JBL HT Series speakers - how are they? (1 Viewer)

[Kenneth Harden]

For about 6 months, I have owned a pair of JBL HT4V speakers, and am using my exsisting, and much cheaper HLS Center speaker for the...center! Because of that, I don't have identical front three's. To buy a HT4H (the matching center) would be almost $600. Thats a LOT of cash. What I am thinking of doing is selling the speakers (I paid $300 at a pawn shop, they sell for $1100-1200 new and are not internet fauder, they are in the Synthesis line) and replacing them with some Klipsch SF-3's and a SC-3, which I can get a good deal on.

I listen to 80% or so electronic music, and the rest is movies like the Matrix and Kill Bill.

Should I dump these THX satellites and get some big floorstanders instead?

Thanks!

 

[Nathan W.]

If you're not bothered by any change in timbre, assuming there is any, or performance in the center speaker then I'd leave it.

Many people stress the importance of timbre-matching all the speakers. But ya know what? I've never had a cosmetically or sonically matching center speaker and it has never bothered me because I'm always paying attention to the movie I'm watching - plus I don't do surround music, stereo for me. If I ever find myself nitpicking the timbre of my speakers, then I'll pop in another movie since it was obviously boring. At the moment I'm using a pair of Bohlender-Graebener Radia X3 towers laid flat on top of my TV as the center. No Bohlender on any other channel. It sounds fine. Still, I'll switch out the Bohlenders with something else since they look funky on the TV and it's just a plain ol' waste to use them that way I think. Good sound though.

If you're not using a sub, you'll definitely gain some deep bass with the Klipsch towers and still have that horn loaded tweeter sound the JBLs have.

My Def Tech BP10 towers that I use for front L&R are basically full range, but that's kinda moot since I send all deep bass to my sub and my entry level Kenwood receiver won't allow me to run the mains as large and subwoofer "on" at the same time. I can actually choose "large" for the fronts and "on" for the sub and the display reflects these settings, but the sub gets nothing this way - weird. I'd really like to upgrade that receiver.