JBL 3 -Speaker with N1200

jheu02

jheu02

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
Picked these up today at the local GW. Don't know if the third (smaller) speaker is actually part of this pair (like a center channel) or if it just got put with the two others due to the donation. Anywho, I haven't opened the backs yet...chilly and now late, but sure would like to know a bit more about them if anyone has more info. Googling has brought forth some info, but nothing definite.

Cabinet exterior dimensions are 36" H x 24" W x 15.75" D and are in decent shape for their age, but still rough with some missing veneer. The two bigguns have the N1200 crossovers and are almost sequential (13372, 13374) Smaller speaker has at least one horn and an odd attenuator on the back. It looks from driver layout like it should be placed vertically, however, the side that it's resting on in the photo is unfinished and is where the screw terminal for hookup sits. So, to me, it seems like a center speaker with a horizontal orientation. I can't really see the driver layout of the big cabinets due to the grill cloth. Haven't tried them with power...debating whether to check out the caps in the x-over first.

IMGP0947.JPG IMGP0948.JPG IMGP0949.JPG
 
Register to hide this ad
Perhaps it's th JBL 001 system.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/lansing_jbl_001_loudspeaker_syst.html
jbl_001_loudspeaker_system_c35_606229.jpg
 
A friend of mine picked up a similar pair of the larger speakers with matching console and a Sansui 2000A receiver mounted inside. Same 1200 crossovers with D130A woofers and LE-175 compression drivers w/matching horns, 16ohm. The cabinets and console were made by Barzillay, a common manufacturer of those cabinets in SoCal back in the day.

Here's the two pictures he sent me. I wish I would have found them first!
 

Attachments

  • Old JBL, 1.jpg
    Old JBL, 1.jpg
    54.9 KB · Views: 64
  • Old JBL, 2.jpg
    Old JBL, 2.jpg
    60.7 KB · Views: 63
Last edited:
tubed said:
Perhaps it's th JBL 001 system.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/lansing_jbl_001_loudspeaker_syst.html
Click to expand...

Quite likely this is it. Hooked them up and they work fine. I'm tempted to not mess with the xover caps and just restore the cabinets. Not sure of the WAF, but she is mainly interested in the sound quality. With restored cabinets they just may fit, replacing AR-3a's I restored. The base support frame will need rebuilt with new wood, and the front veneer will need redone. I may see if Howard's will work well enough for the rest of the cabinet. There's a glow and depth in the finish I don't know that I'll recapture if I strip down to bare wood and refinish.

Looks like they may only be rated to 20W or so, and really efficient (102dB), so looks like pairing them either with my CA-800 in Class A or a tube amp may be the best way to go. Not sure how that will go with the wife though.
 
If you decide to open them up, I would at least use some contact cleaner on the gain controls. Those crossovers are normally pop-riveted which is a minor challenge. It's very cool your wife cares more about the sound more than the look, lucky guy! My wife?:no:
 
Last edited:
jheu02 said:
Quite likely this is it. Hooked them up and they work fine. I'm tempted to not mess with the xover caps and just restore the cabinets. Not sure of the WAF, but she is mainly interested in the sound quality. With restored cabinets they just may fit, replacing AR-3a's I restored. The base support frame will need rebuilt with new wood, and the front veneer will need redone. I may see if Howard's will work well enough for the rest of the cabinet. There's a glow and depth in the finish I don't know that I'll recapture if I strip down to bare wood and refinish.

Looks like they may only be rated to 20W or so, and really efficient (102dB), so looks like pairing them either with my CA-800 in Class A or a tube amp may be the best way to go. Not sure how that will go with the wife though.
Click to expand...
You may want to peer into the back of the woofer cone with a flashlight and view the back of the cone mainly at its "surround".
You may find a series of tiny cracks in the paper surround, or at least that's what I found on the D130's in my 030 system.
Rather than recone, I treated the tiny cracks with a bit of Alenes and a fine artists paint brush, leaving the recone to a future owner.
 
Decided to open one up and here's what I found: 130A and 175 drivers, both 16ohms. The one I opened presents a 6ohm load to my meter, the other an 8.6ohm load. Thoughts on what could be causing the difference (xover caps?) and whether I need to do anything about it? I didn't test the individual drivers, so that could also be the cause... Doesn't look like they've ever been opened judging from the screw threads. I wonder if they could be improved upon with a little extra bracing and or some polyfil. Perhaps also twisted wires and higher gauge at that. :idea: Otherwise, I was in the right place, right time. They had been put out on the floor just yesterday. I guess the third speaker was homemade, though I haven't opened it up to see what drivers are in it. I forget which tube amp(s) had the feature of three channels, but perhaps that's what the former owner was using.

IMGP0950.JPG IMGP0951.JPG IMGP0952.JPG
 
Last edited:
Ok, curiosity got the best of me. Opened up the third speaker and here's what I found: Low frequency is a JBL D216, Horn is an EV Wolverine TW-35 and Wolverine xover. Haven't done any research on it yet, but I'm thinking with the finish of the cabinet this MAY have been bought as a set, or custom install.

IMGP0953.JPG IMGP0954.JPG IMGP0955.JPG
 
jheu02 said:
Decided to open one up and here's what I found: 130A and 175 drivers, both 16ohms. The one I opened presents a 6ohm load to my meter, the other an 8.6ohm load. Thoughts on what could be causing the difference (xover caps?) and whether I need to do anything about it? I didn't test the individual drivers, so that could also be the cause... Doesn't look like they've ever been opened judging from the screw threads. I wonder if they could be improved upon with a little extra bracing and or some polyfil. Perhaps also twisted wires and higher gauge at that. :idea: Otherwise, I was in the right place, right time. They had been put out on the floor just yesterday. I guess the third speaker was homemade, though I haven't opened it up to see what drivers are in it. I forget which tube amp(s) had the feature of three channels, but perhaps that's what the former owner was using.

