L200 Project, continued

[roads31]

Hello all,

I thought i'd proble for some ideas. Awhile back I had a thread seeking advice as to which drivers to use for a pair of L200 cabinets I had aquired.
At the time I settled on 2226J's for the woofs and the LE85's melding together with a stock pair of LX5's. At the time I was using a Crown DC300A and a Conrad Johnson PV2. The 2226's responded well to that combo but hard to tame as the bass was too much. Needing to get away from the heavily bass contoured PV2, I am now using a vintage Mac solid state preamp and power amp. Liked it better but it then revealed the industrial sounding 2226. I swapped out the 2226's with a pair of LE15A's and love the outcome but everything not being totally revealed correctly due to the aged LX5's.

As a test, I wired in an N7000 and an 075 setting it on top and got a feel for what might be possible. I am now at the stage to where I want to build up a crossover to (1) use only the LE85 and LE15's or (2) add the 075's.

I have read several threads about crossovers and re-vamping L200's but they deal mostly with trying to make them into quasi L300's with an 077 and a longer horn for the LE85.
Anyone have experience with an LE15A, LE85 and 075 combo with a DIY crossover? I do not want to sacrifice the LX5's to get to the autoformer.

What say y'all?

Thanks

[hjames]

The reason for using the longer horn, as JBL did in the 4333 and the L300, is to allow a lower crossover point
between the horn mid and the woofer. In various models JBL has crossed at 500Hz, 800Hz or 1200Hz, tho some of the more senior members have said the 1200 Hz point is more reasonable for a better sound.

I wound up with a 2234 woofer in mine, with the 2405 slot added in. For the mids, it changed over time.
I did not want to modify and extend the back of my L200 cabinet to allow the long horn, even tho I obtained a pair of them. I tried a pair of the (grey) JBL 2397 Smith horns instead. I liked that change - tho some may not, and I later had a pair of custom walnut horns made for my mids. Later I went to the larger format horn drivers instead of the 242x drivers and like that change even more.

There is a 4333 equivalent schematic posted here ages ago by member 4313B and it works nicely as a 3 way crossover.

Hello all,

I thought i'd proble for some ideas. Awhile back I had a thread seeking advice as to which drivers to use for a pair of L200 cabinets I had aquired.
At the time I settled on 2226J's for the woofs and the LE85's melding together with a stock pair of LX5's. At the time I was using a Crown DC300A and a Conrad Johnson PV2. The 2226's responded well to that combo but hard to tame as the bass was too much. Needing to get away from the heavily bass contoured PV2, I am now using a vintage Mac solid state preamp and power amp. Liked it better but it then revealed the industrial sounding 2226. I swapped out the 2226's with a pair of LE15A's and love the outcome but everything not being totally revealed correctly due to the aged LX5's.

As a test, I wired in an N7000 and an 075 setting it on top and got a feel for what might be possible. I am now at the stage to where I want to build up a crossover to (1) use only the LE85 and LE15's or (2) add the 075's.

I have read several threads about crossovers and re-vamping L200's but they deal mostly with trying to make them into quasi L300's with an 077 and a longer horn for the LE85.
Anyone have experience with an LE15A, LE85 and 075 combo with a DIY crossover? I do not want to sacrifice the LX5's to get to the autoformer.

What say y'all?

Thanks

[roads31]

I've just read his thread on that topic and a couple others similar to it. The question I would pose would be the difference in driver compliments. I could possibly come up with an approximation based on the LX5 and N7000 schematics but crossovers are definately not my strong suit. I'm hoping someone has experimented with the same drivers I'm using and hearing how that went.

[hjames]

Thing is - in the long run, it may be easier to buy/sell/swap drivers to wind up with
a set of drivers that are known to work well together, than it is to expect to craft a
one of a kind combo that wasn't popular when those drivers were more common,
and is less likely to be easy to configure today.

What I learned from a lot of the threads here was to ask myself -
did JBL ever make a system that used that combination?
If not, while it may be indeed be workable, if they never built it,
its probably not the best combination you could come up with, or put money into.

[roads31]

I agree with the historical observation, just testing the waters to see if someone was sucessful with that combination. I know the LE15, 375 and 075 combo was used just didn't know about using the LE85 instead of the 375. If no one else chimes in with ideas in that direction, I'll just rebuild the LX's and be a happy guy.

[toddalin]

Here you go. I modified the L200B circuit and used this with my 130A/LE175-HL91/075 as well as 2235/2420-HL93/2405. What is not shown are the 0.01 mfd Theta by-pass caps that ride piggyback on the capacitors shown. When using the 075 I found that I had the pot set near the minimum so could not use much of its travel. At that point I added a voltage divider (a resistor in series and a resistor in parallel) to reduce the tweet's volume and allow full use of the pot. After putting in the 2405 (slot), I wished I hadn't and really should remove it as I run the tweeters "floored." The first circuit shown uses a slightly different Zobal network and will let the woofer sing a little higher. I made this change when going from the 130A to the 2235. The 130A still had a better transition to the mid than the 2235.

There are no propriatary parts (e.g., specialized chokes) used here and all parts are readily available from Parts Express.

[roads31]

Appreciate the info. Did you use these combinations and an L200 cab?
What does your experience or intuition with these circuits tell you about using an LE15A in the mix. I have never heard an 075 in use but have read a lot of criticism about them being harsh or hard to tame. As far as what I'll be driving them with I am pretty much settled on the solid state Mac gear, I have been through numerous tube combinations and sonically the Mac gear does better when you want to push a large volume of air which I like to do at times. I'm not opposed either to bi-amping.
Gary

[toddalin]

Appreciate the info. Did you use these combinations and an L200 cab?
What does your experience or intuition with these circuits tell you about using an LE15A in the mix. I have never heard an 075 in use but have read a lot of criticism about them being harsh or hard to tame. As far as what I'll be driving them with I am pretty much settled on the solid state Mac gear, I have been through numerous tube combinations and sonically the Mac gear does better when you want to push a large volume of air which I like to do at times. I'm not opposed either to bi-amping.
Gary

Yes, I use the L200 cabinets. I punched out the back for the long horn and raised, opened, and re-sealed the bottoms to get them up to a better level and add interior volume to the cabinets.

The LE15A should be fine, but this is an 800 Hz crossover so there may be a bit of a dip through this range. Still, it may be better to let the LE15 try to fill the dip up to 800 Hz as opposed to having the horn fill the dip down to 500 Hz. I would use the version shown with the smaller value cap and bigger resistor on the Zobal network as I used on the 2235.

The bullets are more harsh than the slots. But, for me the problem was that the bullets have a dip ~9kHz that takes detail out of the sound, especially the spoken word and cymbols. The slot is smoother throught this range and of course extends a bit higher.

[Mr. Widget]

What I learned from a lot of the threads here was to ask myself -
did JBL ever make a system that used that combination?
If not, while it may be indeed be workable, if they never built it,
its probably not the best combination you could come up with, or put money into.

I think this is some very good advice. I would try to find slot tweeters and seriously consider 2235s.



Widget

[roads31]

For the information and advice. Nice to have these kinds of "problems", isn't it? Your speakers turned out beatiful by the way.
I may start by building a fresh LX5 and see what they sound like, hell its just parts and time.
Thanks again,
Gary

[Wornears]

Although this question runs counter to hjames sage observation about not going where JBL didn't go before in speaker design/modification -- I have to ask in the interest of using some spare parts I have.

Has anyone considered using the 035Ti tweeter in place of the slot tweeter addition in a stock L200? Far less expensive, but is it workable?

There is a saying in stock car racing: "You can't turn a pig into a racehorse, but with enough money you can make a pig go damn fast."

Maybe using the 035Ti is an example of this?

[toddalin]

What I learned from a lot of the threads here was to ask myself -
did JBL ever make a system that used that combination?
If not, while it may be indeed be workable, if they never built it,
its probably not the best combination you could come up with, or put money into.

OTOH, JBL crossed the LE15 woofer over to the LE-85/HL-91 at 500 Hz. I think we all know that the HL-91 doesn't play that low and even the longer horn is "loosing it" below 800 Hz. But there it is! So, that argument carries little merit.

And I don't recall seeing any consumer JBLs come out with Smith horns or "salad bowls." But that's no reason not to use them.

[hjames]

OTOH, JBL crossed the LE15 woofer over to the LE-85/HL-91 at 500 Hz. I think we all know that the HL-91 doesn't play that low and even the longer horn is "loosing it" below 800 Hz. But there it is! So, that argument carries little merit.

And I don't recall seeing any consumer JBLs come out with Smith horns or "salad bowls." But that's no reason not to use them.

Dang, really seemed like perfectly straight-forward English to me ...
Maybe bolding would help with comprehension ...

If not, while it may be indeed be workable, if they never built it,
its probably not the best combination you could come up with, or put money into.

Also - please note: I NEVER mentioned JBL Pro or JBL Consumer, I just said JBL -
the rest was your baggage

In various models JBL has crossed at 500Hz, 800Hz or 1200Hz, tho some of the more senior members have said the 1200 Hz point is more reasonable for a better sound.

[roads31]

Kidding.

To end this thread I'd like to add my last observation about JBL. They were a company that put out X many different home and professional offerings, this based off of their component lineup which from a buisiness standpoint, makes sense. Brilliantly, like other companies of the time made it attractive for consumers to DIY with their drivers by publicating enclosure and driver info. When I started this thread I was hoping to hear about someone's experience with the LE15, LE85 and 075 combo. True, none of their crossover charts list these as options but I'm sure someone out there has (or had) successfully blended them together in some configuration and blissfully listened away to their concoction.

[toddalin]

Contrary to what was stated, this woofer/driver combination was used by JBL in the S27 system. The LX13 crossover used in that system is intended for use with the LE15A and the LE175/LE85 and crosses over at 800 Hz. And of course the 075 and 077 were popular additions in that era.

Enjoy knowing that there was a JBL using that combination.