JBL d130/375 crossover? help

[alfmonster]

Is it possible to use a 16ohm d130 and a 16ohm 375 for a speaker?

is the crossover point different in both - or will a n500 or. 3160 work?

I may have made a mistake by purchasing two mismatched components. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Mr. Widget]

Assuming your components are in perfect acoustic condition (a bit of a big assumption) you have some excellent parts that could be made into a great system. That said, thre are a number of issues here, but none are insurmountable.

First, what is your goal? A super efficient home stereo? The D130 is a very sensitive (~103dB 1watt 1m) woofer with limited very low frequency capabilities.

Second, you will need a tweeter too. The 375 tops out at 10KHz.

Third, to make the most out of what you have, you will probably need to create custom networks.

Could be a fine system and a lot of fun.


Widget

[alfmonster]

Hi Mr. Widget!

well, thats very exciting to hear! I think believe all the components are in good working condition - according to the multimeter readings they all seem to read that it is working at 16ohms.

Its a bit odd but Im trying to make a mono system using a c38 cabinet (due to space) and a low wattage mono tube amp in the future. Ive acquired a smith horn to pair with the 375 (I am realizing my driver is the professional version 2441).

Thank you for that explanation of the necessity of the tweeter. That explains why I see so most owners set a slot 077 tweeter on top of the smith horn.

A disclaimer is that although Ive obsessively been researching, Im honestly quite new to the vintage JBL world and to building speakers.
By making custom crossover networks, how would I go about that?

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond!



oh I may be getting ahead of myself but find myself wondering if you might be able to recommend a particular insulation that is comparable to the Wrap-Go 1inch thick fiberglass wool that has been discontinued. And interconnect wires?

Assuming your components are in perfect acoustic condition (a bit of a big assumption) you have some excellent parts that could be made into a great system. That said, thre are a number of issues here, but none are insurmountable.

First, what is your goal? A super efficient home stereo? The D130 is a very sensitive (~103dB 1watt 1m) woofer with limited very low frequency capabilities.

Second, you will need a tweeter too. The 375 tops out at 10KHz.

Third, to make the most out of what you have, you will probably need to create custom networks.

Could be a fine system and a lot of fun.


Widget

[jbl4ever]

Hello alfmonster and welcome to the LH site. A crossover that works for your components is the old legacy 3110 grey in color crossover. Not hard to find and has the 16 ohms input you are using and loads the 2397 horn better at 800 hz. Not the newer black ones which are the 3110A’s. Hope this helps you

[BMWCCA]

I applaud your initiative but, as a 60+ year owner of an 030 system with a D130, it looks like you're going to a lot of trouble for some fairly mediocre results if you're interesting in having a full-range system with adequate low-end. I find the D130 a wonderful speaker but limited in bottom-end grunt—particularly when installed in something as small as a C38. I enjoyed mine for decades in a C37 with an 075 and an LE175DLH, but then your ears and brain get used to what you've got after a while. I hope you enjoy them.

[alfmonster]

Hello alfmonster and welcome to the LH site. A crossover that works for your components is the old legacy 3110 grey in color crossover. Not hard to find and has the 16 ohms input you are using and loads the 2397 horn better at 800 hz. Not the newer black ones which are the 3110A’s. Hope this helps you

thank you! Happy to finally start posting here in this fine community!

Ive been searching out the 3110 - would this work for both the 16ohm 130 and the 16ohm 375?
a question that comes to mind is if I were to add a slot tweeter into the mix, is the 16ohm d130 wrong in the setup? And do you have a recommendation of a secondary crossover that I could use?

I applaud your initiative but, as a 60+ year owner of an 030 system with a D130, it looks like you're going to a lot of trouble for some fairly mediocre results if you're interesting in having a full-range system with adequate low-end. I find the D130 a wonderful speaker but limited in bottom-end grunt—particularly when installed in something as small as a C38. I enjoyed mine for decades in a C37 with an 075 and an LE175DLH, but then your ears and brain get used to what you've got after a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I think you may have touched on a fear of mine especially with the c38 cabinet. There was a pair locally that was quite cheap so I purchased mainly as a stopgap until I had more space to upgrade it to a larger cabinet.

my reasoning was — if I had all the components then it would be easier to either someday find a larger cabinet like the c37 or just build one.

