In 1954, the Hartsfield was significant not in that it represented new technology, but rather a new level of the alltechnical manufacturing approach pioneered by James B. Lansing some twenty years before it. Like its Project series successors, it was a high efficiency system incorporating compression driver technology, one combining the qualities of high output, low distortion, exceptional stereo imaging and fatiguefree listening. Most important, it was the first consumer-available listening system to do so. In this respect, Project K2 S5500 is at once the most advanced and sophisticated loudspeaker in the world today and a speaker whose technology is deeply rooted in over 50 years of tradition. JBL's president in 1954, William Thomas, described the Hartsfield as ". the speaker system we have always wanted to build. the finest components ever made available to serious listeners. " 2 K2 manual v11 approved 12/4/01 12:10 PM Page 3 He went on to describe the process behind his creation: "Most people who own and appreciate fine sound reproduction equipment look forward to the day when they will be able to assemble a system without limitation in just exactly the way they think it should be done. Periodically a manufacturer gets this same feeling. The science of acoustics has provided us with basic principles-available to all for achieving precision reproduction. It is only a matter of incorporating these methods into a system design, and then taking every bit of trouble necessary to build a system precisely to the design. " "It isn't easy, but that's the way it is done. " The Ranger-Paragon, JBL's second Project system, was the first serious attempt at a reflecting speaker system, and broke ground in the new concept of stereo imaging. Essentially two independent full-range speaker systems installed in a handsome curved cabinet nearly 9 feet long, the Paragon's enclosure was treated as an extension of its transducers...