Bad experience with aftermarket kits?

[dkalsi]

Deleted!

[Loren42]

All,

I wanted to find out whether anyone has had bad experience with aftermarket recone kits. I had a pair of JBL 2245H reconed for me at an authorized JBL service center this past September and it cost me approximately $500 for the pair. I did this based on the recommendations here as well as the general desire to support JBL.

However, I have a core 2245H for which I have no use and wanted to try to recone it myself just for the sake of learning how to recone. I was thinking of purchasing an aftermarket kit (for the sake of learning) - however, I am a little weary as I want to make sure that the reconed woofer performs to spec.

So, has anyone here had a bad experience using aftermarket recone kits. This is going to be for home use (if ever) and not pro-use (--I understand this should not be a factor when considering the source of recone kit).

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I find it hard to believe that a recone kit would be that difficult to manufacture by any after market producers. What part of the cone assembly would be THAT difficult to manufacture correctly? - am I just being naive?

Buy a Woofer Tester 2. This way you can test the T/S parameters of the ones you had reconed and compare to the generic cone's response.

The OEM parts probably are of higher quality, such as voice coil, etc. However, it sounds like a good way to learn. The WT2 will tell you if you got it right.

[jerv]

All,

...

So, has anyone here had a bad experience using aftermarket recone kits. This is going to be for home use (if ever) and not pro-use (--I understand this should not be a factor when considering the source of recone kit).

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I find it hard to believe that a recone kit would be that difficult to manufacture by any after market producers. What part of the cone assembly would be THAT difficult to manufacture correctly? - am I just being naive? Currently a JBL recone kit for 2245H cost $270 (base on the PDF provided on the website). A recone kit for Legacy Sound Service cost $80. - a price difference of $190 begs the question.

I had two blown 2204H's that needed reconing. Here in Norway, the authorized JBL service center quoted NOK 3420 pr. unit - that's about $545.

So I decided to try aftermarked cones, and do the recone job myself. I bought kits here: http://reconekits.com/jbl2204reconekit.aspx for $62/piece - plus air freight and customs, the difference is still about $420: to me, it seemed well worth a try.

The kits arrived - quality looking very good. Re and Le measured somewhat higher then an original cone (though not by much), Mms was about the same. My first reconejob went very smooth. Actually, it was quite easy.

But the newly reconed units measures very different compared to the original ones when it comes to frequency response, and the sensitivity is quite a bit lower.

IMO this is not good enough. My 2204's are still worthless. This is the last time I'll try aftermarket cones.

[scott fitlin]

Inexpensive aftermarket recone kits will NOT work, sound or hold up nearly as well as the real thing. For one thing, JBL VC uses edgewound ribbon wire, many aftermarket kits use round wire. It is cheaper, but results in a lower sensitivity because you don't have as many turns of wire on the VC bobbin.

NON JBL recone kits have cones that are probably not made of the same materials as the JBL cone, and THIS will sound different. More than likely, not as good.

RELIABILITY and DURABILITY! A friend of mine used a NON JBL recone kit for a JBL 2242, and not only did it sound inferior to the JBL kit, during use, over the course of the first weekend in use, the cone split down the middle, literally cracked in half.

If one has TOTL JBL components, and something needs to be repaired, USE JBL and BE HAPPY and it will last as well as sound good. For home use, it is just as critical as pro, maybe more so. In quiet home situations, one will hear inferior sound quality, IMMEDIATELY!

[boputnam]

What part of the cone assembly would be THAT difficult to manufacture correctly? - am I just being naive? :yes:

It would be a good exercise for you just to compare them, side-by-side - examine their physical characteristics. If you have the gumption, to do this, post some pics - I expect this will add to the experiences, above.

[dkalsi]

Deleted

[Earl K]

As mentioned before - I want to do this just for the sake of learning how to recone. At the same time - I don't want to end up with a useless driver.

I can understand the desire of wanting to learn how to recone ( somewhat ) .

