Part Time Audiophile on the JBL 4349’s: "The 4349 Studio Monitor forges its own path and bucks the flavor of the month design of current industry trends. I applaud JBL’s choices and the 4349 Studio Monitor is worth a listen and, in my opinion, an instant classic."

JBL is part of the Harman Luxury Group, and when they contacted me about sending a pair of JBL 4349 speakers it piqued my curiosity. In our Part-Time Audiophile circles we’ve been curious about the hubbub around the JBL L-100 re-release a few years ago, and how that vintage speaker might stack up against more modern speakers.

I fondly remember my impressionable teenage years where my uncle had an L-100 powered by Kenwood electronics. His friend across the apartment complex had Bose 901s and they would have stereo wars across the complex. It was juvenile, but when you are 12 it was cool as hell. They also street raced their Toyota Corolla and Ford Probe against each other. Again, cool as a teenager, but juvenile as all hell. I think it just goes to show that some nostalgia ages much better than others.

Looking at the JBL 4349, it has a bit of that L-100 look and feel. But instead of a 3-way speaker with conventional cone midranges and tweeters, the JBL 4349 is a big two-way speaker with a radial horn for the upper midrange and treble. JBL packed a bunch of technology into this speaker and paid attention to several details during the design process, and that impressed me.

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