Audiophilepure

The presentation is Marcus Miller’s ‘Power,’ which is performed live. A toe-tapping bass track leads to lots of percussion, more guitar, and lots of brass. It’s a massive sound and requires a lot of effort for any speaker to handle all these instruments with credibility. Once again, the 140s were more than up to the task. It was in this song that another notable trait emerged. These speakers are so clear and so distortion-free, that adding to the equation their lightning-fast reflexes, one might think it isn’t loud. My wife stopped in the listening room and started to talk. It was at that moment that it became clear these speakers have a lot of capacity for SPL. I could not hear her voice at all.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/gershman-acoustics-grand-studio-ii-loudspeaker

The speakers were much more at home with André Previn and His Pals on their improvisations on West Side Story [Contemporary Records S-7572]. Admittedly there’s not much to go wrong, with Previn’s piano and Red Mitchell’s bass on the left channel, and the drums of Shelly Mann on the right. Similarly, the very different Art Of Noise live recording of ‘Moments In Love’, from the Noise In The City set [Music On CD MOCCD14069], at last delivered a central soundstage image from the simple mix. But, again, the oh-so-polite Tokyo audience seemed rather more reticent than usual as there was not much live ambience.

This same tendency to dryness also affected Anna Lapwood’s arrangement of the Britten ‘Sea Interludes’, played on the organ of Ely Cathedral on her debut solo album, Images [Signum Classics SIGCD688]. There was good tonality to the instrument, and plenty of power for the room-shaking ‘Storm’ interlude, but the space of the cathedral was a tad diminished and there was less ambience than this music usually delivers.

https://www.hifichoice.com/content/jbl-4349

We were initially a little concerned that the 1.5kHz crossover between the high-frequency driver and bass unit (admittedly a little high for a 300m unit) would see the different frequencies passing like ships in the night, but given care with setup – with the cabinet placed perhaps a little further back than normal – things thankfully mesh together well enough. Ostensibly, the 4349 is happy enough running off low-power sources, but not having a SET tube amp available, we instead settle upon a modest but capable Cambridge Audio AXA35 (see p27). With its quoted 2x 35W power output this is hardly a beast of an amp and yet it comes as a pleasant surprise just how easily the JBL hangs off it. Admittedly, when pushed a little harder, the cracks start to appear as a brash edge becomes evident and the notes start to sound as though they’re being squeezed out rather than dancing into play under their own steam – but this is perhaps forgivable given its modest power output.