JBL is unfortunately one of the brands that people buy nowadays and think of as "good". Well already was a thing 8 years ago... Please do not buy JBL nowadays. Its crap made for being thrown away after a few years. Real speakers are repairable usually. The expensive ones we sold even had 70 year - lifetime warranty. Its true that old speakers often have really good sound though. A lot of it is mechanical which didn't change a lot in the last decades. Modern speakers have electronic shenanigans that might work, but doesn't provide a noticeable difference in my opinion. Except for noise canceling.

No argument. All the "modern" JBL soundbars were just as crappy as the rest of the "modern" soundbars.

I remember buying that soundbar (back at Fry's!) and all the soundbars were pretty much just as good (well, the Bose ones were garbage and overpriced, but let's not get started about that ...). They weren't audiophile quality, but they were good enough that an amateur like my wife really couldn't tell much difference.

What the hell happened that caused soundbars to go to shit?