If you were of age in the 1980s, you might remember some of the advertising of the era. It was the last decade before the Internet age; a time where the primary media was print and TV, and a time that Facebook, YouTube, and online banner ads that tracked your every online move didn’t exist. Who could forget the famous Orwellian TV spot in the 1984 Super Bowl that introduced the Apple Macintosh?

There was another memorable ad that captured the imagination then. It was an ad for Maxell cassette tapes. Maxell made some of the highest quality tape at the time, and it was prized by audio enthusiasts as a quality way to make the vinyl music of the day portable. The ad captured the excitement of music listening, with a period-hip fellow getting “blown away” by the high-fidelity sound of Maxell tape.

If you’ve read this far, you may be wondering why we are talking about cassette tape; something replaced long ago by everything digital. You see, the speaker pictured in that ad was the JBL L100. A hugely popular speaker in the 1970s and 1980s, to this day it remains the best-selling speaker in JBL’s long history. Its unique foam square design grill made it instantly recognizable, and it was known as a great speaker for rocking out. Maybe one of your friends had a pair, and if that was the case, it likely evokes fond musical memories of your youth.

But you don’t have to live on memories, and if you are too young to remember the original L100, you’re still in luck.

JBL has decided to bring the L100 back, aptly naming it the L100 Classic. The new model hews true to the original iconic design both in form and function, but it has been resurrected as a product of JBL Synthesis, which is the high end of JBL and part of parent company’s Harman Luxury Audio group. That means it’s not just the great party and rock and roll speaker which may have blown you away in the 1980s – it is a serious speaker worthy of the HiFi stereo system in your favorite Alpharetta or Metro Atlanta listening room.

Best of all, Georgia Home Theater’s Marietta experience center is currently the only showroom in the Atlanta area where you can see and hear the new JBL L100 Classic. Do you need any more reasons to visit us? Learn more about the JBL L100 Classic below.

At Georgia Home Theater, we like to associate ourselves with quality brands. When it comes to audio, we have a preference for companies, products, and brands that have been synonymous with quality for a long time. Those brands include Bowers & Wilkins, McIntosh, Klipsch, Rotel and Paradigm, to name a few. Each of those companies has a commitment to offering the best audio performance possible for each of the products they offer, whether that product is aimed at the high or low end of the market.

Recently, we have been proud to add another well-known name with a reputation for quality to our offerings: Martin Logan. Martin Logan is yet another American Hi-Fi company (like McIntosh and Klipsch), founded in the unlikely location of Lawrence, Kansas, by Gayle Martin Sanders and Ron Logan Sutherland. Sutherland was an electrical engineer, and they both had a fascination with electrostatic speakers. What are electrostatic speakers? They are quite different from conventional speaker drivers that use electromagnets and current to move air. Electrostatic speakers vibrate air using thin conducive panels suspended between stationary panels. They are also known as dipole speakers, as they radiate sound all around from these panels as opposed to more directional sound from conventional speaker drivers.

When Martin Logan began, most electrostatic designs were relative failures. They were hard to drive with most amplifiers, and they were weak in bass reproduction. They did, however, offer an airy, enveloping sound that could reproduce genres like classical music in a more natural way than conventional speakers.

To make a long story short, suffice it to say that Martin Logan has applied years of engineering work in electronics and material science to perfect the electrostatic speaker. Today they are the foremost purveyor of electrostatic speakers, to the delight of audio enthusiasts who know that their sound is like no other, offering the kind of soundstage you hear at a live performance.

Georgia Home Theater is pleased to bring the transparent high fidelity sound of Martin Logan to your HiFi stereo system at your home in the Roswell area. Read on to learn more about three Martin Logan speaker models that can transform yourlistening room.

Some products stand the test of time. Their design transcends the fads, and the company pedigree assures a level of performance that lives up to the brand. In cars, the Porsche 911 is one such product. In continuous production since 1963, its design has evolved with the times, and its performance continues to push the limits, but it has stayed true to its purpose. The Herman Miller Aeron chair is another modern example of iconic design, often imitated but never duplicated.

In home audio, several brands have also withstood the test of time. But few have hewn as closely to their purpose and heritage as McIntosh audio. In 2019, the company celebrates its 70^th anniversary of offering superlative audio products. Like the Aeron chair and the Porsche 911, McIntosh has its own classic design flourish – the blue-lit analog power meters and traditional metal trimmed knobs on a massive black faceplate. Just like those other classic products, older generations of McIntosh audio products are still prized by fans of vintage audio; they were designed to last for decades.

What makes McIntosh special? It has always been a commitment to ultimate performance and quality. The company may be best known for its amplifiers, and that was the starting point, as well as the genesis of those iconic blue power meters. In the 1960s, McIntosh amplifiers helped power the massive Woodstock concert, which was conveniently in the company's backyard in upper New York State. The 1970s saw the rise of HiFi audio, and the company broadened its line into tuners and speakers. If you walked into a HiFi shop then, you knew that McIntosh was top-of-the-line gear.

The 1980s saw the rise of digital audio with the advent of the CD, and McIntosh introduced its first CD player as well as expanding further into loudspeakers. The 1990s brought home theater and architectural speakers into popularity, and McIntosh was there with new multichannel amplifiers and in-wall transducers. The decade also saw McIntosh move into automotive audio, and a McIntosh system was produced for another iconic automobile, Ford's 2003 remake of the Lemans-winning Ford GT.

Currently, McIntosh continues to evolve with the times and has embraced two of the major technology drivers of the audio market: Digital music and wireless. For a taste on the current range of McIntosh audio offerings for your Atlanta home audio systems, you may be surprised at the breadth.

Just keep reading to find out more.