Anyone familiar with 2150?

[Paul Joppa]

A friend picked up a pair of these, in pretty good condition (he says). A curiosity that I'd never heard of before! It seems to be a 15" woofer with an LE-5 glued to the pole piece, but I can't make out the picture very well. Haven't seen them myself yet.

The brochure is available:

http://www.jblpro.com/pub/obsolete/2150.pdf

Apparently his are without any crossover. The proper crossover seems to be the 3125, also available at

http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/Net...%20Network.pdf

which seems to be a simplified 3120.

Anyhow, does anyone recognize these? Or know anything about them? I'm especially curious about how such a beast came about, and how long it lasted.

[Fangio]

...Anyhow, does anyone recognize these? Or know anything about them? I'm especially curious about how such a beast came about, and how long it lasted.

Would like to repeat the question - maybe someone likes to shed some more light over this one, this time - or even tell us the full story behind?

Thanks.

[speakerdave]

That speaker is designed for sound distribution, which is to say, vocal announcements and Muzak. It is basically a two-way fullrange that covers the frequency range for speech (60-8500Hz) well on and off axis but falls off above and below that. Its usefulness for hi fi would have to be explored. It is described as "controlled excursion" which I take to mean it has a fairly stiff suspension so it can be mounted in a ceiling without an enclosure and will maintain well into the midrange and will not be wiped out by an accident with a microphone. You will not get much bass out of it no matter what you do and will want a super tweeter. Here is the URL for a data sheet on it at JBL Pro.
http://www.jblpro.com/pub/obsolete/2150.pdf

David

[Fangio]

Thank you David, for the warning. Thought first I might have overlooked a transducer so far that's comparable to Altecs vintage coax systems.

That speaker is designed for sound distribution, which is to say, vocal announcements and Muzak. It is basically a two-way fullrange that covers the frequency range for speech (60-8500Hz) well on and off axis but falls off above and below that. Its usefulness for hi fi would have to be explored.

Where these pics come from, such facts are commonly not mentioned. Nevertheless they've hit 300$ already.

[speakerdave]

Nevertheless they've hit 300$ already.

I'm not surprised. With a subwoofer at 80 or 100 Hz and a supertweeter you might still get the coherent imaging which is the key benefit of the coaxial, and the woofer to cone treble blending of the 2150 might well be better than that of the 604, which is highly compromised with a woofer that is extended too far into the midrange and a horn that is partially unloaded at the crossover frequency.

And, the 2150 is Alnico, and there's always interest in that. I'm curious about the magnet structure for the small cone, though.

I just meant to say it would need to be explored, not that it was a non-starter.

David

[Steve Schell]

The 2150 was used as a ceiling speaker in high quality distributed sound systems. A local audio reseller was offering used pairs of them for $150 some years ago; these had come out of conference rooms at the Long Beach Convention Center. I didn't buy any, but a friend bought a pair. A few months ago I noticed what looked like 2150s installed in the ceilings of the gate areas at the Philadelphia airport. They sounded good.