I personally haven’t found myself chasing after bass as much as clear mids wit the bass to support. Would the d130s do that? Or is completely lacking in that department especially when being used as a mono system?

thanks again everyone for taking the time to reply, this is so incredibly helpful.

[alfmonster]

@jbl4ever Will a JBL 3160 work with for what I have?

[jbl4ever]

Hi alfmonster, the 3160 xover has a 4 ohm low frequency input. The old n500 is rated at 16 ohm for the low frequency. What horn will you be using as not many load the compression diaphragm well at 500 hz.
This is why I suggested the 3110 at 800hz and some how though you were using the 2397 horn. If you are going for the old legacy look maybe a 2350 horn would work for you or 2309/2310 horn lens assembly

[Mr. Widget]

I don't think any of the vintage JBL networks will give you the best performance though they are the simplest way to go.

What horn will you be using, that is key to determining the crossover frequency. It will also greatly affect ultimate sound of the system.


Widget

[alfmonster]

Hi @Widget,

Im new to the idea of custom crossovers — how can I go about figuring out or acquiring a custom crossover? I think what you said makes a great deal of sense.

was looking into a 3110/3110a but I think you bring up a great point.

so the pieces I have collected for this mono speaker is:
d130 (16ohm)
2441 (16ohm)
2397 smith horn with throat adapt
c38 box

Thank you!

I don't think any of the vintage JBL networks will give you the best performance though they are the simplest way to go.

What horn will you be using, that is key to determining the crossover frequency. It will also greatly affect ultimate sound of the system.


Widget

[Mr. Widget]

I have a fair amount of experience with the 2397 horn. It has an extremely wide horizontal dispersion so you will need to control your early reflections for the best performance. I have also found that I like it best crossed over at about 1200Hz. It can be a bit nasal sounding if crossed over at 800Hz.

I would build several networks at different frequencies to see what you like best.

Here are two simple calculators:

https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Cal...akerCrossover/
https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Cal...akerCrossover/

The classic models that JBL and most others used back in the day were 2nd order Butterworth filters, you might want to start there.

I would get 16 ohm 100watt L-Pads from Parts Express to balance the levels. You can start out with inexpensive caps and inductors from Parts Express and when you find a filter you like, you can upgrade the parts.

Regarding box size and tuning, the JBL Pro Enclosure Guide for the E-130 which is similar enough, suggests 3 cu ft tuned to 40Hz. I believe the C38 box is 2.5-2.7 cu ft, so it is a bit tight.


Widget

[alfmonster]

What kind of board would be best to installing all of the components onto? I saw on Audiokarma where this user built a crossover on a wooden board:

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index....bl-c36.822439/


And would you have a picture of what the finished custom crossover would look like with the L Pads installed? And is there some sort of instruction as to how one could go about starting building a crossover such as this?

Is there a full components list (not only just capacitor/inductors) for building one of these? I did the calculator (incredibly by the way).
I wrote in frequency crossover at 1200hz and it provided the following image:


Although this crossover project may be something I have to work up to, I do feel extremely intrigued and also convinced this may be the best way to control exactly how one would want the speakers to sound.

My fear being that because I have a very limited experience with JBL, my frame of reference would be extremely limited.

Thanks again Widget for this incredibly helpful and insightful advice.

I have a fair amount of experience with the 2397 horn. It has an extremely wide horizontal dispersion so you will need to control your early reflections for the best performance. I have also found that I like it best crossed over at about 1200Hz. It can be a bit nasal sounding if crossed over at 800Hz.

I would built several networks at different frequencies to see what you like best.

Here are two simple calculators:

https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Cal...akerCrossover/
https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Cal...akerCrossover/

The classic models that JBL and most others used back in the day were 2nd order Butterworth filters, you might want to start there.

I would get 16 ohm 100watt L-Pads from Parts Express to balance the levels. You can start out with inexpensive caps and inductors from Parts Express and when you find a filter you like, you can upgrade the parts.

Regarding box size and tuning, the JBL Pro Enclosure Guide for the E-130 which is similar enough, suggests 3 cu ft tuned to 40Hz. I believe the C38 box is 2.5-2.7 cu ft, so it is a bit tight.


Widget

[christo]

What kind of board would be best to installing all of the components onto? I saw on Audiokarma where this user built a crossover on a wooden board:

I’ve built more than a couple of cross overs so here are my thoughts on the subject others will have their own take on the subject.

