Parts Availability and System Viabiilty

[daveschott]

Hello everyone - I'm new here but have been reading and following threads for quite some time, and not too long ago finally registered. I began a love affair with JBL almost 40 years ago with the purchase of a brand new pair of L65's.
Flash forward to the present, I am on a quest for another set of JBL speakers. This time I'd like to go 15 or 18 inch woofers.

There have been recent posts about scarcity of rebuild parts and JBL turning their back on support of vintage gear. Is the aftermarket providing quality replacement parts? Is there a trend starting where the older gear cannot be repaired properly?

Maybe I'm thinking too deeply on this. I'm on the fence if I should continue my 4345 quest, or just punt and write the check for something new like the 4365 or 4367. Or, maybe ears aged 60+ years should be relegated to earbud use!

I'd appreciate your thoughts on parts, repairs, and viability of vintage speakers.

Dave

[HCSGuy]

How long do you expect to keep the speakers you are considering? I would expect a new speaker to last at least 15yrs before things like foam and fabric degrade. I point this out because if you go with a new JBL speaker, I have no expectation that you can expect service parts to be available 15yrs or more from now; JBL will inform you that your speaker is obsolete and should be replaced. This is not a condemnation of JBL, btw, look at any speaker manufacturer; only a few high end ones like Thiel support their speakers out that far. Any speaker manufacturer that targets a large market cannot also stock parts for all of those speakers for decades. In the past, JBL was very unique in their ability to provide repair parts for 40yr old speakers. For this reason, I would instead focus on your vintage build - parts are out there, you just have to be patient and find them, and then maybe find spares. If you look at some of the 4345 build threads, you will see some people making parts substitutions for more available parts (2123 midbass instead of 2122, etc). If you're in a hurry, consider this until the right parts show up. Either way, I think builders of 4345's (Or any speaker that uses drivers shared with pro speakers that were build over several years) have far better long term parts availability than those that purchased DD66000's or any of the last generation speakers with small production run drivers.

The flip side of this is that the new speakers sound very different than the old ones, some (including me) would say in a very good way. I have owned and currently own way to many JBL speakers to make any claim towards sanity, and am trying to trim my collection down to a number that would actually be listenable. In this process, most of the vintage stuff is going, just because I don't enjoy listening to them. Try to listen to both and see what you prefer. If you prefer the detail and imaging of the new stuff, consider doing a M2 build with new parts, and buying a spare set of drivers - that should get you serviceability for your lifetime.

[Chris Brown]

I recall back in 2002 when I got my first JBLs, when my Uncle gave me his old set of L150 speakers. They needed to be re-foamed (a task that involved re-foaming the passive radiators also). They were already old speakers even back then, and (before I had knowledge of this site or otherwise) I had to go through a very similar debate in my head about if it would be worth it to repair them and realistically how much life I would be able to get out of them. Well fast forward 14 years, the speakers are still going strong, and I have no regrets. I don't baby my speakers either, quite the opposite. At this point I am very confident that I will still have all of my current JBLs (and probably many more) and that they will all still work 20, even 30+ years from now. Assuming I'm even still around that long. Absolute worst case scenario, if a speaker breaks, I can always part out the remaining pieces and likely get my money's worth out of them if not more. It's also a great excuse to collect several speakers that use at least some similar components ;)

[daveschott]

Thanks for the replies. I'm skeptical that JBL spec replacement parts will be available in 5-10 years, so after further reading and thought its looking like building an M2 clone or writing a substantial check for a 4365 or 4367 system are the best options. I located a 4345 clone system but I' not sure it has the pedigree to deserve the asking price. As a stopgap until I'm ready to pull the trigger, I'll just buy some bookshelf LSR series. Dave

[BMWCCA]

Thanks for the replies. I'm skeptical that JBL spec replacement parts will be available in 5-10 years, so after further reading and thought its looking like building an M2 clone or writing a substantial check for a 4365 or 4367 system are the best options. I located a 4345 clone system but I' not sure it has the pedigree to deserve the asking price. As a stopgap until I'm ready to pull the trigger, I'll just buy some bookshelf LSR series. Dave

I'm a very happy owner of a Kenrick-based 4345 clone. I'd encourage everyone to hear one before doing nearly anything else. If you have the room, you'll love it. If you don't have the room, just jam it in the living area anyway. The smile on your face every chance you get to enjoy your favorite music and hear things you never heard before will make it all worthwhile.

This is not saying you should run out and blow a lot of money on a bad clone project from a poor craftsman. Maybe I just got lucky, but I don't know anything for ten-times the money that satisfies me as much. Now when the DD67000 drops to $12,000 I may have to change my tune . . . or add another JBL to my collection!

[SEAWOLF97]

Thanks for the replies. I'm skeptical that JBL spec replacement parts will be available in 5-10 years

In a prior job I had to interface with NEC quite often. From them I found out that they had become aware that US regs. require a manufacturer to provide replacement parts for 7 years after a product's discontinuation. They had none.
Turns out that all those old Pentium laptops we were storing had value and I traded 150 of them back to NEC for new memory and harddrives for our current units. (and they got to be legal again :) )