Thrift Store L100T Resurrection

[pgerry]

Long time listener, 1st time caller here.

So, a few weeks ago while making one of my regular thrift store stops, I spotted this pair of L100T's (at least that what they were in their former glory). Overall the cabinets weren't terrible, some minor veneer chips here and there. One grill cover was in pieces still attached by the cloth, but it was all there. Both LF drivers were in desperate need of new surrounds. The obligatory dust cap inversion had already been performed by some curious little fingers One LF driver looked to have been kicked, tearing about 2" in the cone. $30 later and I'm thinking...what the hell am I going to do with these!

A couple years earlier I responded to a Craigslist add "Truckload of electronics - FREE". I was the lucky 1st caller and headed to claim my prize. Turns out the guy owned a pawn shop that had closed and now he was headed to Florida. What I hauled away was mostly broken DVD players, a couple Pro Logic AV receivers and beat up, falling apart pair of JBL L112's. The cabinets were not salvageable as they had been sitting on damp something that swelled them beyond repair. I did remove all the drivers, crossovers, even the cups for the mids. I re-foamed the 128H aquaplas drivers and put it all away for future use.

I've donated the 128H's to the L100T's until I get around to going through the 2214H's and took the package for a test drive. Observations so far:

I suspect one of the mids or the crossover is failing due to an odd distortion of sorts. This is can only be reproduced under very specific circumstances. Example - the sound of a Hammond organ (in the 600Hz range) will bring it in, as will some already distorted guitar. It's raspier than it should be.

Seems to be a bit of a null in the 60Hz area, could be my room or the placement of the cabinets.

I was thinking of swapping mids for the ones from my 112's but thought I see if these are troubleprone or if the crossover is more likely.

Thanks for all your expertise!

[grumpy]

Nice find you could swap the current mids to see if the issue follows the driver or cabinet...

[pgerry]

After listening again I'm unsure if the mid or tweeter is to blame. I'll likely swap the mid and see. I know crossovers of "age" would probably benefit from some new caps, but wasn't sure if this was a symptom of breakdown of some type.

[grumpy]

Driver or connections would be my first guesses, but swapping components between cabinets is still a good idea.

[duaneage]

I would look at the brass connectors on the drivers, they might have bad connections. I replace them with new connectors made from alloy not brass.