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Hi all,

I'm in the market for new monitors. I'm not in a situation where I can easily go to a store and A/B pairs, so I've done the standard "read every last review and message board on earth" routine and landed on the JBL LSR4326P's. I land here for three reasons:

1. They are the right size for my small room.
2. My room has issues, and the room correction function is alluring
3. $1000 is just about what I want to spend.

So, if anyone wants to talk me out of it, I'm all ears - or otherwise let me know your impression of these monitors.

My personal sticking point is also in the plus category: the room correction stuff makes me a little nervous - I'm generally skeptical of equipment that does more than one thing. I wonder if it's better to spend $1000 on speakers that just reproduce sound rather than spend it on speakers that not only do that but also attempt to correct room issues, make me sandwiches, dispense an assortment of beverages, etc.

Comments

BobRogers Mon, 12/14/2009 - 16:44

Look, we all know the "right" way to do this - putting a bunch of monitors in your price range in your own room and doing careful double blind tests...riiiight. Well you are going to have to figure out a way to make the decision without doing it the "rational" way.

Someone (I think it was on this board) said one of the five most intelligent things I've read on the internet: When you can't make a choice by listening to audio equipment - buy the one that looks the coolest. This is not a joke. For most people, confirmation bias wins out over buyers remorse, and they end up liking what they buy. If what they buy looks pretty, they like it even more. They wind up happy and have cheerful satisfying lives - which is kind of the point of buying all this stuff. (Also, experimental psychologists say that you will be doing basically this even when you think you are making careful, rational, decisions. The capacity of the human mind for self deception is amazing.)

For what it is worth, I have a pair of JBL6238s. I never use the room correction. Been using various JBL speakers since 1974, so my confirmation bias is working fine.

Davedog Mon, 12/14/2009 - 19:01

I havent heard anything negative about these, and when I do occasionally go down to the audio store just to be a bother and to try out new things, if they have a pair of those they always are number three at least on my like list. Of course I'm usually listening to them with Genelecs, Tannoy pros, and such. But they seem to be a good speaker.

Like Bob, my JBL experiences go way way back....still wish I had my 4310's.

dvdhawk Mon, 12/14/2009 - 19:34

I have a pair of the LSR4328, which I like. I got them specifically to get some level of consistency in different remote mixing locations. I've been pretty satisfied with the results.

Don't be afraid of the Room Mode Correction. It's not like pink noise, it just does a quick low-end sweep since it's only concerned with the low frequency modes of the room.
If you've got a really problematic room it can't do miracles, but it can find your room's worst modes and smooths them out.