This has been a fun FORUM project and attached are some pics of the recently completed monitors.
Last year I finished the restoration of a badly beaten pair of 4350B's. I veneered them in Rosewood and called them The Rosie Sisters. Some of you guys will remember. I had no expectations of keeping them but I wanted to restore them anyway. Soon after completion I sold them to a friend in Colorado. I then received an email from a forum member in Germany asking if they were for sale; stating that he would like to buy them if they were. I sadly wrote him back and told him they were 2-3 weeks down the road to a new owner. After a few weeks of email conversation it was decided that I would scratch build him a pair of Rosewood 4350B's exactly like the originals that I restored. This was the first time I had agreed to specifically build a pair of JBL's for someone else. Prior to this I had always built for myself and only sold them when necessary to move on to something new.
The prospect of building a Vintage matched and correct pair of 4350B's is a real challenge. Most of the components are available but the 2231H woofs are extremely hard to locate, especially a quad set. None the less I moved on and started building the cabinets and putting out feelers for the components.
I called this a great Forum project because almost everything about it is related to our LH Forum. Built for a forum member, one pair of 2231H's from a guy in Oregon who knows the forum well, one 2231H from me and one 2231H from a forum member in NY. Two 2231H's reconed by a forum member in Ohio, 2202H pair from NY via ebay, 2240 and 2311 pairs from a JBL nut in Milwaukee, 2405's from a forum member in NY, 3107's from Florida via ebay, veneer from Oakwood Veneer and blue grille cloth from a forum member in CA, grille badges and foil cal from a forum member in Japan and all put together in the right geometric shape by a forum member. Guys - I've always felt that there are tremendous resources within our group of forum members and this project shows that to be true. I could have built them regardless but the task may well have taken two years instead of one.
I'm crating the new Rosies now and hope to have them in the shipper's hands early this coming week and in their new home a week after that. I will get a chance to hear them again when I visit the new owner for a few days in January. I think I'll take along an LP that should be suitable for the occasion - E. Power Biggs Plays Bach in the Thomas Kirche (I recall that the Thomas Kirche was Bach's Church in Leipzig). I'm not a big organ fan but I heard quite a few big pairs of JBL's demoed using this LP back in the mid 70's so I bought a copy. We should be able to shake some German windows loose from their mountings and let everyone in the neighborhood know that JBL is king.
Rick
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Originally Posted by cvengr