Just be aware, that when using aftermarket kits, the odds are such that you will end up with a fairly useless driver .
The problem here is that you're not educated enough to realize that .
The other problem IMO is that you primarily want an education in how to save money not how to recognize the difference between good & bad drivers.

So, at the very least, ask the kit seller the following questions ( if you want to attempt to match JBLs' specs ) :



(i) How deep is the winding of the voice-coil ?
(ii) How many layers is the voice-coil winding ?
(iii) Is the voice-coil wound with round-wire or is it edge-wound ?
(iv) What is the Re value of this voice-coil ?
(v) What "BL" product should one expect from this voice-coil ?
(vi) What is the "MMS" value of the cone assembly ?
If the recone seller can't answer any of these questions with any accuracy ( apart from parroting " it's up to oem / JBL spec " ) then look elsewhere for a kit .

<> cheers

[dkalsi]

Deleted

[brad347]

wow. Tough room!

[Earl K]

snip ,,,,,

I hope to drop the 2245H (w/ aftermarket kit) into the JBL 4345s I'm building to see if I can hear the difference.

(I really hope i'm not offending anyone by trying this)

Thanks for posting those monikers .

An inabilty to hear a difference between stock oem and an aftermarket kit isn't a very useful test of a kits worth .

OTOH, having complete TS measurements can go a long way to obtaining an accurate picture of a woofers performance .

WT2 allows one to measure the TS parameters of woofers .
http://www.woofertester.com/images/wt2_disc_white.gif (http://www.woofertester.com/wt2product.htm)



Consider buying Smith & Larsons WT2 as an important first step .
I figure it takes about a $500.00 investment to get a grip on these things .
That $ 500.00 investment includes WT2, a USB soundcard with a mic preamp that has phantom power, a calibrated mic , mic cable & stand, and some free impulse testing software .
<> cheers

ps ; No, I'm not offended . I'm striving to make you ( & others ) aware of some of the consequences that you will encounter in choosing the path that you've mentioned you might follow .

[4313B]

I would expect genuine JBL recone kits to take a massive dump in price once JBL moves all production from Northridge (where people were paid a real wage, including benefits) to Harman's factory in Mexico which has significantly lower overhead...

[dkalsi]

To keep things simple - I'll stick to the original JBL recone kits and just have them done by a professional :).

It would be nice to see the prices go down a bit though (<-- if it was possible to do so without losing jobs domestically).

[HCSGuy]

Sorry dkalsi, that the thread turned on you, and I like your idea. There is always the quandry that an empty frame is worth $75, an OEM recone may cost $270, but put the two together and you have a used driver that will sell on ebay for less than the cost of the recone - not the greatest investment. Sometimes you'd be better off selling the frame and buying a used driver, except that you don't know it's quality...

Here is my opinion: An aftermarket kit cannot be a substitute for OEM unless it is made from all the same parts and measures the same - as JBL used to wind all their own coils, this is not likely. In the future, it may become a possibility. For that reason, if you are reconing a driver for an existing speaker, I don't see aftermarket as a good option. Yes, you could rework the crossover to compensate somewhat, but that hassle negates the cost savings. So if the sound quality is going to be different, is it noticeable? The difference will be more noticeable in some drivers than others - something like a 2121 midrange will be much more critical than a 2245 used for a subwoofer (unless the aftermarket kit is so off it messes up your alignment).

However, if you are doing a DIY design, you could design the enclosure and crossover around the aftermarket kitted driver. This might be appropriate for a driver like a 2226 that aren't collectible, so you're not really destroying much value. Also, if you are doing a DIY design, you could like the aftermarket sound better; implied in a DIY project is that you are designing for your listening pleasure, so a difference in measurement may be offset by the increase in your perceived sound quality - all speakers have imperfect frequency response, who's to say your imperfect is better or worse than the factory's? If it's DIY, you're the judge. Also, in the case of compression drivers, there are different designs that may improve on factory in some ways (see the Truextent diaphragm discussion).

