Chris Hagen’s official job title is Principal Engineer for the JBL Luxury Audio Group, and he IS responsible for designing some of my favourite loudspeakers in recent years, such as the JBL L100 Classic (pictured on the following page) and 4309 monitors. Hagen first started working for JBL way back in 1988, his first job being to develop the L100 T3 speaker. And in a neatly poetic coincidence, one of his recent projects has been designing the reborn and hugely successful new L100 Classics.
In my recent visit to JBL’s speaker facilities in Northridge, California, I sat down with Hagen to talk about his life in audio, where his interest started and how it led him down a 35-year journey with JBL…
Ketan Bharadia: What made you interested in hi-fi in the first place?
As a young teenager I wanted to be able to play my music whenever I wanted to. I was on an allowance and didn’t have much, but I was able to afford a receiver and a turntable, and then
