Frankly, there will be ice cubes in hell before I'm likely to sell any vintage JBL stuff on Ebay. I have no interest in "cold call" selling. If I sell something, it'll be to someone who I can get a feel for, that will honestly understand what was done and why it was done. And that can only be done in a one-on-one conversation.
I make it crystal clear, about anything I've reconed, as to where the parts came from and how the work was done. OTOH, I also let the person see and hear, in person, the end result. I've had many times, where the buyer stated that if I didn't say, that they could have had no way, by either looking or listening, of knowing it was a non-factory recone.
In short, craftsmanship can just as easily come from a hand-assembled kit assembled by someone who knows what they're doing, as it can off of an assembly line of a major manufacturer. And as far as percieved value is concerned- in almost every case, once it's non-original parts, it really doesn't matter, in any sort of "collector" hobby, what source the parts came from- only that they LOOK and ACT as the originals. These recones easily fulfill that requirement. It's either completely original or it's not- once you've gotten there, it's just a matter of how well it emulates the original...
Oh, and BTW: How many of these replacement kits are install tested by JBL, by anything remotely equivalent to the LEAP/LMS system I use? Do they still actually QC poll all these obsolete parts kits from the assembly line? If not, then there's a distinct probability that like the LE14 with the excessively stiff factory spider mentioned above, that the QC of a good custom reconer may EXCEED the accuracy of a factory replacement kit, if there's nobody "watching the store" on the assembly line to make sure things stay in spec. Not to mention the cases where JBL "lumps together" different drivers sharing a common recone kit- when there WERE subtle differences in the different driver models. In some of these cases, I've been able to custom assemble a kit that BETTER matched the factory specs than the specified factory replacement...
Sorry if this seems a bit defensive or abrasive- but it kind of irks me, when I (and many other custom reconers) take the time to do things as good or BETTER than factory, and I get lumped in with fakers and charletans...
Regards,
Gordon.
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It just happened that 10-odd grams dry was the amount the cone wanted to soak up...
). Once the woofer is in the cabinet and the plate amp (which will produce 270-odd watts into an 8 ohm load) is installed, that should be short work. I dunno if I'll get to run the woofer back on LMS afterwards, though... I'll just have to base my judgement on how well it tunes out in the box, with the known passive radiator Sd and Mms...