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vintage JBL speakers

G

gunnerace

New Member
JBL.....LOOKING FOR HELP IDENTIFING VINTAGE JBL SPEAKERS
I bought a pair of near mint vintage jbl speakers but I can not identify the model number the cabinets are minty no defects in the wood and the speakers sound great each cabinet has one JBL LE 85 DRIVERS and one JBL H91 HORN and the crossovers are LX8 ....the speakers look just like the jbl c50 Olympus and /or the alpha c70 BUT these are different.....they came out of Monterey CA..in the late 1960's and were here in Houston for over 40 years until I bought them ,need the make model years made any history or info ,and the current value ....thanks for your help mike
 

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jbl

If you don't know the model, just send them to me and I will persevere to find it.
They must be worth a mint.
You got a real deal there.
Really nice. Makes the more recent speaker offerings available today from anyone sound like two cats fighting.

You could bury me in one of those.

Paul
 
reply vintage jbl

sheltie dave said:
Mike, you just bought them, so you know the value.

Check the library at www.audioheritage.org, they may be Flairs or Sovereign IIs.
Click to expand...

thanks for the info I have gone there and I still can not find a picture or any link that would identify the speakers as what ever they are ....they are not Flairs or Sovereign IIs. because if you google them a different set of pictures comes up I don't know if that is good or not .........as far as just buying them and not knowing a thing about them I am not an audiophile but I do own many vintage pieces of audio equipment and knew when I got a text from a friend that runs an estate sale business that I needed to see these speakers and bought them for next to nothing .........the grill is worth what I paid anyway I will keep looking
 
If you promise not to sell these like everyone else who asks for value with their first post, I would tell you they are 1974 Flairs with an S12 package.

"as far as just buying them and not knowing a thing about them I am not an audiophile but I do own many vintage pieces of audio equipment and knew when I got a text from a friend that runs an estate sale business that I needed to see these speakers and bought them for next to nothing .........the grill is worth what I paid anyway I will keep looking"

Be aware that cozy arrangements with real estate sales companies, where the sales company sells valued gear at a fire sale price to friends, to the financial detriment of the client, is one of the "back door" dealings that many here dislike.
 
If you promise not to sell these like everyone else who asks for value with their first post, I would tell you they are 1974 Flairs with an S12 package.:thmbsp:
 
BMWCCA said:
Your photos would indicate otherwise. :scratch2:
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking.
You cant judge a speaker by its cabinetry.... your pic shows an LE14A an LE20 and the LX8..... the S12 package just like Dave said.

http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/jbl/catalogs/1974-home/page20.jpg

However......:scratch2:....... I think the cabinets are C50's

No matter...you need to get those surrounds replaced ( that's the yellow rings around the cone (the white part) ).
Those are made from a material called LansAlloy and will crumble if you use them for any length of time ( brake fluid does not work and could damage the cone ). The LE20 was not JBL's best driver, as I understand....it basically didn't go high enough to be a true HF driver or low enough to cover the mid range hole in the LE14A
I just sold a pair of those cabinets to a friend for $100.00
You might get lucky and find a foreign buyer to to pay you big $$ for the cabs and or grills.
Are you prepared to ship something like that ?? shipping those grills is like shipping glass,especially since they wrap around as opposed to being flat.
...a local sale on say CL is a crap shoot.

gunnerace said:
...need the make model years made any history or info ,and the current value ....
Click to expand...

:lmao: . I'll bet !
 
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I believe you could purchase the cabinet and load separately at some point. C50 & S12. Looks to be done outside of the factory.

You may want keep the cabinets depending on your tastes. They were built well and just classy. I like the nice wood work from Acusti-Craft and Barzilay as well. I've given up on the idea, but I wanted to take something like that and give it a modern, hand picked load of my choice.
 
I was scratching my head on this. First time I have ever seen Sovereigns repurposed down into a lesser speaker. I have seen lowboy Flairs with the one off Sovereign grilles, but the front photo gave poor indication which way this owner went. :scratch2:
 
At that time, you didn't order a model speaker from a JBL, you ordered the cabinet with one of their systems installed. Peruse the catalogs at Lansing Heritage for examples. My 2 cents.
 
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