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The Most Abused L300s - A Restoration Thread

The woofers are not the original 136A L300 alnico woofers but the later 136H L300A woofers. I don't know if you have compared these or if there is/was a sonic difference other than the higher power rating and that the later non-alnico magnet has likely retained more of its orignal gauss. The "official" replacement would be the 2425J, I'd love to hear the 2216NDs in them and tri-amp would be great also.
 
markd51 said:
Having owned L-65's, the sheet under the glass top was actually more like a foam attached to a sheet of thick paper material.
After some years, this foam deteriorated and crumbled.<<snip>>
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Thank you for the correction, I now see that they were "6mm (1/4 in) tinted glass; polyester foam cushion" per JBL on the L300A
 
Congrats on a great curb score on a real icon of a speaker! And good on you for saving these from the landfill too. They will thank you later with a very dynamic sound that once heard most can't do without! :banana:
 
Thanks guys! I have the new glass being cut by a local shop currently. Luckily I had one good, although very dirty, piece of glass for them to duplicate. I'm debating whether I go for a camel or black fabric for the grills. Any suggestions?
 
Camel if it's going to blend with more formal decor, orange or blue for more entertainment type rooms.. I know my wife would never put up with orange or blue but might let in some color that doesn't draw attention to the itself like Camel.
 
So my back hasn't been treating me very well lately. My furniture restoration buddy came over today and grabbed these to restore them. He has no projects for the next two weeks besides these, so expect them looking good real soon! I did pop the woofers out to refoam while he is refinishing; love the old-school decal on the back.

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damacman said:
Threads like this make me smile ... Just wow ...

@avguytx - find some of these ...
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Just when you wonder if there are any good finds out there anymore this comes up, one of my "bucket list" pieces, complete and restorable, free, and acquired by a forum member who is restoring them and not parting them out. I agree, nominating this for a feels good thread.

I am a little confused however. I've been looking for a nice set of L300As, and thought that all of the speakers with the "MODEL L300" foilcals were L300As and therefore have the 136H woofer where the SUMMIT foilcals would be the original L300. Apparently this is not the case.

Does your serial number not have an A suffix? Makes finding the A model a bit more difficult as I thought seeing the later foilcal in photos meant L300A.
 
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Thanks for the chart, agrees with eveything else published that the A has the 136H woofer. However my question is whether these have the A serial number as I see that they have the early L300 136A Alnico woofer. If so, it would mean that either something was replaced, or if not then apparently JBL updated the foilcal before the woofer change.

When shopping for L300As, I've believed that all I need to see is the MODEL L300 foilcal to tell me it is an L300A and SUMMIT would indicate L300. This is the case with other JBLs, for example the L100 and L100A say L100 Century on the foilcal, where the L100 (late) only MODEL L100, or the L65 says JUBAL on the foilcal where the L65A and L65B have MODEL L65 foilcals. Of course all of these have the A (or B) after the S/N as appropriate.

Typically in photos it is difficult or impossible to see the A on the foilcal.
 
SaturationPt said:
Thanks for the chart, agrees with eveything else published that the A has the 136H woofer. However my question is whether these have the A serial number as I see that they have the early L300 136A Alnico woofer. If so, it would mean that either something was replaced, or if not then apparently JBL updated the foilcal before the woofer change.

When shopping for L300As, I've believed that all I need to see is the MODEL L300 foilcal to tell me it is an L300A and SUMMIT would indicate L300. This is the case with other JBLs, for example the L100 and L100A say L100 Century on the foilcal, where the L100 (late) only MODEL L100, or the L65 says JUBAL on the foilcal where the L65A and L65B have MODEL L65 foilcals. Of course all of these have the A (or B) after the S/N as appropriate.

Typically in photos it is difficult or impossible to see the A on the foilcal.
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Not certain but my guess is that it's like the L65's and L100's, the letter is in the s/n, or if it is the original, there simply is no letter in the s/n.

My L65's just said "Jubal" on the foilcal with no letter on the s/n. My L200 A's just say L200 Studio Master, but there is the A at the end of the s/n on those indicating a change was made, in that case very slight change to the crossover.

So my guess is that the foilcal on the L300 that just says "summit" is the original with 136A's and the A models that just say L300 on the foilcal has the 136H. It is possible that they adapted a policy of not saying the name of the speaker (Jubal, Summit etc) after the change to the magnet in which case there might be some A models that say Summit on the foilcal. It's a hard thing to prove as the alnico version was pretty short lived compared to the A model ..
 
Alobar said:
Not certain but my guess is that it's like the L65's and L100's, the letter is in the s/n, or if it is the original, there simply is no letter in the s/n.

My L65's just said "Jubal" on the foilcal with no letter on the s/n. My L200 A's just say L200 Studio Master, but there is the A at the end of the s/n on those indicating a change was made, in that case very slight change to the crossover.

So my guess is that the foilcal on the L300 that just says "summit" is the original with 136A's and the A models that just say L300 on the foilcal has the 136H. It is possible that they adapted a policy of not saying the name of the speaker (Jubal, Summit etc) after the change to the magnet in which case there might be some A models that say Summit on the foilcal. It's a hard thing to prove as the alnico version was pretty short lived compared to the A model ..
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The L300s that are the subject of this thread say MODEL L300 on the foilcal, but have the Alnico woofers. That's the confusion. Most that I see for sale are the earlier SUMMIT foilcal, it appears that the later ones are much less common on the used market and maybe JBL did not change the foilcal and woofer/A model at the same time.
 
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