What speaker is best for a Leslie 122?

[God's element]

Hello everyone,

I have a modified Leslie 122 hooked up to a Hammond A102(same as B-3). The Leslie has a 250watt sub amp to drive the 15" speaker. There is an EV SRO installed in it now. What JBL speaker would sound best a Leslie.


thanks everyone,

[chad]

Hammond.... Leslie... ((((mmmm)))) ear candy!!! A 15 for the Leslie? I'd recommend the E-140.

[moldyoldy]

I'm guessing an E145 might be a good JBL to try, but I don't know my JBL drivers near as well as most others here. Perhaps if we give them more details, they could make better recomendations.

The 122 Leslie has a LF enclosure volume of approx. 5 cubic feet, which is vented. The 15" must tolerate downfiring. The acoustic load is modified by the placement of a rotating scooped drum (often misconstrued as a horn)below the speaker, in the baffle cutout, which imparts amplitude modulation to the LF. The load is modified further, as the combined output of the drum and vent must exit the cab via narrow slots on the lower front and sides. The low pedal on a Hammond is 32Hz, and the standard XO is 800Hz at 12dB/octave.

Don't forget that the Leslie is an effect, intended to modify the sound of the organ, not merely reproduce it. This means you don't have to follow any rules, other than those of physics. If you want it to have the traditional "Leslie sound" you need to install a Jensen P15LL, and revert to the original tube amp. If you want to create your own sound, experiment to your hearts content. That's the beauty of being a musician, you can pretty well do whatever the heck you want!

[jim campbell]

i believe that there are some brand new e 145's for sale on this forum (no affiliation) and if you go that way probably worth a look

[boputnam]

...The load is modified further, as the combined output of the drum and vent must exit the cab via narrow slots on the lower front and sides. ...

Except in the most common case of cabinets having the entire back removed!

Great post. Nice to hear from someone knowlegable about Leslies.

FWIW, I've replaced blown / ruined Jensens with K140's and had great results.

[hapy._.face]

Man, I love the Leslie. I've heard it modded so many ways, and the end result is still usually pretty good. I tried to build one in High School and I ignored a few basic principles- THAT one didn't sound too good! I'd say as long as you abide by the basic rules that Moldy outlined in his post- EXPERIMENT!

I had the unique fortune of meeting Charlie Hunter last summer, as he is a friend of a friend. Super nice guy, btw. He kicks it my friend's house at least once a year, and they smoke it up and trade licks.

Charlie is a diehard Leslie fanatic and I know for a fact he uses a myriad of JBL drivers in some of his setups. I asked him about his Leslie fascination and he says he owns more Leslie cabs than he cares to count (not sure how many that is).... Of course, this is jazz guitar we're talking about. I might be able to find out what model he prefers, if it is of interest to anyone.

K140 sounds like an obvious choice, though. Just curious, would a D130 or E140 work, also?

[moldyoldy]

Except in the most common case of cabinets having the entire back removed!

Great post. Nice to hear from someone knowlegable about Leslies.

FWIW, I've replaced blown / ruined Jensens with K140's and had great results.

Backless Leslies are (too) common, which brings up the most important part of a Leslie's sound, how and where it's setup. Placement
has more effect on the sound than anything else you can do. Also, you'll never get one to sound the same at all listening locations. You can tune a backless Leslie by varying the gap between it and the wall, the same way Hammond did with their own tone cabinets (BTW many Hammond TCs are better than a 122 Leslie at kicking out the lows, and they did it with 9 closely-spaced 10" Jensens in a backless cab and crossed actively at 200Hz with tubes). It's amazing how much difference is achieved by moving the speaker to/from the wall as little as 1/4" makes. Most owners either didn't read this in the manual, and no one told them, so those cabinets have had a bad rap for years. My personal favorite Hammond setup is an ensemble configuration with a 122 Leslie and an HR40 Hammond. The bass fills out, you have a reverb option, 40 additional watts, and...well...it finds my personal resonant frequency.

Wait till you try to stereo mic a Leslie.....



I'm sure some of the readers have scratched their heads over the basic nature of the specs I described, realizing that it just won't work the way I described it. Thanks to all for not calling me names, I just described the beast, but didn't design it.....ol' Don Leslie had quite an imagination.


Yes, there's usable response down to the low C, but it's been falling for the last octave...it ain't the Jensens' fault, just the laws of physics and size. You can put a 1000W sub in a Leslie box, and when you go much beyond the LF acoustic output of the original, about all you'll notice is how quickly your cab is falling apart. The solution? Add a standard MI sub in another box to handle the lowest octave. If you're a bass-sadist, insert a subharmonic synthesizer at preamp level....or install the tube equivalent of one with parts from an RT3...don't be surprised to find that after all your efforts you decide that although you can rattle the china, that last octave just ain't very musical.

Whatever driver you use, ensure that the frame gasket is thick enough to keep long excursions from slapping the drum bearing support, and subtract the amount of sag caused by downfiring from the max allowable excursion (a good reason to get the backs on the Leslie...reduce xmax). Most 122s with different 15s I've seen all needed thicker front gaskets (and backs on the cabs) than std., you could hear them slap when the pedal went down....

[God's element]

Awsome info guys!!!

My Lesile amp is configured as follows: Original 40watt amp is dedicated to feed the upper horn driver, a line out from the original amp connects to the 250watt amp, XO is at 800MHZ, installed a seperate volume pot for the lower and upper driver, replace the Jenson horn driver with an Atlas PD-60. Ok, this Leslie is a beast . I felt like I wasn't getting enough volume on stage with a stock Leslie. Not anymore. I used to have the Volume up way past the stock configuration, but the lower baffle started to become unglued. I used Gorilla Glue on it and man, that stuff really works! Lately, I use my extra wattage just to achieve the volume I need and nothing more.

