CAS,

I will tell you WHY "records" sound "better". The myth is all in the sauce, the sauce here is a rolled off upper range and reduced peaks, a softer more "natural" sound results. Yes it does sound "better" but it is not accurate.

Try listen to a drum live , it can strain your hearing. Now listen to a great DIGITAL uncompressed(as little as possible) recording, again it will be straining , now listen on the LP...ahhhh so musical ... 

It is like tubes,they round off and soften the Jell-O. Sound better no?

*UPDATE*

The dealer where I auditioned the JL called me today and said that after the factory rep came by, they discovered the set-up mic was messed up. Apparently the mic was only allowing 150hz and up to be played. Obviously this is why I was so disappointed in the lack of performance. I'll be going in next week to give it another listen hopefully returning with a much different opinion!

 TheEAR, you were exactly right about the newb dealer, even though this guy has been around enough to know better!

askbob1:

*UPDATE*

The dealer where I auditioned the JL called me today and said that after the factory rep came by, they discovered the set-up mic was messed up. Apparently the mic was only allowing 150hz and up to be played. Obviously this is why I was so disappointed in the lack of performance. I'll be going in next week to give it another listen hopefully returning with a much different opinion!

 TheEAR, you were exactly right about the newb dealer, even though this guy has been around enough to know better!

 

Truly awesome salesmanship --- The right way to approach this is to pack up the sub and  bring it to your house for an audition.   Otherwise it sounds like --- "hey we are totally incompetent sorry the demo was crap ---  we will give you another opportunity to lighten your wallet...stop by "

Plus in the final analysis an in store demo of a sub is useless...   

I'm just going in to see if it's worth my time to even bring it home. He did offer to bring it and the other sub I mentioned to my house. If the JL sounds like I anticipated it would, I'll be bringing it and the BG sub back for a listen.

It's been a week.  Any updates?

Ok, I must now eat my words... Well, most of them!

The JL was pretty impressive once, uh, cough,cough,  set up properly. It was atleast half as much more loud, and played low like I originally had anticipated. The BG still sounded smoother and more natural to me. Definitely more 'audiophile' sounding. It was a little less loud at high volumes, but clearly impressive for a 10" woofer. I never would have guessed it. Less boomy would be a nice description.

askbob1:

The dealer where I auditioned the JL called me today and said that after the factory rep came by, they discovered the set-up mic was messed up. Apparently the mic was only allowing 150hz and up to be played. Obviously this is why I was so disappointed in the lack of performance.

What does a microphone have to do with the subwoofer? If it was for Audyssey, then everything below 150Hz would have been boosted....resulting in too much bass. I guess I'm not understanding the problem...especially if you listened with Audyssey off (which should be the method used for all comparisons).

The calibration mic that comes with the JL is what I was referring to. The sub I listened to constantly moves from dealer to dealer, so it was probably messed up somewhere along its travels...

We found the same results when testing the JL sub here.

I disslike the "set my system up for me" softwear. Not much of it works very well, a lest not the ones I have used.