In summary, I would stay OEM unless you're ready to redesign the speaker. My personal strategy situations like these is to buy a clean used driver and swap them until a NOS recone kit shows up on Ebay for $125 - I realize this take alot of patience, which is why I buy the used driver - you can turn around and sell it again in a few years if needed or if you get desperate and buy the OEM kit.

Hope this helps!

[brad347]

It would be nice to see the prices go down a bit though (<-- if it was possible to do so without losing jobs domestically).

On the one hand that would be nice! On the other, I'm not overly excited by the prospect of a drop in price since a basic tenet of economics is that there's no such thing as a "free lunch." Those inexpensive recone kits would come with hidden costs.

Even if the quality remains high, I kinda wish they weren't moving production out of the country.

Likely, however, it's just what they've determined they have to do to remain competitive.

It is a part of our culture that most of us would rather eat cows that are diseased, pumped full of antibiotics, fed genetically modified corn and parts of other animals, and getting eaten alive by flies while sitting with broken legs in their own excrement--than to pay the ACTUAL price of a steak, which SHOULD be very expensive.

So if we accept that, then a company like JBL, who used to make expensive speakers and components of the highest quality for those who demanded the best--would probably not be long for this world if continuing to operate under that model without reducing the size of their company dramatically to cater only to a very small consumer base.

HOWEVER, there is evidence things are changing. Some segments of the "born 1970 and later" and certainly the "born 1980 and later" generations are, in small part anyway, starting to recognize that there is an element of "value" besides just a low dollar amount.

If you pay a cheap price for something that's so low-quality as to be virtually worthless, it's not a "good value."

So back on the recone kits-- I think you're making the right move. It's only a "good value" if it's worth something.

Based on what we currently know, that would be a roll of the dice in this situation, at best.

I'd have no problem using an aftermarket kit if it was TRULY the same. Competition is good. However, a big part of what makes JBL drivers what they are lies in the voice coil--and there's a lot that's unique and proprietary about that voice coil. Lose that, and you lose the 'heart' of a JBL speaker. Too big a risk!

[4313B]

It would be nice to see the prices go down a bit though (<-- if it was possible to do so without losing jobs domestically).I was being sarcastic ;) If these people are perfectly willing to screw over their fellow countrymen they certainly aren't going to pass any cost saving on to their customers...

[HCSGuy]

The kits will cost what the market will bear. If the market decides that kits built in Mexico aren't worth the $270 or whatever US built kits cost, the market will buy less of them. At that point, Harman will notice that their net profit on parts has dropped by 25% or whatever, and promptly raise the price another 25% to make up for it, making it a $340 recone :)

It's simple economics - economics done by people who are too simple to understand the big picture (JBL is a legacy brand, if you kill the legacy, you kill the brand).

Sorry to interject my opinion, I'll shut up now.

[Earl K]

edited ( by me )

<> cheers

[boputnam]

wow. Tough room!
I thought he got some very clear, good answers. "Don't make this mistake (for the following reasons...)." It's physics.

:dont-know:

[scott fitlin]

wow. Tough room!Yes it is, and yes we are! BUT sometimes we have to be that way, for our own preservation. If one of us is a sound professional or a dedicated TOP SHELF consumer with discerning taste allowing misnomers and untruths to go unchecked will result in people spending their money on products that do not work properly, AND also people that receive the wrong information and become misinformed. To be part and party to allowing untruths is NOT the correct policy for our forum.

We do not mean to be nasty, nor are we elitists, but, we go through the same things over and over, and Earl, like myself, has been on this forum for a LONG TIME! Some of us, myself included, can be VERY blunt with our answers at times. We take our audio quite seriously, and those of us that do, and have been doing this for years, are able to achieve OUTSTANDING sonic results with our knowledge and our systems. Earl is one of the EXTREMELY knowledgeable people on this forum, as is Bo Putnam. Hey, no disrespect, but we REALLY do answer questions with our full and complete candor and honesty.

