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JBL L1 - Dull Highs

dangerdandan

dangerdandan

New Member
Hi yall,

Just bought a used pair of JBL L1s that I was super excited about. Read great reviews. They are in very good shape. Bass is outstanding, no reason to have a sub (especially in an apartment). But on the high end, the treble feels like it doesn't have enough "structure" sounding a little dull. Is this part of the vintage experience? I was actually expecting a brittle/shrill high to be an issue because of the titanium tweeter. Do I need new caps for the crossovers? They are 25+ year old speakers.

You guys rule.

Thanks!
Dan
 
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Maybe time for crossovers to be recap? I got some JBL L100T's that were stored away for 20 years. They sounded like a blanket was covering them when I took them out of storage.
Here is the manual..with all the information
 

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And you are "for sure" that the tweeters are actually working? Use an empty tube from toilet paper or paper towel and put right on the tweeter and see what they do.
 
It never hurts to ask. :) And both sound identical in their limited output? Kind of strange for those tweeters. You might take them out and hook them up direct thus bypassing the crossover and see what they sound like. Obviously you'd want to turn the bass all the way down on the tone controls and not play really loud. But at least it would give you a comparison. Do you have a digital multimeter that you can check the impedance of them?
 
Don't have a multimeter. Treble just seems veiled and muddy. Adjusting treble and midrange tone controls seems to alleviate it somewhat. I was just expecting the tweeter to be super revealing. I was listening to Vifa 1" 4ohm dome tweeters in my previous modded speaker.
 
Only 4 caps in that crossover and two of them are 0.01 bypass caps so this should be both inexpensive and easy to do.
 
What are you feeding them with?

I have two pair and no issues with the HF response.

If you do a recap, it will be interesting to see if it makes any difference. I always suggest doing just one at first and comparing it to the other.
 
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I’d also recommend a recap. While I’m new to this sort of thing myself, I recently recapped a pair of Realistic Optimus-1000s from the late ‘80s and the highs were noticeable brighter (in fact, maybe too much so for my tastes lol). They’re a hair older, but roughly the same vintage.

Joe
 
May also want to check the tweeters to see if their output is low due to the foam damper under the dome turning to goo and gumming up the voice coil gap. See thread about repairing JBL 035 tweeters https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/jbl-035ti-repair.643848/ to learn how to remove the front plate with dome and voice coil - caution, very delicate. Once removed, inspect the foam damper and replace.with similar open cell foam sized correctly and small rubber damper. Then blow and clean out gap with compressed air and a thin card stock covered with double sided tape and run it around the gap to clean it out thoroughly. Inspect the voice coil for any debris sticking to it. Then reassemble and test.

Do this after inspecting the crossover and/or changing out any suspect resistors and capacitors.
 
Ok update. Recap cost $15 with shipping from Parts Express. Did the left first and did a side by side. Totally cleaned up the dullness on the tweeter. Also cleaned up a little boominess on the bass. Not as crazy revealing as that previous Vifa, but that was a 4ohm tweeter paired with a 8ohm full range. Nice pleasant and balanced now. All that original JBL crossover work is through the board so it made it crazy super easy. Needed to take off the binding post unit and the woofer to get the crossover out. No flux needed. Probably 1.5 hour project total.

If you are comfortable with basic soldering I would totally do it. I was nervous at first, but there is no scary permanent sealants on the binding posts or woofer you have to break to get in. one caveat is that I had trouble finding the original holes in the bottom of the cabinets so had to rescrew new holes to secure the xover board.

BMWCCA: Yamaha r9 in Class A, with a Pioneer SA950 int amp used as a phono preamp.

I did not replace the .01 bypass caps. I didn't think it was necessary. Thoughts?
 
Ok, I'd forgotten just how good the little L1's sound. I picked up a pair on Friday who bought them new back in early 90's and they sound fabulous untouched. Got them running off my Mac MC250 and they are quite impressive with the detail they have. It's one of those times when someone says, " I swear I'm hearing things I haven't heard before". Darn nice. Either these or a pair of Klipsch KG 2.2's will be on the bookshelves in our new house. Keeping it simple in the living room...all the cool toys are upstairs.
 
@BMWCCA Yes, I've definitely thought about that as any rear ported speaker close to the wall yields odd results, sometimes. I had some rear ported Klipsch KLF-30's that sounded awful in our last living room whereas the front ported Klipsch Epic CF-3's sounded amazing and were more forgiving being closer to the wall. If the L1's don't work out in the living room, they'll go upstairs in my music room and I'll build stands for them. Most likely the Klipsch KG 2.2's will go in.
 
When you recap, it's better not to leave any, simply because u can get the same serie of caps and then, some kind of linearity with esr and ripple.
 
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