It comes down to how easily materials are to source, anything local keeps the price down.
• Fiberglass project board, terminal strips and wiring – Local electronics hobby store
• Resistors, Caps and Inductors – Solen.ca
• Speaker Binding Posts – Parts Express.

I use a fiberglass project board with pre-drilled perforations. This makes component placement easy, the resistors and small caps fit with out having to enlarge the holes, with larger caps and inductors this is not the case.



I’ll use the original schematic and layout everything on the board bearing in mind that the inductor placement is done first. Then take a picture and copy it in to PowerPoint and noodle around the final wiring.



I do this to make the actual physical wiring a no brainer as all the thinking has been done, all you do now is connect the dots. In some cases, the layout might change as clearances are not what you thought.

I do this type of diagram for each circuit as thing get complicated fast.



The above board has three circuits MID/HF/UHF. I use unique color wiring for each circuit Mid = green/yellow, HF = black/red, UHF = blue/white and 9 Volt battery = grey.

Then everything goes in to an external box.



I find putting crossovers inside of speaker boxes to be a PIA. I made two external boxes the first time I did this, but now I place both channels into one box. One might say this approach makes for a lot of wires going to the speaker box but an 8 conductor speaker cable solves that problem.

Hope this helps and have fun.

Might be overkill for your cross over but it might not be the last cross over you ever build.

[alfmonster]

whoa - this is mind-blowing. And not overkill at all.

Honestly all of these reply's have been mind-blowing.

Thank you

I'm would honestly prefer to have an external crossover box, so your example is perfect.

I’ve built more than a couple of cross overs so here are my thoughts on the subject others will have their own take on the subject.

It comes down to how easily materials are to source, anything local keeps the price down.
• Fiberglass project board, terminal strips and wiring – Local electronics hobby store
• Resistors, Caps and Inductors – Solen.ca
• Speaker Binding Posts – Parts Express.

I use a fiberglass project board with pre-drilled perforations. This makes component placement easy, the resistors and small caps fit with out having to enlarge the holes, with larger caps and inductors this is not the case.



I’ll use the original schematic and layout everything on the board bearing in mind that the inductor placement is done first. Then take a picture and copy it in to PowerPoint and noodle around the final wiring.



I do this to make the actual physical wiring a no brainer as all the thinking has been done, all you do now is connect the dots. In some cases, the layout might change as clearances are not what you thought.

I do this type of diagram for each circuit as thing get complicated fast.



The above board has three circuits MID/HF/UHF. I use unique color wiring for each circuit Mid = green/yellow, HF = black/red, UHF = blue/white and 9 Volt battery = grey.

Then everything goes in to an external box.



I find putting crossovers inside of speaker boxes to be a PIA. I made two external boxes the first time I did this, but now I place both channels into one box. One might say this approach makes for a lot of wires going to the speaker box but an 8 conductor speaker cable solves that problem.

Hope this helps and have fun.

Might be overkill for your cross over but it might not be the last cross over you ever build.

[alfmonster]

Hi @Mr.Widget,

I’ve been trying to figure out the calculator for making the speaker into a 3way and was wondering what in your experience and recommendation would be good starting point for the high frequency/low frequency, frequency spread, bandpass gain, and crossover type crossed over at 1200Hz.




I have it crossed at 9600hz and 1200hz at 0db gain and 1st order normal polarity:

I have a fair amount of experience with the 2397 horn. It has an extremely wide horizontal dispersion so you will need to control your early reflections for the best performance. I have also found that I like it best crossed over at about 1200Hz. It can be a bit nasal sounding if crossed over at 800Hz.

I would build several networks at different frequencies to see what you like best.

Here are two simple calculators:

https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Cal...akerCrossover/
https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Cal...akerCrossover/

The classic models that JBL and most others used back in the day were 2nd order Butterworth filters, you might want to start there.

I would get 16 ohm 100watt L-Pads from Parts Express to balance the levels. You can start out with inexpensive caps and inductors from Parts Express and when you find a filter you like, you can upgrade the parts.

Regarding box size and tuning, the JBL Pro Enclosure Guide for the E-130 which is similar enough, suggests 3 cu ft tuned to 40Hz. I believe the C38 box is 2.5-2.7 cu ft, so it is a bit tight.


Widget