View attachment 1737540 View attachment 1737541 View attachment 1737542
Click to expand...
You will have to open the other cabinet and see what is in that one as well .the mismatched resistance is probably caused my a different impedance d130 as the made them in both 8ohm and 16 ohm.and different model numbers.its highly unlikely the crossover is causing the mismatch.troubles with a crossover would have more of of a impact of the sound coming out of the speaker than a impedance mismatch.please open it up and confirm all drivers are the same in both speakers.ill get back to you on the third speaker.
 
Oh fwiw nice score.as for amps go the Yamaha might sound great with them.theres alot of people using solid-state amps with horn speakers (high efficiency)you just want to keep the volume down.Hell with the sensitivity of those speakers I doubt youd push anymore than 1 or 2 watts depending on you room size.
 
jheu02 said:
Decided to open one up and here's what I found: 130A and 175 drivers, both 16ohms. The one I opened presents a 6ohm load to my meter, the other an 8.6ohm load. Thoughts on what could be causing the difference (xover caps?) and whether I need to do anything about it? I didn't test the individual drivers, so that could also be the cause... Doesn't look like they've ever been opened judging from the screw threads. I wonder if they could be improved upon with a little extra bracing and or some polyfil. Perhaps also twisted wires and higher gauge at that. :idea: Otherwise, I was in the right place, right time. They had been put out on the floor just yesterday. I guess the third speaker was homemade, though I haven't opened it up to see what drivers are in it. I forget which tube amp(s) had the feature of three channels, but perhaps that's what the former owner was using.

View attachment 1737540 View attachment 1737541 View attachment 1737542
Click to expand...

Based on the crossover, this is totally what I would have expected to find. Don't worry about the dc resistances as this is normal for these. If they still have the red wax seals, in all probability they are completely original (=$$$). No one would have gone to the effort to counterfeit those anyways.

Best thing that you can do, and you will thank me, is to add a 16 ohm L-pad at the crossover's output to the horn allowing you to adjust its level, much moreso than just with the three way switch and without modifing anything that may hurt its historic value.

Once you get that, we can discuss extending the high frequency range of the 175 using a small value by-pass capacitor/resistor.
 
Last edited:
radioactive said:
Oh fwiw nice score.as for amps go the Yamaha might sound great with them.theres alot of people using solid-state amps with horn speakers (high efficiency)you just want to keep the volume down.Hell with the sensitivity of those speakers I doubt youd push anymore than 1 or 2 watts depending on you room size.
Click to expand...

Yep. Want to make sure we don't give them TOO much power though...current amp where I'm thinking of putting them is 120WPC and my wife likes to "deejay" with the disc collection.

Here's the other cabinet's drivers pics. Interestingly, I metered all the drivers with wires disconnected from the crossovers and none of them were anywhere near 16 ohms (though they are close to each other from a manufacturing standpoint). Perhaps they were mislabeled and were actually 8 ohm drivers. :idea:

I'll call the first one shown L and the second R

L 130A 5.2 ohm Ser. # 23801
L 175 5.9 ohm Ser. # 14525

R 130A 6.8 ohm Ser. # 23830
R 175 5.7 ohm Ser. # 14516

IMGP0956.JPG IMGP0957.JPG
 
A few months ago I inherited a similar pair of JBLs and had the same question about the ohm rating. My understanding from the gurus at audioheritage.org is that the label rating was more marketing than technical. The power rating seems accurate though, I haven't seen anything to cause me to doubt that.
 
I’ve heard this story to be true and false which I guess makes it an urban legend? Story goes as best I can remember is the “King of the Surf Guitar,” Dick Dale, started using early D130’s for guitar work which they were not designed for. Consequently, he blew out a few of them. Supposedly he collaborated with JBL and I believe Leo Fender to make a beefier D130 with 4" voice coils and some other changes. Again, I don’t know if it’s true but a dual D130 Fender cab with a tube Showman or Bassman tube head can make some killer tones!
 
Last edited:
JBL 15 inch woofers have historically had 4" voice-coils ( this includes all D130 & 130A variants ).

page1.jpg


Access to the LHF Library continues to be free and it's useage is encouraged for those who care about the accuracy of their statements.

page1.jpg


:)
 
My understanding is that the D130, being a full-range speaker, has an aluminum voice coil, has a lighter moving mass, and handles less power than the 130A with its copper voice coil. That being said, I've run my 030s for over 50-years with amps up to 200-wpc and they only sound better the more power I give them. Not that they need much power to make beautiful sound! My first one sounded fine to me played through the earphone output from a ChannelMaster transistor radio back when I was 9-years old.

The problem encountered in Fender's use of the D130 (they didn't use the 130A) was (according to Harvey Gerst who came up with the "F" series) that the Fender assembly line workers were torquing the D130 to the amps' baffles incorrectly, randomly, and unevenly, causing the voice-coil to bind. Harvey's solution was to build them specially for Fender with a wider gap in the VC so they wouldn't be put in a bind by mishandling. This lowered the efficiency slightly but otherwise they became quite legendary with their orange baskets. I've even played a bass guitar through my D130s with no problem. Harvey also mentioned his favorite JBL guitar speaker was the D123 which I recently swapped into a Fender amp, and carefully torqued the mounting screws. Reviews from the real players who've tried it agree with Harvey!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom