Hi,
Have some questions, any help will be appreciated
So the story:
I happen to own from like 10 years a pair of JBL112. Was lucky to buy them from boot sale. Bass drives were crap, some 22xx and were in so bad shape, all dust, and one of them suffered a kick, so i directly threw them at garbage without even trying to refoam them.
All else they are fine looking.
So i happened to find a no name vintage , like new, paper cone Alnico 12" drives, that fit in and play surprisingly well. May be they lack sth in bass but any how i did not care at the time so much. Biggest change was putting them on spikes which brought the WOW factor. Original stands finished at garbage. So what i am saying is that the spikes, 5 degree lifted front side and careful room placement made them very pleasing to listen to. I have no pretense that they play as originally or flat , but as i said very pleasant. My humble system is PC-Objective ODAC-Moscode 300 hybrid amp - JBL L112.
Another thing is that i have just finished building my 8x4 CNC so i started to think of making myself some better speakers as a side project. I looked around and and from my point of view the L112 are not so bad compared to most things that could be build on ~1000euro budget. Apart i like them so much.
The original bass is 128H i read. The problems with that bass:
-expensive to find and import to Europe from USA
-old
-the repair and generally i don't think reconing could be done properly at home. I remember when i saw the dusty 22xx i said to myself i would not buy again that crap.
So i want to dive a bit in the DIY. For now my idea is the following:
Build myself from scratch open baffle OBL-15, which is well documented, within my budget and no brainer, as all the design work is done. I am not very worried for the 20hz reproduction as i am more of a natural sound person, being myself an acoustical instrument maker. Plus i have the 150w amp which could drive anything easily, now is fully recapped with neutral Audine Plus caps, but not modded at all after a lot of thought, so together with the Odac it sounds surgical.
Or find a suitable not very expensive modern woofer speaker for the L112, dive into buying measuring microphone, learn this and that, change the crossover a bit if needed, then once happy, build a 150a speaker. As far as i understand the 150a is same same with just extended size and passive speaker. So the end result could be modern 150a, with modern speakers, or a hybrid, only the bass new.
Why the 150A clone? i have already the L112 and to my liking the biggest thing i would like would be the 150A or if i would like to be bigger, then it would be open baffle. I have the model to compare, have CNC, etc.. Did i tell you i love the L112. Small enough to be bookshelf, big enough to be floor standers. Good for low volume listening and at the same time kick very seriously for party. before the tube amp i had Hk power amp, wow. The way i have them set, the imaging is ridiculously good, watching a movie you could swear the sound comes from the person speaking.
I would like to take a pleasant journey and i am not in a hurry, as i am perfectly happy with what i have.
What have i done till now:
from here and there /more from here :-)/ have all specs of the speakers and crossovers
For now i have narrowed to 2 possible candidates:
Beyma SM-112/N
-first of all they are made in Europe and only 80km from where i live now in Spain so i assume what they say is true
-cheap at ~100 euro the piece
-almost all specs are the right ones, RMS, and especially the size of the voice coil which is 3" If i did not know better, i could say they are very much a copy of the 128h
the problem? FS of 40hz instead of 20HZ as the 128H
It seems its very difficult to find non PA speaker for cheap with low FS as a substitute for the 128H. The other contender is SB Acoustics SB34NRXL75-8 12" Woofer. It seems almost ideal substitute if i am not missing something.
-3" voice coil
-22hz FS !!
-its more expensive and maybe difficult to find in Europe
So with my limited understanding here i am. Any ideas, thoughts, etc. please?
PS. if there was a comparable to the L112, 150A DIy speaker plans i would have started there. No i dont like multiple 8" bass drivers even if there are 10 of them and thy play like 20k speakers, neither i have place for 18" speakers. To me 12" or as max 15" woofer in a speaker is best for home. 8" could be very fast and 2 of them could have more surface than 12" speaker, but no thanks. I am musical instrument maker / diy/ so i hear it, without going crazy. If i had the space, i would have build eventually one of the big JBL clones i have sen here.
bellow all info about speakers on one place