Old stuff, New day

Howdy folks, great forum. Ive been out of the stereo thing for a while and am just getting back into it. I have a pair of LE15A's that need reconed and was wondering the best place to have this done. What is the power rating on these. I had a custom enclosure years ago and played them with an old Mac 2300. I still have the old rusty Mac and also a Phase Linear 700B. The tweeters that I used were the professional version of the 077 as I recall. They had the black prism's instead of the pretty clear ones. The tweeters are still fine.
Are these old woofers worth restoring or has new technology made them just a so-so woofer.
The reason that I quit building was that I came upon a set of Ohm Walsh 4 speakers and fell so in love that I had no desire to try to improve on perfection. But today is a different day.
Any help would be appreciated.

Vintage audio equipment is far superior to new stuff in acoustic property! With very few exception.
I've sold all my new stuff in favor of vintage..;)

I cant recommend a refoamer for you, but I can tell you it aint hard todo yourself!

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Originally Posted by billburgette

The tweeters are still fine.
Are these old woofers worth restoring or has new technology made them just a so-so woofer?

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They are a so-so woofer, but still serviceable.

We just had this discussion, actually:

http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/s...ighlight=LE15A

What did you use for midrange between the LE15A and 2405 tweeter?

http://www.jblproservice.com/service/index.html

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Originally Posted by alexkerhead

Vintage audio equipment is far superior to new stuff in acoustic property! With very few exception.

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I'm afraid I don't know what "acoustic property" is, but clearly, as reknowned authority regarding same, you feel the last 40 years of design engineering has been largely a fruitless endeavor?

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Originally Posted by alexkerhead

I've sold all my new stuff in favor of vintage..;)

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Always a good thing to divest oneself of "junk," yup.... :thmbsup:

As I remember, the cabinet was huge. It was designed from some JBL technical booklet thet came out around the late 60's. I'm wanting to say about three feet high, two feet wide and maybe 18 inches deep. It had two four inch ports but I forget the lenght. The midranges were an array of three drivers. I think the were a KEF 5". They sounded really sweet.
Will these LE 15a's handle any kind of power?
A long long time ago in a land far away I had these speakers rocking the house. A friend of mine had just bought a set of Bose 901's that he said could handle more power. We hooked them up on an A-B switch and put on dark side of the moon. The JBL's were turning dishes over in the china cabinet and when I switched to the 901's the just went tick,tick,tick. Little cones bottoming out. He made me switch back real fast.
Thanks for the reply

"Will these LE 15a's handle any kind of power?"

A few carefully chosen watts in the proper alignment, and it won't matter.

I put banana jacks into a cinder block once - it could handle a TON of power.

But it sounded like Shite.

I dream of one day building a nice two-way with vintage bits. If i could just stop selling off things before I took the time do do it, I might make it some day. Is it your intent to rebuild these? They'll handle all the clean power you need so long as you take care not to abuse them.

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Originally Posted by billburgette

Will these LE 15a's handle any kind of power?

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They will handle moderate power, and with the investment of ~$50 apiece to have them professionally refoamed, and the addition of vintage JBL compression driver midranges, you can build quite a nice system using them and your tweeters:

http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/s...246#post130246

I have Walsh 2XO's and love them , tho currently replaced by JBL 4410's. They are both wonderfull, just different ways of producing sound.

For you "know it all" guys, you should research the Walsh driver if you want to learn of something really different. It is a metal cone faced downwards and radiates from the center along the cone to the outer edges along the BACKSIDE of the cone. 360 dispersion. like dropping a rock in water. Has to have a wave block on the backside to prevent reflections off the rear walls.

traded emails with the company president. helpfull friendly guy.

main drawbacks of Ohm Walsh's are directional tweeters and they will do a thermal overload shutdown if pushed too long, too hard. recovers in about 1/2 hour. Ask me how I know .........

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Originally Posted by Zilch

I'm afraid I don't know what "acoustic property" is, but clearly, as reknowned authority regarding same, you feel the last 40 years of design engineering has been largely a fruitless endeavor?

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Yes..:dancin:
Just an amateur opinion..:D
If anything, it has gotten worse.

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Originally Posted by Zilch

Always a good thing to divest oneself of "junk," yup.... :thmbsup:

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Indeed