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View Full Version : It'a an old JBL ad, Believe it or Not!!



glen
04-12-2007, 12:02 AM
I liked this old ad from a May 1956 "Fortnight" magazine. It's a take-off on the old Ripley's "Believe it or Not!" cartoons used to inform readers about JBL's technical innovations of the time. (Although the "baffle" bit doesn't seem that big a selling point?)
A real 1965 vintage Ripley's cartoon follows the JBL ad.

this website talks a little about Ripley and his early cartoons
http://www.toonopedia.com/believit.htm
this is the current Ripley's website
http://www.ripleys.com/cartoons.php

Harvey Gerst
04-12-2007, 06:47 AM
The drawing of the guy working on the voice coil is indeed a pretty accurate drawing of Howard Wieser, the man who wound all the JBL voice coils, and who hand turned the wire onto its narrow edge.

BMWCCA
04-12-2007, 08:48 AM
Which always brings me back to considering a nagging question I've had as a D130 owner:
In what application does the D130A with copper VC have different (better) characteristics than the D130 with it's aluminum VC? If aluminum is lighter I can see how it would allow for a higher frequency response, but is the VC the only difference between the D130A and the D130 in terms of low-end response? Are the cones also different? It would seem, if the VC's are the main difference, that only in high-power situations would the heat-dissipation advantage of the copper come into play and given the efficiency of the D130 in general, at what power level would this become an issue? I've read many quotes from Harvey on the 'Net, mostly with respect to the nascence of the D130F, that discuss this VC difference, and I've owned an 001 system and always figured the folded horn provided the extended bass response, not the actual transducer, compared to an 030. What else makes a D130A so superior to a D130 when used in a two-way reflex system?

Thanks.

Zilch
04-12-2007, 01:53 PM
http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/Thiele%20Small%20Parameters/Theile%20Parameters.pdf

Steve Schell
04-12-2007, 04:23 PM
Glen, that's a great ad! Never saw it before.

Harvey, can you identify the men in the picture on this page from the 1950 (or perhaps 1951) catalog? Also, in the picture of the winding operation it looks like someone might be feeding ribbon wire onto a 4" mandrel by hand. What do you make of this? The edge winding processes I've witnessed involved a sliding collar, spring or pneumatically loaded to confine the wire as the coil is wound, and a motor operated feed. Of course, this has been much more recently than 1950.

http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/jbl/catalogs/1950/page3.jpg

glen
04-13-2007, 01:17 PM
. . . feeding ribbon wire onto a 4" mandrel by hand.


Here's a blowup from the 1967 catalog, and I think the upper right picture is hand-winding a voice coil. Although this, and the other picture, may be after the winding is done and preparing to take off the finished coil?

What IS clear is that JBL advertising liked to emphasize the care and quality of their craftsmanship by showing attentive handwork being done in their factory.

glen
04-13-2007, 01:45 PM
A photographic image of this was still being used in the 1971 home and pro catalogs.
But this may be some process other than winding? Soldering on the tinsel leads perhaps?

Harvey Gerst
04-13-2007, 03:07 PM
A photographic image of this was still being used in the 1971 home and pro catalogs.
But this may be some process other than winding? Soldering on the tinsel leads perhaps?That's Howard, attaching the coil to the paper former. The tinsel leads and cone assembly was done in George Martin's department.

Harvey Gerst
04-13-2007, 03:17 PM
Here's a blowup from the 1967 catalog, and I think the upper right picture is hand-winding a voice coil. Although this, and the other picture, may be after the winding is done and preparing to take off the finished coil?

What IS clear is that JBL advertising liked to emphasize the care and quality of their craftsmanship by showing attentive handwork being done in their factory.
Forget the gauge picture; I have no idea where that's from.

The upper left picture shows the spider being attached to the round coil former; you can see the braided leads already attached.

The upper right picture is Howard again doing a 4" mandrel of speaker coils, which he'll later separate (cut up) into individual coils.

