150-4b se?

[Horn Fanatic]

Check this out. Has anyone ever heard of this speaker? I'll post the auction, because at the ridiculous price of $24,500 good ol'e Al will be sitting on them for quite a while, just like his other auctions that have languished for five years, and more, because he thinks his auction items are worth five times more than they really are. His explanation as to the origin and purpose of the speaker is conveniently nebulous. I've had it to the back teeth with these Ebay predators hoping to hook unsuspecting buyers. Like the guy who always posts minty pairs of Bubble Backs, year after year. Hal Cox was the first one to clue me in on Ebay counterfeiters.

"The only thing that I have heard of with a similar cone was a special speaker designed for the TODDI theater which was a model 520 or something like that in model number."

He must mean Mike Todd, of Todd-AO. As for the, "model 520 or something like that in model number"? He may be confusing it with the 5000 series AMPEX theater bass horns.

Frankly, I think they are counterfeits. There is a lot of that going around with the 150 drivers on Ebay. The shoddy cone stamp is usually a dead give away. The ink looks brand new. The nomenclature decals are in perfect shape, as if they were applied yesterday, but the Lansing decals didn't fare so well? And what happened to the bug screens?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/UnHeard-of-JBL-150-4B-SE-Possibly-ProtoType-Paragon-Hartsfield-C55-or-others-/381279781431?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item58c60bc237

In case the auction goes away;

http://view2health.com/jbl1504bse4.JPG

[Steve Schell]

Hi Horn Fanatic, thanks for documenting these strange things. I believe that they are real, not faked, and I have outed plenty of fake stuff in this forum. The way the labels have aged / yellowed looks natural to me. I was responsible for the comments about Mike Todd and his special Ampex- built speaker systems, though much was lost in the translation. I do know that special woofers were built for the Todd A-O installations of the mid 1950s, using similar cones though the stiffening ribs were on the rear of the cone. These also used a JBL 375 pot for the motor, no doubt with a larger voice coil gap to accommodate a woofer voice coil. Here is a link to page two (which contains pictures) of an old three page thread on these odd creations:

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?12400-Theatre-woofers/page2&highlight=ampex+woofer

The auction pieces appear to have been produced at JBL, in contrast to most of the Ampex pieces which were produced in an Ampex factory in North Hollywood under a royalty agreement with JBL. Several later JBL products, including the 2350 horn, were inherited designs from the 1950s Ampex collaboration. Perhaps the auction pieces were made to special order for someone. JBL produced many such special runs years ago; there is a fat book full of blueprints of such designs in the JBL archives.

Further thought: the "serial number" on the label translates to a production date of February 1952. The labels look authentic, though this would seem to be in the last days of the squared off pipe and plate motors, not the cast pot motors of the auction drivers. The earliest cast pot drivers I have seen previously were dated November 1952 as I recall, and had a rougher, darker, wrinkle finish. I guess the counterfeit theory is still in play!

[Steve Schell]

Correction: The "serial number" shown reflects a production date of December 1955. As per Glen's breaking of the code, "512160" breaks down as follows: "5" refers to 1955, "12" refers to the month of December, and "160" would be some sort of part number. D-130 numbers usually ended in "169." A date of December 1955 would fall in line with the similar woofers being produced about then by the Ampex factory in North Hollywood for the Todd systems. I wonder who did this development work with the pointed dust caps (previously seen on Rudy Bozak's Cinaudagraph drivers in the 1930s) and the stiffening rings?

[Horn Fanatic]

Correction: The "serial number" shown reflects a production date of December 1955. As per Glen's breaking of the code, "512160" breaks down as follows: "5" refers to 1955, "12" refers to the month of December, and "160" would be some sort of part number. D-130 numbers usually ended in "169." A date of December 1955 would fall in line with the similar woofers being produced about then by the Ampex factory in North Hollywood for the Todd systems. I wonder who did this development work with the pointed dust caps (previously seen on Rudy Bozak's Cinaudagraph drivers in the 1930s) and the stiffening rings?

Thanks for the intel and follow up, Steve.