced engineering materials available now for speaker cones and finite element analysis, it’s amazing that vintage ported speakers this big can sound accurate at low frequencies. They have a miraculous tonal balance, that just works and are the closest thing to unobtainium that I own. But such are the mysteries of life, some times it’s better not to ask why. Oh and don’t ask, because I’ve turned down swap offers that exceed the cost of the rest of my system. 

Rock, Rap, Classical, Jazz, you name it; they are smile generators.

The AR 3a was the speaker that got me started in the 70s. I had JBL 110s , ESS AMT10Bs , Polk 12Cs. Plus many more speakers went in and out of my room , lots of money was spent. Crazy habit , but loved it all.

Fuzz:

Which specific AR speakers are you referring to?

DeKay

The AR's were the best speaker I had ever heard in '68. Of course that was before I went to any CES shows.
Probably sound like a Polk now.
Collecter items is the ONLY explanation.

Kinda like asking why Mcintosh cost so much and go up in price, not down.  It's a cult thing almost.. I liked JBL L100s.  The comps at the time were Bose 901, Infinity, had a few cool ones to choose from. AR (not much info on them) But very popular. The point is a lot of those speakers bring a good price. It's what the market will bear, and inventory at the time.

I'm surprised at how prices are going up on most speakers. 

The one exception is Polk. It seems they were flat on the resale. Good speakers. They were a wall of drivers, BIG. I liked a lot of their reference speakers, with the special IC..SDA, RTA. 

But JBL... The Everest series, holy cow....Serious sound. You know the L100 were a great little monitor, nice looking, lot of upgrades too, XOs.
What were you driving them with, and did they need repairs, they are old.

Regards

Good question. I have an old pair of JBL L80(?) boxed up somewhere that I listened to for about a week, then boxed them back up. I bought them thinking they would be great, only to realize they were (to me at the time) just average, in fact had a cheap speaker sound. Though in fairness I may have just hooked them up to a receiver, and thought 'meh'. Klipsch Heresys fit that 'not high end' category for me too -although they can be made to sound okay with tube gear. I’m sure our listening preferences change over time. Back when I was a teenager, a friend had some JBL 4311s that sounded really good when cranked up (especially remember that midrange clarity). My first set of speakers (1979) were Infinity RS10bs, selected (barely) over some Polk 10Bs. Both of which sounded much better to me than the lower scale JBLs of the day.

VINNY55 +1...The ARs sounded lifeless.....(To my ears.)