Recently I went on a 500 mile round trip journey to pick up a pair of bargain Ureis. They need a bit of work, but for the most part they are good, especially considering they only cost £400!
You can see that unfortunately the previous owner chopped one of the corners off...he built his studio before he knew he was getting these monitors, so had to do that to make them fit which is a real shame. He said he kept the corner but as it was 15 years ago he seems to have lost it. He said he never liked the way they sounded and for the most part he never really used them. He only bought them because a studio he used to work for was going bust and they begged him to take them away. I'm not surprised he didn't like the sound as you could see daylight through the joins...clearly whoever chopped it off didn't do a very good job. I've given them to a local cab builder and he said it shouldn't be too difficult to fix the corner and get them right again. I'll then repaint them, not sure whether I'll stick with Duratex black or maybe I'll paint the baffles the classic JBL blue.
The drivers are in pretty good shape considering. 2 of them need new foam which isn't surprising, but the seller thought they needed reconing, hence the cheap price. The other 2 have already had new foam. Whoever did it replaced the dustcaps, they did a good job but they aren't the correct JBL dustcaps, and also they used some kind of purple glue on one of them, which is a bit annoying as they wont ever look the same, but they work with no rubbing so thats the most important thing. The coax are minty, which isn't surprising since they should never really be moved around much. Only problem is my speaker parts guy has gone AWOL so I'm having trouble sourcing some foam in the UK as no one seems to stock it.
He also had 2 drivers to replace the ones with rotted foam, which I was excited about as the 2215J are rare to find, especially here in the UK. Unfortunately when I got there I found that they were 2225J, but he threw them in for free! So I'll sell them and make back half what it cost for the full lot.
The crossover is full of electrolytics so they will go, I'll try and get all film but I reckon it will end up being quite expensive.
Since I'm not going to soffit mount them I think it's best to pair them with a sub. A friend has a 2245 with foam rot he said I could have, so I think that would work nicely.
These are for professional use in a vintage themed recording studio. I didn't get them for the SPL, I got them for the clarity and punch that I know so well from the JBL of this era, as well as the imaging the Ureis are known for.
I will initially drive them with a BGW 250A but I have a large pile of Sonics (rebadged Bryston) amps waiting for some love, so will eventually run them on a 3 channel Bryston. I was thinking about the crossover for the sub, ideally I'd use a Bryston 10b but its pricey, so I may see if there's some PCBs available online for me to build a simple filter circuit. I also have some 4400 White Instruments graphic EQs and I seem to remember them having a socket for a crossover module, so I might be able to use them as main graphics with a sub output.
