Presented in public during the last Munich High End competition, the Summit Series is an elegant collection made up of three of the most evolved speakers for home applications ever produced by JBL. Developed in the legendary Center of Acoustic Excellence that the very veteran (in 2026 the 80th anniversary of its founding) American firm has in Northridge, California, each of the models that constitute it has been designed and manufactured to establish a reference in its respective category. The starting point of the Summit is found in the legendary Project Everest, launched on the market in 1985, and the subsequent Project K2, two extraordinary floor-standing loudspeaker systems that introduced the concept of emblematic technological showcases to exemplify JBL’s excellence in acoustic and electroacoustic engineering. Later variants of both versions provided improvements in sound performance along with new materials, finishes and designs significantly superior to those used previously.
Like the iconic mountains from which they took their name, Everest and K2 have always been absolute benchmarks for the most demanding music enthusiasts, with the Summit Series having been built on this solid foundation. This is a family of speakers whose names have been taken from many other charismatic peaks and which also aspire to become the number one in their class: the Summit Makalu 3-way bass-reflex columns (with a 305 mm woofer and a 203 mm “midwoofer”) and Summit Pumori (with a 254 mm woofer and a 203 mm “midwoofer”) and the bass-reflex monitor from 2-way for mounting on Summit Ama stands (with 203 mm midwoofer). All three are equipped with JBL’s exclusive D2 compression chamber tweeters (which combine a double Teonex diaphragm and two magnetic motors), mounted on Sonoglass HDI (“High Definition Imaging”) speakers patented by the Californian company, and with MultiCap audiophile grade crossover filters prepared for bi-wiring, whose mission is to ensure the perfect integration of the transducers used.
Among the technical refinements of the Summit’s completely state-of-the-art transducers, the “Differential Drive” structure of the woofers’ magnetic motor and the three-layer HC4 hybrid diaphragm present in them and in the “midwoofers” also shine with their own light. The JBL are completed with an enclosure made up of slightly curved panels with internal reinforcements and vibration-absorbing elements, and a finish in two luxurious glossy finishes, resting the two columns on insulating feet and the monitor on a dedicated floor stand, in all three cases custom-made in collaboration with the Canadian firm IsoAcoustics.