The vintage EV SRO sounds great but some people swear by JBL and tell me to give them a try. What is the difference between the E-140 and K-140 and can they handle a 250watt amp?

Thanks everyone. I've learned a lot from this thread so far.

joe

[edgewound]

E140, E145. The E140 is probably a better choice from the ease of installation standpoint. It really wakes up a leslie...almost viscerally. Band I played in..in the 1980's...we carried (2) Leslies, one for backup...one had a Gauss with aluminum dustcap the other had an E140...they both ROCKED

K140 is alnico, E140 is ceramic. Both can handle 200 watts sinewave, 400 watts pink noise if assembled with E140 cone assembly. If the cone has no backloading(open cabinet) cut the power handling in half.

[toddalin]

I seem to recall that both my Leslie 122RV and 147RV had CTS woofers. If not that, they were Emmenance. I certainly remember the big square magnets.

At one time I had the 15" on my later Leslie (don't remember the model # but Hammond was an H134 as I recall and this one used rotating Jensen 6"x9s" up top) and I used the 15" in conjunction with my sub. When I unplugged the 1/4" phone jack, it reverted to the organ.

BTW, at one time Leslie made speakers for home stereos. I don't know if they had any rotating elements.

[moldyoldy]

(snip)BTW, at one time Leslie made speakers for home stereos. I don't know if they had any rotating elements.

Wow, I'll never have another opportunity to bring THESE up.....
Remember all the different ways there were in the '70s to add synthesized quadrophonic to your old stereo?
I've got a pair of '74 Leslie Quad Plus Two's. They are similar cabs to the few other Leslies Todd mentioned for home stereo use, ~ 6cu/ft, veneered, grillcloth fronts, only these also have 122-style side-slots down low. Any resemblance to a traditional speaker ends there. Inside each cab;
1-60W SS amp
1-800Hz XO
1-Jensen C12N, downfiring into a single-speed rotating foam drum, then out the side slots.
1-Jensen 2x8 exp. horn, mounted vertically in the front baffle.
1-motor-driven "space generator", to introduce regular phase and frequency anomalies to the HF. The Leslie space generator was their attempt to achieve rotary vibrato from a fixed driver.
You're supposed to plug the Leslies into each other, and also into your existing stereo's 'phones jack, while leaving your old speakers active. The Leslies mechanically introduced LF wavering amplitude, and the HF...well...it was funkified too. I think they were only produced the one year, though Leslie continued to keep a model or two of 'regular' home stereo speakers in their yearly lineups.
I've never had the guts or desire to play any recordings through these as they were intended. I rewired them for mono, and substituted a different space generator from a 102 in place of both the original units. The 102 space generator (also mechanical) can give a convincing rotary effect from 2 HF drivers fixed in different cabs, not a true doppler vibrato, more of a ping-pong effect. You oughta here what these lightly-modified freaks do to my Wurly electric piano....bad!to!the!bone!....Ray would have loved it, RIP.

[moldyoldy]

Here's a couple of pics of the Quad Plus Two. The observant will note the Altec 417 in place of the C12N, and that the space generator is not in place. The cabs do have back panels. The 417s were only in there a few days, they now reside in a Marshall cab, and the C12Ns went back in the Leslies.

[God's element]

What a fine pair of twins. I would love to find something like that at a garge sale.

[toddalin]

These are the cabinets I remember. It's interesting that the woofer rotating baffle slopes both ways so sound is emitted from both sides simultaneously. On the organ speakers, the baffle slopes only one way and my Leslies (122 and 147) were of a thin veneer(?) rather than foam. I guess that may have been a bit much for home stereo. Also most people are unaware that the top rotating horn on the 122/147 and their varients is only open on one side that the other side is only there for balance.

With a little modification, Leslie amps could make nice tube amps for stereo. As I recall, they had dual 6550s and I always preferred these to the 6L6GCs.

Here's a couple of pics of the Quad Plus Two. The observant will note the Altec 417 in place of the C12N, and that the space generator is not in place. The cabs do have back panels. The 417s were only in there a few days, they now reside in a Marshall cab, and the C12Ns went back in the Leslies.

[moldyoldy]

Sometime around '70, Leslie made the wise decision to use injected foam rotors, and retired the plywood construction. Even though we all prefer to see that big, wooden cattle chute spinning around, the foam was an improvement in every respect. On some models, including the quads, the rotors have 2 outlets, and are run at half the normal RPM. To me, the AM is more intense with duals, if you place them right you can play the direct sound against the reflected to get what you like.

You can't do that succesfully with the HF though, as you noted, all the HF rotors are single outlet. Don's original intent with the Leslie speaker was mainly to add a vibrato effect (FM) to an organ speaker. With the HF, the single-exit spinning horn rapidly moves the wave source about 20 inches in relation to the listener. At these wavelengths, this motion gives the Doppler effect to the sound, not unlike that of hearing a train's horn increase in pitch as it nears, and decrease as it passes. To do that with the LF, you'd need...well... a train, so we settle for some amplitude modulation of the lows. The inevitable evolution of the concept resulted in the modern version, which still uses a similar mech horn for the HF, but the LF AM is done in the amp, and played through a fixed speaker.

Joe, it sounds like Bo and Edgewound have experience with JBLs in Leslies, so it looks like an E/K 140/145, all of which should handle your amp, assuming you select the right impedance. 'wound raises a good point, regarding ease of mtg. There's little extra room, especially for diameter. If the cone can travel beyond the gasket face, you need to shim the mount to prevent that. If theres any difference in size in the suggedted models, I'd go with the one that fits best.