Big & Pink
Active Member
Blown was what I believe the original owners told the guy that I bought them from, or maybe he discovered them to be replaced with sub par replacements. Either way, he did an excellent job updating them with the correct replacement option and finding a pair with white cones (IMO) really makes these stand out! I searched high and low online to see if that was a common thing and only found one photo similar to mine in Japan. I don’t believe they are NOS replacements because speaker exchange sells these and they look relatively new. The aquaplas dampening is even there, but that might be a different material (?). The grills and cloth are original and were extremely well preserved.The 128 should prove to be an upgrade. Still amazing me how people just throw-away an original driver. Not quite sure how you "blow" a JBL 12-inch woofer. In most cases this means the surround has deteriorated. The 128H-1 might have looked more appropriate but you can always cover them with the grilles! If the grilles you have are original, they are most likely more orange than red.
As for the sound, now I know why these are so revered! Once I got them set up properly on the cubes at optimal hight and way from the wall, it was like listening to music for the first time all over again. I really couldn’t stop listening and enjoying them. I still have some fiddling to do to tame the tweeters a little bit, but now I know why they alone have such a crazy price on fleaBay.
Best part about having new speakers open up some transparency and detail that I was not getting from my L56’s was how I was going though a lot of my records I had not listened to in ages because I had to listen to what I knew I was missing and in comparison I was missing a lot. For my ears, rediscovering the music and getting lost in that was like getting into music for the first time all over again.
