JBL L222 Disco's + L220 Oracle's

[Steve Gonzales]

Here are my newly restored pairs of L222's& L220's. I have done something special to these speakers; I replaced the LE5-9's with the Summit's LE85/H92 combination. As you might be able to see on the Disco's rear section, there is a black box sticking out of the back that allows the X-over to retain a somewhat normal position as it resides on that panel. I also have replaced the LE14-H with the LE14-H1 for now. I still have the original LE14-H's. The improvement is DRAMATIC!. It is amazing just how easy this modification is. I do not claim it is perfect but it is worth the compromise. For the L220's I did the same thing but used an obsolutely beautiful 2420/2312 16ohm combo and that leads me to my question. How do I adjust the crossover component values to compensate for the 16 ohm driver? If anyone would like to see a sort of pictorial "how to", please email me at [email protected]. Thank you. And I want to personally thank Zilch for helping me get the site's controls figured out, Thank you Sir!

[Steve Gonzales]

here is the horn installed in the original sub-baffle board

[Steve Gonzales]

her is a shot of the new "spacer"

[Steve Gonzales]

Here is what you see from the front. The added height puts the horn right were I like it.

[4313B]

Interesting!

BTW, JBL is running a new batch of LE14H-1 recone kits so you could get your LE14H's reconed as LE14H-1's

"How do I adjust the crossover component values to compensate for the 16 ohm driver?"

The easiest thing to do is put a 16, 18, or 20 ohm resistor in parallel with the driver. All you're really doing is providing the correct load for the L-Pad. How did you compensate for the 14 dB increase in efficiency? It looks like you have an L-Pad nearly shut off in the picture. You might want to help it out and put in a resistor pad in front of it.

[Steve Gonzales]

thank you, I see in another thread that the H-1's response starts to go south @ 650hz. I will say that the H-1's low end is better to my ear than the H and the 220's LE14A's have a great midbass punch over the other two drivers so I play both pairs at the same time always- ha-ha. Now if I could just get that crossover thing figured out.....

[Steve Gonzales]

so if I put a 10watt 16ohm in parallel with the driver that would do it or do I need a higher wattage? As for the L-pad, do you mean like a 100watt L pad? what is a resistor pad? BTW that picture was taken right after I re-installed everything and I had not set the levels but you ARE right I have to keep it set at the #2 position.

[4313B]

Here's what you probably want to do to the network. X marks stuff to be removed. I would probably start with R1 being two 8 ohm 10W resistors in parallel and R2 being 8 ohm 10 W. You will have to see if they get too hot with your listening levels. In fact, you might want to just buy all 16 ohm resistors and go with four paralleled 16 ohm for R1, two parallel 16 ohm for R2 and the 16 ohm across the LE85/2420. That should give you ~ 9 dB of attenuation.

All I have with me right now is Adobe Photoshop to edit documents with so please pardon the hack job.

Yeah, and the 58450 from JBL is the ticket for the L-Pad.

[Steve Gonzales]

Thank you! I will get together with a C.E.T. that I know and apply this info. I will let you know how it turns out. I have one more pair of L220's that I want to try 2435HPL's and N333 crossovers in and since my trade is finish work, I want to do them in black laquer. A buddy of mine in N.Y. mated the 2435HPL's to some custom Westlake/ JBL type "Smith horns" and WOW!!!, My next project is building some B380 sized enclosures for the two 2235H's that are collecting dust. Thank you again for your help Sir.

[Robh3606]

Very nice idea!! I use the H94 and like it. What did you do build a box to add volume using the access panel??

Rob

[Steve Gonzales]

The L222 &L220 have a completely seperate 'chamber' for the mid and tweet so the extention is there to clear that long H92 horn and le85 and allow me to mount that back plate which has the 12"x12" crossover attached to it. When I thought of doing this modification, one of the good things was that separation in the enclosure. Pretty simple to make the spacer. I cannot stress how much better this speaker sounds with that horn!, and yes, I just copied the access panel to make it. I love the metal L94 lens too, it's like a baby 2310 and is made for the conical horns to boot.The L250 is another speaker with the same seperate 'chamber' too. Thank you for your interest.

[Zilch]

Now THERE's a wall of sound!

[Steve Gonzales]

I should say the BEST thing about all this is that both pairs were going to the dump after being gutted for the 076's and looked like hell. I was lucky enough to SAVE them and with alot of hard work get them back to very good condition. I just cannot imagine abusing speakers like these and what kind of mindset it must take. As I said earlier, I have one HORRIBLE pair waiting for some MEGA TLC and I don't mind one damn bit!

[boputnam]

Hey, Steve...

What exactly is going on, here...

[Earl K]

Steve - Great Project !

<. EarlK