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Thread: When JBL was JBL...Your first Encounter

  1. #91
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    The experience was at club Chevron in Melbourne in 1989. A pair of JBL 4435 monitors. The obsession began there. Still own these speakers they have sentimental value to me.

  2. #92
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    Quote Originally Posted by JoeNelis View Post
    The experience was at club Chevron in Melbourne in 1989. A pair of JBL 4435 monitors. The obsession began there. Still own these speakers they have sentimental value to me.
    Those were the days.

    I think l first heard a Jbl factory system at Encel’s HiFi in Bridge Road Richmond. I initially heard the 4315’s around 1976.

  3. #93
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    Wow this thread is like evoking a flash back :>) I got hooked on JBLs, first via the Twin Reverb w/ D120s -up to that point I sort of generally disliked the tones from guitar speakers. That expanded to the Twin driving a pair of dual 15 Sunn 100S cabs with their D-15S versions I believe the were called.
    We were lucky to have fellow -Jim Walker perhaps? run a JBL HiFi shop here in Sacramento.. who sold me a pair of 075/N2400s. They served atop the Sunn cabs doing double duty as my first 'home rig. 'Starving musician and all..
    :>)

  4. #94
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    I think my first encounter was a Sunn 200 bass amp with 2 JBL D140f's. This was in the '60's I was playing bass in a rock band using a Gibson EB-3 (Short scale) and a Vox Essex amp. Dissatisfied with the sound I went to a guitar shop and played a used Gibson T-bird through the Sunn 200. DAMN!!!! I bought both on the spot, and have been an Altec- JBL guy since.

    I wish i still had both the bass and the amp.......along with the 57 Bel-Air post and/or the 1966 427 Corvette.


    Happy Listening

    Ed
    KEEP ON LISTENING!

  5. #95
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Kreamer View Post
    I think my first encounter was a Sunn 200 bass amp with 2 JBL D140f's. This was in the '60's I was playing bass in a rock band using a Gibson EB-3 (Short scale) and a Vox Essex amp. Dissatisfied with the sound I went to a guitar shop and played a used Gibson T-bird through the Sunn 200. DAMN!!!! I bought both on the spot, and have been an Altec- JBL guy since.

    I wish i still had both the bass and the amp.......along with the 57 Bel-Air post and/or the 1966 427 Corvette.


    Happy Listening

    Ed
    Our bass player at the time ran 3 200/100 cabs -4 D-130s and a pair of D-140s IIRC.

    May as well add since I'm on a roll here.. Our second guitarist ran a single pair of 130s --but the Sunn 1000S head (4 6550 IIRC). He was the only one loosing drivers..

  6. #96
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    Mine was Melbourne hifi show in the mid 80's.

    Intersound had their Everest DD55000 setup in one of the small hotel rooms. Insane volume. I was a teenager and didn't really know what I was witnessing though.

    I also had a JBL ti series catalogue with the 250ti on the front. As a teenager I'd ogle at it for ages. Never thought I'd get to own a pair...I did when I moved to UK.

    A bit later in the early 90's I got a visit to John Farnham's studio outside of Melbourne. I'm sure he had 4435's in there. I might be wrong as memory is fading...

    EDIT: found Farnham's old studio via Google.. https://www.domain.com.au/news/farnh...0120907-25hu5/

  7. #97
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    Red face

    This is some good reading here!
    I'd like to share my first, but I really can't think of it clearly right now? I've had so many JBL pro speakers over the years. I did settled on crown amps for powering them. I believe I had an old set of used Altec 811 horns, with mid 2x12 cabs, and JBL bass "scoops" on the lows with maybe 2205s? on my first PA system. I kept building it up and went with 4560 cabs with D130s (later E130s?) for mids, 2440 drivers one the highs. The lows kept changing from the first big step of 4550 cabs on the lows, and later JBL double scoops on the lows. I'm guessing on some numbers as I just don't remember exactly.
    I do remember setting up our system for our regular customer rental band called "Looker" in a large venue in Erie PA. They were the opening act and Uriah Heep was the headliners. I never heard our system cranked up so loud. We had 6 total 2440's on the highs with the 4550 and 4560 cabs for lows and mids. I actually stood behind the system as it hurt my ears out front. Their sound man must have been tone deaf from touring as the upper mids were just screaming. I watched over the amps and nothing was over driven. I had a partner Bob H. and he said not to worry so much that the guy was a pro.
    That same system worked perfectly for years after. I never ran it that loud again. I was amazed at the volume level it was capable of.
    Years later that first partner of mine went off to work for Clair Bros. and I went to a more intimate system for smaller clubs with the JBL bass scoops on the lows with a new partner Nick J. He left Spiro Gyra as their keyboard tech and we put together that new system. I took pride in making sure the system never hurt anyone's hearing and tried to get concert level sound with better clarity. We had upgraded to newer JBL stuff like the 2441 drivers at that time. We still had 4 of the single 15" 4560 cabs for mids and mainly 2206s? or 2226's? on the lows in the scoops. Worked perfectly for years with no failures at all!
    I got to see some of the evolution of the JBL pro line and what Clair Bros. did for their systems. Their S4 cabs amazed the heck out of me on just how good they sounded. I remember hearing Asia at a Buffalo, NY theater and the sound was incredible. I still think of that as the best live sound I ever heard. I'm pretty sure that was Clair back then? Many years ago....

