7.1 Vintage JBL Surround Sound (4412 and 4312c)

[aardvarcus]

I have been a long time lurker on here and a bit of a JBL collector. Stated out as a pipe dream umpteen years ago, but I finally assembled my basement home theater using vintage JBL speakers. Though you guys might enjoy.


It is workable right now, obviously you can see from the photos it is not yet 100% finished, but I keep plugging away at it. It has been a blast to watch movies down there. Yes the seats are re purposed car seats and the "subs" are Atec Valencias (but I am going to swap them out and move the Altecs upstairs).

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[Chris Brown]

Have you had mostly good experiences mixing the 44xx and 43xx speakers in your home theater? Just asking because for the most part 44xx JBLs are designed to actually be neutral, whereas 43xx JBLs are designed to have the classic JBL sound (an evolution of the sound from the very old Altec 604e, and the sound most associate with the L100).

[Titanium Dome]

That car seat innovation is killing me! (In a good way, I think.) How are they stabilized?

[Mr. Widget]

I like it...

I’d consider carpet and some wall based absorption and diffusion.
Proper subs will be a good add too, but all in due time. Keep us posted!


Widget

[hjames]

Looks like a great project - having a room like that is a real plus!
But having matched speakers makes all the difference!

[gferrell]

Very cool, older 3 and 4 way JBL's make excellent home theater speakers.

[Triumph Don]

What a cool set up! I have a pair of 4412's walnut in my "test" area, refoamed the 128's just a great 12" 3 way JBL. What do you use for power?

[aardvarcus]

Everyone,
Thanks for the encouragement, as you can imagine I have gotten mixed reviews on other sites.

Chris,

That was one of my concerns, based on prior attempts to mix less similar JBLs (i.e. L100, 4311b, and 4312a) in a 7.1 which sounded terrible. It has been working well mixing the 4412 and 4312c, mainly because they use the same tweeter and because the 4312c are only being used for the surround sound speakers. I can’t tell a difference, and most people would consider me picky in this regard.


Titanium Dome,
Yeah the car seats were important because they are narrower than other seating (21” wide per person) and let me go more people wide (3 or 4) in a 12’-6” room with 1’ deep surround sound sound speakers. I removed the factory hardware and bolted on two pieces of plywood (1 per side) using the factory bolt holes. Then I put furniture glides on the bottom.


Mr. Widget,
Thanks. Yes, acoustic treatment is on the list of things to do. I have OC 703 batts, fabric, and plywood all ready to go, just waiting on me to get time to work on it. Also planning on some diffusers as well as some thick rugs in the early reflection points up front. The walls were based on some room mode calculations I ran myself as the room length was too long to use a standard set.

Triumph Don,
I am using an OPPO 105 for the source with 7.1 preouts to feed a McIntosh MHT100, using only the preamp and power amp stages. Basically I am using it as a 8 channel 100W per channel amplifier and am not using any of the decoders or other functionality of the MHT100.

[Ed Kreamer]

Great room!

I really like the industrial/minimalist look. What are you using for screen material? I'd like to do something like this myself as a theater/ listening room.

Oh and Merry Christmas to everyone here!

Ed

[aardvarcus]

Everyone,
I would like some suggestions for good sub woofers to go along with my system. Guidelines are the best “bang for the buck” but definitely keeping it under $1k per sub. I would prefer to have at least two subs, placed in the back facing forward.
My list of subwoofers I have seen so far that appear to meet my performance expectations and budget is as follows:

Used JBL Synthesis Two Subwoofers (15” Driver)
New/Used JBL Professional/Cinema Subwoofers (e.g. 4645 or 4641) (18” Driver)

Used JBL L200s (15” Driver) using only the woofer

I am looking for opinions on these and any other options.




Ed Kreamer,

Thanks. The screen is spandex which if you do some reading is some of the best acoustically transparent material available both visually and acoustically. There are DIY acoustically transparent screen guides you can find by searching google, I basically followed those. It is a 120" screen with a layer of white over a layer of black on a plywood frame.

[grumpy]

opinion: dual synthesis-two 15"

If nothing else, you'll have more placement options... key to getting subwoofers to work well.
... and that driver is pretty robust re home theater use.

[Mr. Widget]

opinion: dual synthesis-two 15"

If nothing else, you'll have more placement options... key to getting subwoofers to work well.
... and that driver is pretty robust re home theater use.A pair of S2S-EX subs, you bet! A pair of S2S subs? Not so much.


Widget

[grumpy]

Lol, well at a few thousand per sub vs a few hundred I’d say there’s room for a range of budgets and requirements :) (true... the non-EX version is more like a 30Hz “sub”, but can certainly augment impact)

[Mr. Widget]

Lol, well at a few thousand per sub vs a few hundred I’d say there’s room for a range of budgets and requirements :) (true... the non-EX version is more like a 30Hz “sub”, but can certainly augment impact)Well... there’s that. :banghead:
I’d go with 2235H woofers over those Synthesis “subs”.


Widget

[aardvarcus]

Well, a pair of JBL 4645B's followed me home yesterday, so I guess that answers my sub woofer question.

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Just need to now get them carried to the basement and hooked up into the system. Also probably good that I have ordered decently sealing doors to help contain the bass.

[Mr. Widget]

Well, a pair of JBL 4645B's followed me home yesterday, so I guess that answers my sub woofer question. That’ll do it.

Congratulations!


Widget

[aardvarcus]

Long time, no update. I got the three doors installed, not ideal but they will do for now. I have been enjoying the theater, the current biggest problem with the audio quality being the lack of acoustical treatments. (Also it sometimes serves as a catch all for items which don't belong in there...)

To help address the acoustics of the room, I have been making wood framed cloth wrapped fiberglass sound absorbers which I still need to finish. I did however manage to finish a small skyline-style PRD out of douglas fir 4x4 scraps I had leftover from a project. It is almost 24" deep to scatter the bass frequencies down around 150Hz.

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I plan to build some more acoustic treatments out of leftover wood scraps from various projects.

I also set up a basic two channel system with L100T speakers driven by a MAC1900 receiver, for when I don't feel like powering on the 7.1 system.

[aardvarcus]

Here are some older photos, just before the doors were installed. These show the new amp and blueray player stand (solid chunk of douglas fir, 12x24x48), the new speaker wire routing system (insulators on the wall), and the new subwoofers installed. Also this was back when the room was still clean. ;)

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