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JBL L300

Keep up the good work! I had a similar amount of work to do on my JBL4435's and have never looked back, oh and I got mine for $100 a piece ;-) nothing quite like cheap, large format vintage JBL's....!
 
Got a coat of paint on the front, top, and back tonight. The binding posts I got for them fit the holes perfectly, just need some washers to make the terminals fit better.

Thank you Don, I can see myself enjoying them for many years. And yes, with vintage, there is the possibility to obtain a beautiful looking and sounding pair of speakers for very little monetary investment. A little work to make them look and/or sound better is just part of the fun.
 

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Finally one is near complete enough to show what they are going to look like, at least until I get proper woofers for them.
Sorry it is blurry.
 

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Mods...can we move this thread to the speaker forum...seems a more fitting place for this resurrection of a piece of JBL history!!
 
I may even spray paint the old woofers to make them look less out of place.

How are the grill pegs attached, does anyone know? Mine are either broken off or missing, and I would like to pull the old ones out for when I acquire new pegs. I just don't want to cause damage doing so.

Grills are not top of my list, but if you have some pictures of how they are fashioned I would appreciate seeing them.

I still have not decided on the lenses, plastic or wood... Plastic was the original, and I should think that the engineers at JBL knew a lot more about what they should be made of than I do.
 
OK. Thank you VintagePlus. I love how everyone here is so helpful. I was reading some of the posts about the families that AK through Grumpy and Mrs. Grumpy adopted for the past few Christmases. Really cool stuff.
 
I may even spray paint the old woofers to make them look less out of place.

How are the grill pegs attached, does anyone know? Mine are either broken off or missing, and I would like to pull the old ones out for when I acquire new pegs. I just don't want to cause damage doing so.

Grills are not top of my list, but if you have some pictures of how they are fashioned I would appreciate seeing them.

I still have not decided on the lenses, plastic or wood... Plastic was the original, and I should think that the engineers at JBL knew a lot more about what they should be made of than I do.

Grill pegs were friction fit into corresponding holes, but they were made from an ABS type plastic which became brittle so they tended to break off. Best replacements I've found are the ones marketed on Ebay by Sign-shop, he makes them out of Delrin plastic and are the correct size. Not cheap but you only need 8 of them. He also sells a Grab-it extraction tool which make removing them a snap (you can also get the same from Grab-it website or possibly Lowes - Home Depot used to carry them (made in America) but now has cheaper Far East knockoffs). Very handy tools if you have a broken screw/bolt etc.

http://www.thegrabitstore.com/Pages/default.aspx

As for the lenses, JBL originally made them individually and set them in a mount. Later, they went to injection molded plastic which could be stacked with the proper angles and spacing. I think they went with plastic as a relatively inexpensive and repeatable moldable material. The sound doesn't really care much about the material as long as its relatively inert. Witness many horns made of metal, wood, plastic that shape the response and dispersion. Same for lenses, JBL made them from metal, plastic, shaped wood, etc. For this application, IMO, plastic or wood will work fine. Remember, its to shape the response and dispersion pattern.
 
Welcome back Mech986, hopefully everyone is healthy in your family now.

We stock those Grab-it extractors at the ACE where I work. Ours is rather a large store, so we stock many things that are less common.

Seems like with the lenses, the number of fins and the spacing between them may have an impact on how they shape the sound. The original lenses had quite a few fins, and it seems that the wood replacements have far fewer.

I am happy to have had the chance to work on them some more, with the children and other factors, I had not had the time to do very much recently.
 
Wish I could use these in my living room, but here are my two "bane of dustcaps everywhere". :-)
 

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Keep up the good work! I had a similar amount of work to do on my JBL4435's and have never looked back, oh and I got mine for $100 a piece ;-) nothing quite like cheap, large format vintage JBL's....!



Why would anyone spend that kind of money on big,booming, nasal sounding, honking JBLs??? :scratch2:
 
Valveglow, you have not looked to see what kind of prices these command on eBay or elsewhere have you? You do not offend me, personal taste is a curious thing.

Beauty is in the ear of the listener.
 
Valveglow, you have not looked to see what kind of prices these command on eBay or elsewhere have you? You do not offend me, personal taste is a curious thing.

Beauty is in the ear of the listener.


Are you serious or just joking?

look at his avatar...:yes:

I forget that there is a mechanism that some folks employ to turn off the avatar viewing. I personally own and am absolutely enthralled by the JBL 4435s. Are there better speakers out there? In a way, I don't even care, as when I turn them on, they turn ME on by transporting me to a different place.

What shocked me was the $100 a pop.


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