JBL Lancer 66

[teal'c]

Picked these up the other day off craigslist.


Does anyone know if the pieces of wood are original? I know the velcro is not.
I thought the foam wasn't until I found other examples to demonstrate otherwise, but there aren't any frames for the foam.


This is the tweeter that wasn't working for the demo but a test with an AAA battery shows that it does. There is electrical tape wrapped around the connections, but the solder joints appeared to be original. There is also something rattling loose inside. Are these easy to disassemble/reassemble or should I just leave it?

Strangest wire connections I've seen, there doesn't seem to be any way to keep the connection solid. The holes in the posts are open, but close when you press down on the caps. The caps are spring loaded and re-open when pressure is removed.


Four coils, two are the FRL 10-20 ohms and two that are FRL 10-4 ohms. I'm assuming the other item is a cap, am I right? That says 1 or I MB 10296 and is a wax sealed cardboard tube.

 

[teal'c]

Definitely some crud on the switch contacts so they'll need deoxitizing before they go back together.
I've already got the new foams from Rick Cobb and hope to get to the woofers this weekend for my first refoam. Going to stop at HD tomorrow to pick up a hobby knife for removing the lansaloy from the cone.

 

[janikphoto]

There is a lot of Lancer info on here, so this should be an easy rebuild for you.

 

[Jeffery]

The long brown "coils" are wire wound resistors.

And I'm not sure those are Lancer 66s. All the pics I find of that model have the tweeter centered above the woofer, not off to the side. But JBL offered driver loads to custom shops to put into custom cabinets, too, so no telling. The "strips of wood" looking baffle is also something I've never seen on a JBL before, and the cut out for the woofer doesn't look really sharp, to boot.

 

[teal'c]

The long brown "coils" are wire wound resistors.

And I'm not sure those are Lancer 66s. All the pics I find of that model have the tweeter centered above the woofer, not off to the side. But JBL offered driver loads to custom shops to put into custom cabinets, too, so no telling. The "strips of wood" looking baffle is also something I've never seen on a JBL before, and the cut out for the woofer doesn't look really sharp, to boot.

Thanks for the data sheet. I do have it but had just pulled the crossovers as I was making the post so hadn't compared it yet.
They do have this on the back

The original owner was the uncle of the guy I bought them from, but he didn't have any info on them other than their path through his family.
I'm not seeing any labels inside either speaker and nothing on the back suggesting they were from a custom shop. There could be something under the insulation but I don't plan on pulling that. So if they aren't JBL made, maybe the original owner built them himself.

 

[Jeffery]

They might be custom jobs, then, just no maker's mark. But the crossover looks like it matches the schematic and they have that tag, so I'm not certain what's going on.

 

[biscuithead]

I just found a pair of Lancer 66s that have this same speaker cabinet configuration. I also have a pair with the stacked style.

 

[teal'c]

I just found a pair of Lancer 66s that have this same speaker cabinet configuration. I also have a pair with the stacked style.

Stacked style? I don't know what you mean by that.
Did yours come with grills? And did they have those wood pieces nailed to the front like mine?





So after some crossover discussion with EarlK here, I decided for the moment to just use the stock crossovers and will save the building of a custom network for a little down the road. I'm planning next summer sometime.

These caps are just off the shelf from the local electronics place. Nothing special. One is 250 volts and the other 650. They didn't have matched voltages that came this close to 6uf. The originals didn't have leads sticking out where the new ones do so I stuck them in old pill bottles to keep them isolated.




These are what they replaced. One from each crossover.


Here they are re-foamed, re-capped, and with the Morel CAT 378 tweeters installed. Currently the only thing they've been hooked up to is a Lafayette LR-310 with a lack of highs telling me it's in need of a re-cap, but they sound good. I plan on hooking them up to something more current soon so will have a better idea of how they're sounding so far, but so far I'm enjoying them. a little boomy towards the bottom of the mid bass, but below that they do fairly well within their ability. Good enough sounding that I'm looking forward to re-capping the Lafayette instead of just planning on it.




This is their current situation. I took them out of the garage and hauled one to a consultation with my wood guy, Dad. We discussed options and finishes and while i don't have a decision yet, I'm sure I'll decide before I do it.
Dad took some lacquer thinner and did some light sanding just to give some idea of process. You can see there's still some paint stuck but it already looks worlds better than it did before. This was the worse of the two. The one on the chair below was the better looking one when I purchased them. I also removed the pieces of wood that were nailed to the front and need to be filling in the holes. some went all the way through, but not all.

 

[Zonker92]

Wow; cool speakers.

 

[Rey1]

Those look nothing like the 66s I had which were "stacked" dual woofer passive set up with one tweeter. The grills on mine were different also. I think these may be a later,less common, design.

