US speaker manufacturer JBL has created a high-end speaker with a uniquely different look, the 1400 Array.
Exploiting trickle-down technology first used in JBL’s ongoing high-end K2 ‘Project’ series, the 1400 Array weighs 52kg and stands just over a metre tall. Its most distinctive feature however is its ‘freestanding’ SonoGlass Bi-Radial horn tweeter, which is designed to sit as low as possible above the trapezoid bass cabinet to reduce the centre-to-centre distance between the bass and horn drivers for more accurate time and phase response.
The company claims this unusual alignment gives the 1400 Array the ‘speed and dynamics of a compression-driver system and the smoothness and imaging of the best direct-radiator and panel systems’.
The three-way speaker includes a 14in Aquaplas-treated pulp-cone low-frequency driver with rubber surround and massive ferrite motor assembly with 4in copper edge-wound voice coil.
The midrange is handled by a 3in Aquaplas-treated aluminium-dome mid/high-frequency compression driver that was first developed for the K2.S5800 ‘Project’ speaker. It’s driven by a neodymium motor and edge-wound voice coil of Kapton-encapsulated aluminium wire and mounted in a rigid, constant-directivity horn.
The super tweeter features a 1in pure-titanium ultra high frequency compression driver. Its edge-wound voice coil is attached directly to a 1in titanium diaphragm which is driven by a 2in neodymium motor assembly and claims to be capable of delivering uniform response up to 40kHz. The vertical SonoGlass constant directivity horn meanwhile maintains an optimum dispersion pattern of 60×30 degrees.
The JBL 1400 Array is available now for £8,500 a pair.