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John's JBL 4414's are almost done!

jackgiff

jackgiff

Well-Known Member
On the Show Us Your JBL's thread, I mentioned beginning to build a pair of 4414's for my friend John Nielsen who owns Prescott Brewing Company, and makes the finest porter I have ever tasted. I had one Lancer S99 cabinet, but bought another, which was fortunately mirror imaged. Saved a lot of work for me. The cabinet was finished in black paint, however, but since I did a mod to the back panel, it needed veneering anyway.

Here are a couple pix of the speakers almost finished. The only thing left to do is to mount neodymium magnets in place of the old clips JBL used to hold the grilles in place.

Hopefully, we can get a pic of John when he picks them up in the next few days.
 

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kfa888 said:
VERY nice :thmbsp: Are those rear ported? Is that original? We need pix of the front :D
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You are right, the front is the "business" end. Here are pix of the fronts.

The mid was mounted, along with it's 80 cubic inch subenclosure, in the hole where the port was on the front of the cabinet. The port was moved to the back. The tweeter was mounted in an enlarged hole where the Lancer 99's tweeter was.
 

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Those look GREAT, Jack, and I'm betting they sound mighty good, too!

I never recognized that S99s were mirror-imaged 'til you brought that to the attention of these forums. The pair I "Hotrodded" were not, but others I have here are, now that I look.

My 1968 catalog shows the "Lancer 99" stereo pair (with energizer) and the S99 "Athena" separately....
 
So did you need to retune the port length or dia to compensate for the cabinet volume you lost in the mid sub enclosure?
 
kfa888 said:
So did you need to retune the port length or dia to compensate for the cabinet volume you lost in the mid sub enclosure?
Click to expand...

I used the standard 4 inch ports, even though these cabinets had about 78 cubic inches greater volume than standard. A simple mod to the back panel added about 158 cubic inches before subtracting the 80 cubic inches of the mid's subenclosure.
 
What sort of crossovers did you use? I have S99s and Ti35 teeters coming soon. What le-5 mid works best?
 
barredowl said:
What sort of crossovers did you use? I have S99s and Ti35 teeters coming soon. What le-5 mid works best?
Click to expand...

That looks like a 104H-2 to me. That, and the Ti tweet, would suggest a 4412 crossover could be a good starting point...
 
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barredowl said:
What sort of crossovers did you use? I have S99s and Ti35 teeters coming soon. What le-5 mid works best?
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The crossovers came from some version of the L80 as far as I remember. They are pretty much like 4412 crossovers without the level adjusting L-Pads of the 4412. A 4412 crossover would probably be best, but I didn't want the L-Pads for these speakers. The response of the LE14A matched the crossovers frequency and level requirements without modification, but a couple resistor value changes were necessary to lower the output of the 104's used. An L-Pad would eliminate making any resistor changes.

As 4343 suggests, the mids are 104's, not LE5's, and the tweeters are 035Tia's. The 104 series is flatter in response than the LE5 series.

The sound is essentially that of a 4412 but with better bass extension. Very nice.
 
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jackgiff said:
The crossovers came from some version of the L80 as far as I remember. They are pretty much like 4412 crossovers without the level adjusting L-Pads of the 4412. A 4412 crossover would probably be best, but I didn't want the L-Pads for these speakers. The response of the LE14A matched the crossovers frequency and level requirements without modification, but a couple resistor value changes were necessary to lower the output of the 104's used. An L-Pad would eliminate making any resistor changes.

As 4343 suggests, the mids are 104's, not LE5's, and the tweeters are 035Tia's. The 104 series is flatter in response than the LE5 series.

The sound is essentially that of a 4412 but with better bass extension. Very nice.
Click to expand...

:thmbsp::drool:

Very, very cool project!!!!
 
:
jackgiff said:
You are right, the front is the "business" end. Here are pix of the fronts.

The mid was mounted, along with it's 80 cubic inch subenclosure, in the hole where the port was on the front of the cabinet. The port was moved to the back. The tweeter was mounted in an enlarged hole where the Lancer 99's tweeter was.
Click to expand...

Really nice job Jack...What did you build the sub-enclosure for the mid out of? Have to stop in Prescott on my next sojourn south to sample the Porter :beerchug:!
 
jackgiff said:
The crossovers came from some version of the L80 as far as I remember. They are pretty much like 4412 crossovers without the level adjusting L-Pads of the 4412. A 4412 crossover would probably be best, but I didn't want the L-Pads for these speakers. The response of the LE14A matched the crossovers frequency and level requirements without modification, but a couple resistor value changes were necessary to lower the output of the 104's used. An L-Pad would eliminate making any resistor changes.

As 4343 suggests, the mids are 104's, not LE5's, and the tweeters are 035Tia's. The 104 series is flatter in response than the LE5 series.

The sound is essentially that of a 4412 but with better bass extension. Very nice.
Click to expand...

4412A = No L-Pads, fixed resistors only. Saw a pair on local CL recently, but bought the 4410A set the guy had, just 2 resistors different, AFAIK.

Sounds great, more bass would be nice! I'm still getting used to my 4412A's, but so far I would not say that they are bass shy at all, just limited by the box size. Just picked up L-150A's, and the box size and PR really let the 128H shine in the low end.


LE-14's just don't seem to be in the cards for me yet, the only ones I've come across are the C model with the coax tweet... Hard Lansaloy too, so I'm still looking.:sigh:
 
NealinNevada said:
:

Really nice job Jack...What did you build the sub-enclosure for the mid out of? Have to stop in Prescott on my next sojourn south to sample the Porter :beerchug:!
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The sub enclosure was a JBL part, the cardboard tube that was purchased along with the 104's. Let me know when you pass through. I will buy you a porter.

Just for giggles, here are some pix of the pair of 4414's I built for myself at the same time Johns were built. Mine are in Lancer 55 cabinets that were re-veneered in rosewood. Pic 1 shows them in process, 2 & 3 finished, and 4 shows both pairs.
 

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24HACKER said:
Where did you get the rosewood veneer? Those look fantastic!!
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It is paper backed South American rosewood veneer, produced by Formwood Industries. Their web site is at <www.formwood.com>. Their website should have a method for finding a dealer in your area. I bought mine from Spellman Hardwoods in Phoenix.
 
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VERY nice!

je
 
Earl K recently observed that our Jack is genius when it comes to adaptive reuse of vintage speaker designs.

That gets a big "+1" from me!

[He's not all that bad in coming up with new ones, either.... ;) ]
 
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