LE-15B Woofer and the L200 hate
At what point can everyone stop hating on this woofer? I understand most everyoneÂ’s only experiences with this woofer were in the L200 with the LX16/LX16a crossover, I get it. But itÂ’s a good woofer, it just needs to be freed from the crossover it was matched with.
- The LE-15B is identical to the rather highly regarded LE-15A, except for the surround. If accordion is so bad then why is it used on the 2216ND?
- The LX16/LX16a crossover was an absolute crap design and will choke any woofer.
My experience: I bought some L200As with the cabinets in rough shape. I figured I would restore the cabs and components. When I listened to the L200s, I heard the same as every one else, a very anemic woofer. So I went out and got some of those new 2216NDÂ’s and yes they made a bit of difference but I still planned on redoing the crossovers anyway. I like the simplicity of the crossover being a simple 2nd order, it just looked as though the cap and inductor values were incredibly illogical, especially compared to the L200B and L300.
Fast forward a couple months:
I found some very nice L200B cabs for a decent price, the guy who I bought them from seemed to know his stuff and was a fan of the LE-15B. This peaked my interest on giving them another try just as I had posted them on eBay. But I was still waiting on my new crossover componentsÂ…so I figured I would do some experimenting.
I have spent a lot of time previously with the L100 and experimenting with that crossover and I was aware of what a woofer can do running full range. So I decided to swap the LE-15Bs into the L200B cabs and run them full range, with no crossover and let me tell you these bad boys came to life!
This is a completely different speaker running the LE15B full range, itÂ’s not as snappy as the 2216ND, but it definitely has me reconsidering since I prefer to keep the system full vintage.
I just thought I would share my experiences and let everyone know that has L200s what their woofer is truly capable of.
in the future I will likely experiment with re-adding a cap and inductor with much different values.
Right now the inductor is 2.4mh which should be cutting this woofer crossover at 800hz and it should be 1100hz based on its capability and the current 6uf capacitor restricting how low the LE85 can play. And the stock woofer capacitor is 13.5uf!
I plan to rebuild it as: Woofer - 22uf and 1.8mh, Mid - 16uf and 1.0mh with reversed polarity same as Nelson Pass, and UHF 077 - 1uf.
