Walden cones

[audiorep2]

I recently received 2 JBL D130F frames with what appear to be Walden cones for 2205B . The white stamp on the cone says W 5518 and under that 080 . Do any of you folk have any insight into this ?

[BMWCCA]

I recently received 2 JBL D130F frames with what appear to be Walden cones for 2205B . The white stamp on the cone says W 5518 and under that 080 . Do any of you folk have any insight into this ?

If I recall correctly, the company is Waldom, not Walden.

Sorry, I have no experience with their products.

[audiomagnate]

I recently received 2 JBL D130F frames with what appear to be Walden cones for 2205B . The white stamp on the cone says W 5518 and under that 080 . Do any of you folk have any insight into this ?

I took a different path so I can't help you.

[audiorep2]

If I recall correctly, the company is Waldom, not Walden.

Sorry, I have no experience with their products.

You are quite right .... Waldom

[Tim Rinkerman]

Waldom produced aftermarket everything for all speakers. Many music stores that couldn't afford to send a guy to get JBL training so they could be an authorized JBL reconer could get everything to rebuild a JBL with CHEAP INFERIOR PARTS. Poor quality cones, crappy surrounds, above all cheap, round wire voice coils. They don't sound or react like an original JBL part. Sorry....

[Horn Fanatic]

I recently received 2 JBL D130F frames with what appear to be Walden cones for 2205B . The white stamp on the cone says W 5518 and under that 080 . Do any of you folk have any insight into this ?

Greetings -

My beef with Waldom, and other manufacturers of aftermarket kits, is the claim that their kits are direct replacements. The only way to prove that claim one way or the other would be to take Thiele-Small measurements. The same holds true for some folks on Ebay who are selling what are obviously re-coned 150-4C's. The claim is the E145 cone kit is a direct replacement, but until someone produces T-S parameters on a 150-4C, the claim can never be verified.

Someone told me a few years ago that Waldom made cones for JBL and ALTEC, but I do not know that to be true. The question then remains, if Waldom did make cones for those two companies, who made the voice coils? As with any OEM supplier, if they can manufacture a product to JBL and ALTEC specs, and the supplier is providing cone kits for discontinued products, there is no reason they couldn't provide T-S parameters.

Take Weber Speakers for example. I have tried three times in vane to obtain T-S parameters on the speakers they claim are D130F and D120F knock-offs, with no response. Since Ted Weber passed away, I'd be hard pressed to think there are any loudspeaker engineers on staff.

There also is an outfit in Arizona selling D130F and D120F drop in kits. Do they meet JBL T-S parameters? Who knows?

H.F.

[Steve Schell]

I am working from faulty memory here, but agree that Waldom was for many decades a purveyor of aftermarket cones and cone assembly kits. Typically a Waldom product part number would begin with "W." I have a catalog from them in the 1940s that offered replacements for almost everything. By the 1990s the speaker products division was spun off as "Image Communications." They never had a web presence, and were basically selling off the remaining stocks of various cones in their Chicago warehouse. I sent them $50 to become a "Certified Installer" and receive their parts catalog. They were permanently out of stock on 3/4 of the listed parts, but I did pick up a few useful cones from them.

The manufacturer of note of most of the excellent cones used in Lansing, Altec Lansing, JBL and most other high quality speakers in the good old days was Hawley. Love those fantastic 130-202 cones in the late 1940s and early 1950s D-130s! They shut down in the 1970s, but were restarted in recent years in Paducah, Kentucky. Not sure if that was their original home.

[jblwolf]

Thanks steve