On aftermarket parts, I bought some Radian replacement aluminum diaphragms made specifically as replacements for the JBL 2441. And Radian is a GOOD company, and some consider the Radian replacement part to be a better sounding part than the JBL part. Well, I used them, and DID NOT think it was as good as a JBL diaphragm. And promptly returned to using JBL parts. So, answers you get are based on our user experiences, as well as CONFIRMED experiences we hear from OUR friends and people that work with sound products in the field.

However, if one takes the time to search this forum, and find posts from users who received information at Lansing Heritage, and followed suit, it becomes easy to see how people have created stellar sounding systems, beyond their expectations!

:)

[scott fitlin]

I thought he got some very clear, good answers. "Don't make this mistake (for the following reasons...)." It's physics.

:dont-know:It's economics, too! To me, it costs more to repair something twice, than once! :banghead:

[Tim Rinkerman]

"I would expect genuine JBL recone kits to take a massive dump in price once JBL moves all production from Northridge (where people were paid a real wage, including benefits) to Harman's factory in Mexico which has significantly lower overhead..."
If you think a corporation would pass along a saving in production cost to the consumer...................I can't even come up with a worthy response to describe how unrealistic that sounds......:crying:

[dkalsi]

All,

Thank you for responding and sharing your thoughts on aftermarket kits. I've decided to stick to original JBL recone parts.

Thanks,
D

[SMKSoundPro]

By Jove,
I think he's got it!!!


JBL OEM or nothing. Its that simple. The aftermarket world is a terrifying place without ALL of the facts.

Scotty.

[brad347]

I think the OP came to the correct conclusion, as well, and I also think original JBL parts are the only way to go.

However, I DO think his question was a fair one, particularly in light of the unknown future of OEM JBL legacy parts with domestic production ceasing.

Seems he was just asking for the experiences of others to determine if dipping a toe in the aftermarket waters would be a complete waste of time (it would). But a fair question nonetheless!

[scott fitlin]

I think the OP came to the correct conclusion, as well, and I also think original JBL parts are the only way to go.

However, I DO think his question was a fair one, particularly in light of the unknown future of OEM JBL legacy parts with domestic production ceasing.

Seems he was just asking for the experiences of others to determine if dipping a toe in the aftermarket waters would be a complete waste of time (it would). But a fair question nonetheless!Yes Brad it is a fair question. I learned the answer to this one too many years ago, though. Back when, I went to have a woofer reconed, and the service center offered my dad an alternative, and less expensive recone kit as an option. Pop said Hey Scotty, lets try it! So, begrudgingly, I agreed to let him have his way, LOL. I mean I was 16 at the time, and dad is the owner of the business, and I kind of HAD to agree with him or else! It was an Altec 421-8LF woofer, and we tried a Waldom recone kit, it was for the 421, too.

Well, the recone blew in a 2 day period. The VC was rubbing, because it didn't fit inside the gap exactly as the REAL Altec parts did, and it shorted and burned. Now, for the short period of time I did listen to it, it sounded dead compared to the real Altec 421-8LF! And I know this because there were 11 other Altec 421-8LF woofers operating in the system too. The service repair center replaced the cone kit with a genuine Altec kit, and we only had to pay the difference between the Waldom kit and the Altec kit.

Dad didn't bother me after that about finding less costly alternative solutions. :D

[tomee]

I think it was an excellent question. I've seen many woofers on ebay as well as advertised locally as 'reconed' or 'fresh rebuild' and the sellers don't say they used JBL. Several even use the words 'JBL spec recones' which means what? - not JBL? yes JBL? installed by who? And then there's the ones that don't even say they were reconed but a carefull look at the pictures reveals funny looking dustcaps etc.... so you have no idea what you're getting.

Now, there should be no reason that a good aftermarket kit couldn't be made that matches or even exceeds the JBL quality but it's very possible that it will cost about as much as the real thing (and hence un-sellable). As well, now that JBL has gone to Mexico with production, the aftermarket kits will have to be made someplace even cheaper in order to compete (if JBL lowers prices...) - a real race-to-the-bottom!