The lower left picture is someone in the speaker assembly dept. gluing a surround onto a cone assembly.

And yeah, we did most of the assembly work by hand - even to the forming of the aluminum domes.

kingjames
04-13-2007, 03:27 PM
I love all those old JBL ad's,somewhat of a personal time machine.

macaroonie
04-13-2007, 05:30 PM
I am in great awe that one of the oiginal participants in what has become one of the great speaker manufacturers can still lend his knowledge and memory to this forum. We are in your debt sir.

Hoerninger
04-13-2007, 10:59 PM
I am in great awe that one of the oiginal participants in what has become one of the great speaker manufacturers can still lend his knowledge and memory to this forum. We are in your debt sir.
Yes, I do second. Thank you.
__________
Peter

glen
04-14-2007, 01:14 AM
As far as I can tell, this ad from May 1956 is the earliest appearance in ads or literature of a a JBL employee making a speaker. Photographs of the hand assembly of speakers became a mainstay of JBL catalogs over the next 20 - 30 years symbolizing the pride of craftmanship that went into their products.

Harvey Gerst
04-14-2007, 09:02 AM
I remember the gauge picture!!! In Howard's area, there was the machine that flattened the coil wire and coated it at the same time. I believe that gauge was used to monitor the thickness of the flattened wire.

Steve Schell
04-14-2007, 12:32 PM
Harvey, this is a page from the 1950 (or 1951) JBL catalog. Would the man in the foreground be Howard Wieser? Do you recognize the other man?
I am also curious about the picture of the winding jig. Do you know if they fed the ribbon wire by hand in the early days? Thank you for any insights.

Harvey Gerst
04-14-2007, 01:11 PM
Harvey, this is a page from the 1950 (or 1951) JBL catalog. Would the man in the foreground be Howard Wieser? Do you recognize the other man?
Nope, don't recognize either guy in that photo. Neither one looks like Howard. And that would be a different department anyway; where we magnetized the pots and assembled the baskets and frames.

I am also curious about the picture of the winding jig. Do you know if they fed the ribbon wire by hand in the early days? Thank you for any insights.
That's an antique piece. While I was there, the winding machine was motorized, but Howard still had to feed and turn the wire onto its narrow edge by hand. Every inch of voice coil wire for every JBL speaker went thru Howard Wieser's fingers. The coil bobbins were around 4" long and Howard would separate the coils, by eye, to their rough height.

The important points to remember are that the round wire had to be squashed to a very narrow flat ribbon with very critical tolerances, the wire coating had to be extremely consistent, and the drying conditions had to be exactly controlled. All the machines for flattening the wire, applying the shellac (or whatever it was), and the curing machines, were all built in house.

At Casitas, these were all in a small room (maybe 6' x 10'), with all the raw wire machines on the long back wall, and the coil winding machines opposite them, on the other long wall.

Steve Schell
04-14-2007, 01:36 PM
Harvey, your recollections are pure gold! Thank you.

Jim Lansing's children have recalled that in their father's work area in the barn on the farm in San Marcos, the voice coil wire traveled way up to the roof, around a pulley and back down to the winding jig. This was apparently to allow the insulation to dry after being applied.

From what I have seen in the JBL factory, the processes are still much the same as you have described except for feeding the wire through the fingers.

Harvey Gerst
04-14-2007, 01:55 PM
Harvey, your recollections are pure gold! Thank you.

Jim Lansing's children have recalled that in their father's work area in the barn on the farm in San Marcos, the voice coil wire traveled way up to the roof, around a pulley and back down to the winding jig. This was apparently to allow the insulation to dry after being applied.

From what I have seen in the JBL factory, the processes are still much the same as you have described except for feeding the wire through the fingers.
After the wire was flattened it went thru a wire coating bath tub, then up and down over some pulleys (pretty high up as I recall- not ceiling height, but maybe 6' to 8' high), and I believe that drying environment was heated as well. The flattened wire was then spooled for later use.