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View Full Version : New (to JBL) guy



jaymanaa
08-04-2006, 05:08 PM
Hello all, and thank you for allowing me to join in. At 45 years of age I recently acquired my first pair of JBL speakers, a beautiful pair of Dorian cabinets with LE14 woofers and some sort of substantial hi-frequency horn (I beleive to be called a potatoe masher in JBL circles). I must admit that what drew me to them in the thrift was the marble tops, and shear weight. I am from the old school of thought that heavier is usually better in all things audio. They seemed to be in excellent condition and had the familiar "old rich people" smell, however when I tried them I was somewhat disappointed in the bass reproduction. Well, to make a long story short, they received a very careful treatment of DOT 3 brake fluid to the surrounds over a period of a week. Wow! No problem in the bass department now, and I am very impressed with the speakers as a whole. I have only tried them on a highly modded Dyna 70 running KT90's, but plan to give them a listen on a SET EL34 hombrew making about 5watts per channel. I was curious as to the efficiency ratings of these and other JBL speakers. Oh BTW the Klipsch's are getting a well deserved restbit:D Thanks again for allowing me to post, Jay

speakerdave
08-04-2006, 05:46 PM
Hello all, and thank you for allowing me to join in. At 45 years of age I recently acquired my first pair of JBL speakers, a beautiful pair of Dorian cabinets with LE14 woofers and some sort of substantial hi-frequency horn (I beleive to be called a potatoe masher in JBL circles). I must admit that what drew me to them in the thrift was the marble tops, and shear weight. I am from the old school of thought that heavier is usually better in all things audio. They seemed to be in excellent condition and had the familiar "old rich people" smell, however when I tried them I was somewhat disappointed in the bass reproduction. Well, to make a long story short, they received a very careful treatment of DOT 3 brake fluid to the surrounds over a period of a week. Wow! No problem in the bass department now, and I am very impressed with the speakers as a whole. I have only tried them on a highly modded Dyna 70 running KT90's, but plan to give them a listen on a SET EL34 hombrew making about 5watts per channel. I was curious as to the efficiency ratings of these and other JBL speakers. Oh BTW the Klipsch's are getting a well deserved restbit:D Thanks again for allowing me to post, Jay

Wow! First post and you've already raised some of our favorite themes: found a bargain, did some rehab, offered up some diy, and shoved aside some Klipsch. We like all that.

David

johnaec
08-04-2006, 05:51 PM
Well, to make a long story short, they received a very careful treatment of DOT 3 brake fluid to the surrounds over a period of a week. Wow!'Guess I'm gonna' finally have to "brake" down and try that on the LE14A's in my S99's...

Welcome!

John

jaymanaa
08-04-2006, 06:17 PM
Thanks for the welcome. Hey, the same thrift has a pair of S99's. They looked a little rough, but maybe some TLC, and who knows. I must admit I was skeptical on the brake fluid thing, but didn't have a lot of dough for resto and they seemed awfully good except for the hard surrounds. I removed the x-overs for cleaning and testing, then layed the cabinets on their backs in a safe place. This made it easy to use a small model type paint brush to apply the fluid in the "dip" area of the surround. I let gravity and capillary action take it from there. I lightly coated this area twice a day for several days with some moderate play time in between to sort of work the surrounds. I don't know how long it will last, but they are VERY supple now. One thing that I notice about these woofers is the voice coil excursions are quite long. It actually scared me a little the first time I really cranked them. I jumped up to hit the volume but on the way noticed that they did not distort. After some careful listening and watching, I have come to the conclusion that these excursions must be normal. I have found these speakers to be truly amazing and fear I have been bitten by yet another audio bug:banghead: Oh well, maybe those S99's are still there:D Jay