JBL LS60 Floor standing speakers
LS series is quite expensive and consists of five models: three stereo pairs (LS40, LS60, LS80), subwoofer and speaker system of the central channel. All speaker systems (except subwoofer, of course) are equipped with similar HF-emitters and differ by the set of LF- and LF/MF-speakers.
LS60 is the medium from the three stereo pairs and the smaller of two floor models. The speaker systems are attractive and very well-made with the finish of side walls by lacquered veneer and coal-black panels. However, the use of horn design on HF is the most interesting.
Four speakers form 3.5-way configuration. Two 165-mm emitters work with LF-area with the support of bass-reflex port, being set at 42 Hz. Lower speaker radiates up to 400 Hz and the upper continues to work up to 2 kHz., after that a titanium compressive driver (50 mm) with a horn gets into a game. This unusual emitter, which definitely has common roots with the larger horn of flagship model - K2 S9800, serves the next two octaves, and the small horn HF-speaker undertakes the area above 8 kHz. A pleasant feature of these horn emitters is the fact that their diaphragms are hidden from the playful fingers.
Dual input connectors allow the organization of bi-wiring and bi-amping. JBL LS60 is equipped with legs instead of usual spikes. The steadiness is not the highest - the designers decided that warning sign on the back panel is a sufficient safeguard against turnover.
The speaker systems are designed for flexible placement and their bass is a bit excessive, what leads to negligible underlining of male voices and boom on some material. It needs a bit more solidity and scale, but the sound is dense, powerful, convincing and quite musical.
JBL LS60 has not the smoothest and most neutral execution. Transfer of rhythm is a bit uncertain, dynamic drops are slightly smoothed, but the speakers cope well with high volume, and its decent reserve allows the use of powerful amps.
Despite of the generally calm character, the speaker systems can avoid stiffness. In the result the sound shows some restraint in combination with a complete absence of aggression even at very high levels.
However, the strongest side of JBL LS60 is the exceptionally accurate sound stage with perfect depth. The listener really gets the impression of "window in studio". Probably, the reason is a high directness of horn dynamics, in which direct radiation of the speaker system dominates the reflected.
