JBL DD66000 manual Chapter, Defining the Project Concept

CHAPTER 2

Legacy - the historical development of the JBL Project loudspeakers

Of those few who seek perfection in sound reproduction, only a handful have actually achieved it. The price is always high. It is a rare occurrence indeed when an individual or group is able to triumph over the constraints of economic and technological reality just once.

At JBL, this has happened eight times. In each case, its engineers were told to build the speaker system they had always wanted to build. Whatever resources were required would be made available. Thus began an ongoing investigation into new frontiers of sound reproduction, beginning mid -century in 1950 and continuing to the present day.

The products that have resulted fromthis venture are now known as the JBL Project loudspeakers. Each represents the absolute peak of every technological, material and engineering innovation available at that time, combined into a single system. They are Hartsfield, Pragon, Everest DD55000, K2 S9500/7500, K2 S5500, K2 S9800 , and K2 S5800. The newest is EVEREST DD66000.

Although differing in performance details and physical attributes, each of the Project loudspeakers has shared a common objective: to elevate sound reproduction to levels defined only by the limitations of existing materials and technology . And despite a spread of nearly sixty years, all Project loudspeakers have shared many common features testimony to their foundation on the technology and manufacturing techniques upon which JBL was built.

Defining the Project Concept

The Hartsfield began a tradition at JBL that continues today. First, engineer a product as close to perfection as possible. When it reaches that level, that is the time to make it better.

In 1954, the Hartsfield was significant not in that it represented new technology, but rather a new level of the all technical manufacturing approach pioneered by James B. Lansing some twenty years before it. Like its Project series successors, it was a high efficiency system incorporating compression driver technology, one combining the qualities of high output, low distortion, exceptional stereo imaging and fatigue-free listening. Most important, it was the first consumer-available listening system to do so.