JBL K2 S9900, Product Commentaries And User Manual

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Project K2 S9900
9
For the first time, the rest of the sound reproduction chain – and not the
loudspeaker or its transducers – would impose limits on overall system
performance. Like the Paragon and Hartsfield, the K2 S9900 was built around
compression driver technology and addressed a more refined stereo image
than was previously considered technically feasible.
Since the original Project Everest was introduced, sound recording and
playback technology has undergone a revolution of its own. With the advent
of the CD, extremely demanding recorded signals became the rule rather than
the exception; the typical source material used by the average audio enthusiast
was superior to the best demonstration material of even just a few years prior.
In overall dynamics and transient response, transducers became once again a
potentially weak link in the high-end audio reproduction chain.
It was in this environment that JBL engineers set out to create the fourth and
fifth Project loudspeakers, K2 S9500 and K2 S5500. As with the Hartsfield,
the simplicity of a two-way system was considered the most promising design
track. Advances in transducer design and low-frequency alignment would make
possible the construction of a two-way system of unprecedented physical and
acoustical scale. JBL engineers took the core components – the low- and
high-frequency drivers – and optimized them by redesigning their magnetic
structures, diaphragms and framework for greater linearity, dynamic capability
and transient response.
In the years following the introduction of the K2 S9500 and K2 S5500, sound
reproduction technology underwent another series of revolutionary changes,
with the introduction of DVD-Video, Dolby
®
Digital, DTS,
®
DVD-Audio and
Super Audio CD (SACD
™
) media. Frequency responses to 50kHz, as well as
three-digit dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratios, have now become com-
monplace. In order to faithfully reproduce such robust sonic properties, the
loudspeaker needed to undergo drastic improvements to its transducer, network
and enclosure technologies.
The K2 S9800 employed a three-way design, incorporating an ultrahigh-
frequency (UHF) compression driver and horn to reproduce high frequencies
up to 50kHz. With the UHF driver handling the higher frequencies, the high-
frequency (HF) transducer could then be upgraded to a new design using a
3-inch (75mm) diaphragm for better reproduction of lower frequencies and
to blend better with the woofer than the older-generation 2-inch (50mm)
Autogoods “130”
130.com.ua