 

[biscuithead]

Stacked style? I don't know what you mean by that.
Did yours come with grills? And did they have those wood pieces nailed to the front like mine?





So after some crossover discussion with EarlK here, I decided for the moment to just use the stock crossovers and will save the building of a custom network for a little down the road. I'm planning next summer sometime.

These caps are just off the shelf from the local electronics place. Nothing special. One is 250 volts and the other 650. They didn't have matched voltages that came this close to 6uf. The originals didn't have leads sticking out where the new ones do so I stuck them in old pill bottles to keep them isolated.
View attachment 1031976



These are what they replaced. One from each crossover.
View attachment 1031977

Here they are re-foamed, re-capped, and with the Morel CAT 378 tweeters installed. Currently the only thing they've been hooked up to is a Lafayette LR-310 with a lack of highs telling me it's in need of a re-cap, but they sound good. I plan on hooking them up to something more current soon so will have a better idea of how they're sounding so far, but so far I'm enjoying them. a little boomy towards the bottom of the mid bass, but below that they do fairly well within their ability. Good enough sounding that I'm looking forward to re-capping the Lafayette instead of just planning on it.
View attachment 1031979



This is their current situation. I took them out of the garage and hauled one to a consultation with my wood guy, Dad. We discussed options and finishes and while i don't have a decision yet, I'm sure I'll decide before I do it.
Dad took some lacquer thinner and did some light sanding just to give some idea of process. You can see there's still some paint stuck but it already looks worlds better than it did before. This was the worse of the two. The pic below was the better looking one when I purchased them. I also removed the pieces of wood that were nailed to the front and need to be filling in the holes. some went all the way through, but not all.
View attachment 1031974

View attachment 1031973

Here is one from the earlier pair that I am calling "stacked". One speaker on top of the other centered :


Here is one from a later pair that looks like yours:

 

[teal'c]

Those look nothing like the 66s I had which were "stacked" dual woofer passive set up with one tweeter. The grills on mine were different also. I think these may be a later,less common, design.

Are you sure they were 66s and not 77s? http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/jbl-lancer-77-any-good.769393/#post-10565759

 

[biscuithead]

Those look nothing like the 66s I had which were "stacked" dual woofer passive set up with one tweeter. The grills on mine were different also. I think these may be a later,less common, design.

I've only seen two versions... maybe there are three versions.... Did yours have two woofers?

Edit: aww... you must of had 77s like Tealc said...

 

[Rey1]

My bad! I did have 77s! I never really listened to them as the surrounds were hard as rock. Sorry.

 

[teal'c]

Thanks for the pics biscuithead. I get it now.
Plus they let me see the original mount points for the grill that I found on mine underneath the added wood pieces that aren't on yours. Do your grills use those? One of the metal inserts is gone from inside the hole. I don't know if I'll try to use that for my grill or not,
Same yellow insulation through the bass port too.

 

[craggd]

Your speaker layout is the same as mine but the multi-piece backboard doesn't look original and the grills are definitely not. Good you replaced the surrounds on the woofers the original lansaloy is almost always necessary as it drys out and cracks. Here are some pics of mine. I like them a lot, enjoy.

 

[craggd]

FYI, The original LE20-1 tweeters aren't too hard to find, usually around $60-100 pair. I replaced one of mine as the nipple was indented. Let me know if you want more pictures of the back side of the grills. I had to source a second Lancer 66 emblem, that took a while, ironically locally on Craigslist!

 

[CSkoo]

Hello AK members, my JBL Lancer 66 speakers sound muddy and the high is roll off. Is this just due to the capacitor is out of order? The capacitor is 6 mf according to the datasheet, I should recap with the original value?The resistor is in the spec. when measured with multimeter. Should I replace all resistors as well? How about the induction coil? Need to replace as well? The crossover for both speakers seem different.

 

[teal'c]

If the highs have decreased, and you've ruled out your source, then yes they need a recap. Of course being 50+ years old they needed a recap anyway...
I didn't bother with the resistors because I never have them in line, but resistors too can go bad over time. So if you reduce the highs using the crossover, yes, replace them.
Do you still have the original surrounds on the woofers? If so they needed replacing 50 years ago and will most certainly ruin the sound. Not just bass, but all of the midrange too.
These surrounds go on the backside of the cone so that's where you want them, otherwise it's possible to bottom out the woofer which would mess with the sound and possibly ruin the speaker.

 

[CSkoo]

I see. The original surrounds are rotten, I have removed it and have purchased new surrounds from e-bay but has not received yet.

But the crossover consists of 5 resistors, two 4 ohm on the low mid and high. Two 20ohm resistors and one 2 ohm resistor connected with inductance and capacitor. The connection seem different with the JBL datasheet.