  8. #98
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    Mine was in the late 70's a friend was a medic in Vietnam and finished out his hitch in Germany where he bought a Sony reel to reel Kenwood receiver Dual turntable and a pair of JBL 4310's at the PX. At the time I had 4 large Advents and really liked them until I heard his 4310's, not long after that I bought my first set of L100's.
    At the time, he told me he auditioned many speakers in Germany and everything else sounded like they were behind a door.

    He did a great thing to readjust to life after war, he bought a 60's Ford Econoline van and put an 12v dc to 110v ac inverter powering his stereo gear. Since he had recorded all the albums he could borrow at his base in Germany, he had like 40 reels of music and just drove around the country for months.

  9. #99
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    Not really wanting throw the "K word" around too much, here, but one of my early competitors in my budding sound reinforcement business had a system based on Klipsch La Scalas, in the early days. He had decent sound, but mainly worked with bluegrass bands. Did a lot of outdoor venues with distributed sound in parks and such, I never heard his systems cranking out hard rock to half naked people at the beach, enduring the tradewinds off the Gulf like I did.

    I always wondered what it would sound like if I took one of those cabinets and stuffed a Good Driver in it, like a 2205 or maybe a 2220.


  10. #100
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    It would probably sound like a Klipsch La Scala. The big horn loaded Klipsches like the La Scala and the corner horn were mainly an effort to get much more acoustic output from the relatively small tube and early transistor amps of the day. Efficiency was the primary goal with sound quality a slightly second consideration. They both suffer from the inherent issues with folded horn coloration since their passband is much higher than appropriate for the design in an effort to get up to where the compression driver mid horn can take over. The La Scala also is simply too small a horn for the bottom end of the expected passband.


    Quote Originally Posted by BeDome View Post
    ...

    I always wondered what it would sound like if I took one of those cabinets and stuffed a Good Driver in it, like a 2205 or maybe a 2220.


  11. #101
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    Probably right, Riley,
    We both did a lot of smallish bluegrass festivals in those days and he had decent sound, but as you mention, there was nothing down low in his rig. With doing bluegrass mainly, he did not need much bass, to be honest. I remember his La Scalas sounding pretty good, but they also seemed a little skiddish after a stage change. I can still see his crazy-jacked EQs and I barely used much EQ with my JBL rigs.

    I kind of got tired of dollying my 4560s with horn and a Crown bolted to the back through the muddy hills, then stringing cables to them.
    Just decided one day to let him have all the fun.

  12. #102
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    First impressions last

    Not about drivers, but my first impression of JBL speakers was at a social gathering in the early 90s. The owners of the house were musicians and they had 4208 monitors playing Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. That was it. I was hooked. Imagine how my head exploded when I heard (and now own) some of their larger (15") monitors.

  13. #103
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    Back in the late 70's we had a JBL dealer that sold their drivers in my town. He sold other audio equipment too. The drivers always caught my eye. They looked so cool. That grey wrinkle paint. The badges. They gave me the pro catalogue. I still have it. I never felt I could afford any of it as I was a teen still. But I also never forgot those drivers. I guess that's why I buy and hoard some to this day.
    My first decent drivers were Altec's. I bought a pair of 416's 8B's and later some 808a's. The 416's sounded great but i never liked the 808's
    Should have saved and bought JBL's

  14. #104
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    Original L100

    Since my Dad bought his first JBL when I was three-years-old (66-years ago), that 030 would have to be my first encounter. However, one of my friends in high-school bought an early pair of original L100 when they first came out and those were the first "consumer" JBLs I ever heard outside a store. 50-years later, I now own those and today started some renovation of them since the tweeter domes were smashed from two kids in his house. I did note the cabinets were one serial number apart and the 123A-1s were less than 30 serial numbers apart. We'll call this a matched pair since I don't believe these were sold as right and left.

    So, after taking the woofers out to explore, this is what was inside:



    I sent my buddy this photo and he said: "Wow! Have to ask the kids what they were doing. I guess they pushed them in through the bass port?"

    To which I replied: "Sure, right after finding they couldn't jam them through the tweeters! "

    Now I just have to find the replacement tweeters I bought for these when I first got them exactly six-years ago. At least I talked him into getting new Quadrex foam grilles for them years before that! Unpainted gray. Plenty of work here but at least they should sound as good as they ever did.
    ". . . as you have no doubt noticed, no one told the 4345 that it can't work correctly so it does anyway."—Greg Timbers

  15. #105
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    123A-1 Dust dome repair

    One of the woofers had met a child once, too. A spritz of water, let it soak, then some step-down attachments for my shop-vac, and it's not perfect, but much better. It spent a bunch of years smashed!

    Before:


    . . . and after:

    ". . . as you have no doubt noticed, no one told the 4345 that it can't work correctly so it does anyway."—Greg Timbers

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