Just got a cool new pair of speakers...JBL D130 15"s in original cabinets

I found these in the bay area this weekend. I paid $150 for the pair, which is nice. Each cabinet is loaded with one 15" JBL D130 16 ohm woofer. I got them home tonight and plugged them into my daughter's 3 wpc Realistic Stereo 24 tube amp and I am shocked at how good these actually sound. I wasn't expecting much, but they are quite nice. Does anyone know what the frequency range or efficiency rating on these are? I can't even find the specs on the Lansing heritage site. I suppose I'll test them tomorrow and see how much treble information they are capable of delivering, but I'm thinking that I'm going to have to supplement these with a tweeter of some sort. I have a pair of vintage 16 ohm EV crossovers and a pair of giant Jensen 16 ohm horns. It might be really cool to mount those externally and rig something up here.

 

Here are the woofer specs.
Check out this link too http://www.audioheritage.org/html/profiles/jbl/d130.htm

 

This is funny... $77.50 original retail price x 2... almost the $150 Prix paid for his pair(I'm not good at math )

Seriously, though, that was one expensive speaker driver at the time, I guess. And quite a good one, from the comments at the Lansing Heritage forums. Congratulations, Prix!

 

They are beautiful, Gary.


The system thing is a disease. I'm trying so hard not to keep all of this stuff. Sometimes being in the audio business is tough this way. I get attached to my inventory. I've decided, ultimately, to keep only four systems: One for the music room, one for the living room, and one for the t.v. room. I'm still waiting to get one of my Scott 299B amps back from my tech so I can do the great Scott vs. Fisher shootout. Whichever sounds better between the 299B and my Fisher X-202-B stays and the other will be sold....maybe. In any case, it's looking like my systems will be as follows:

1) ANALOG:

J A Michell Hydraulic Reference Turntable
Shure V 15 III cartridge
Scott 299B integrated amp
Scott 330 tuner w/ Scott MPX unit
Viking 88 reel to reel tape deck
Superscope CD-302A cassette deck
Tannoy Mallorcan Monitor Gold 12" speakers

2) DIGITAL:

Music Hall CD-25 cd player
Scott 250 mono block amps
Tannoy Cantata Monitor Gold 12" speakers

3) BEDROOM:

Realistic CD-1200 cd player
Realistic Stereo 24 integrated tube amp
Mission 774 speakers

4) T.V. ROOM:

JVC HR-S29U S-VHS player
Dell Dimension 4100 w/ DVD ROM, VCR adapter, and 5.1 surround sound card
Philips flat panel LCD monitor housed in carcass of vintage '50s Emerson t.v.
JBL D-130 speakers w/ vintage EV crossovers and Jensen 18" horns for mains
Jensen DF-1 center channel
Seeburg heavily modified/hotrod 7868 jukebox amp for rear speakers
Fisher X-202-B integrated amp for front speakers and center Channel

Note: haven't decided on rear speakers or whether or not to include a sub. I may also
ditch the idea of using the computer and monitor as my DVD source and t.v. and buy this
HUGE, industrial, wonderfully hideous, vintage video monitor a friend of mine has for $20.
Can't wait to throw up my vintage 3-D movie poster collection either!

5) Throughout the house will be various vintage radios, phonographs, and 8-track players as
well. My ultimate goal is some sort of system in every room, including the bathroom.

I justify all of this ridiculous excess and shrine to materialism in the following ways:

A) since my audio business is out of my home, by appointment...and this is my showroom and it has to be impressive.

B) since my girlfriend of 8 years/mother of my child is leaving, I have to find some way to curb the depression.

C) I'm starting my midlife crisis early...at 31. In fact, as soon as I pay back a couple of friends who have loaned me money to get through these tough times, I'm going to buy myself two other things I've always wanted: a dog and a vintage Cadillac.

Let's hear it for divorce!

 

Fun w/ DYI home audio.......


Here are the JBL D-130 15"s wired with Electro Voice X36 crossovers and the massive Jensen horns. I need to build a heavy metal base for the horns so they can sit on top of the cabinets properly. I also need to restore the horns, get rid of the rust, repaint them, rewire, etc. As it sits with the Scott 222, this system sounds INCREDIBLE with jazz. Playing KISS through these, however, is a little less than desirable.

 

SOOOO COOOL Guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Kind of Blue MUST sound awesome!!!!!!!!

 

That's a hell of an idea, Ron! I'm gonna go put that on right now. Currently listening to some Jr. Walker. I switched back over to the Realistic Stereo 24 which actually sounds a little better than the Scott with this setup. It's much warmer in the traditional bloated, euphoric, tubey sense, and those horns can be a little shrill. What these speakers need is the Scott 299B and some jazz vinyl!

 

Fine with me. Forum members are always welcome at my place. So far, pdenny is the only one who's had the courage. Hell, Gary....wait 'till you see the photos of this place when I get it all set up properly. It's still all wife friendly and stuff right now. Things are gonna change around here come the first of the month.


BTW, "Kind of Blue" does sound pretty awesome on this rig. Horns through horns are the wave of the future!

Furthermore, this is a prime example of the idea that it is more than possible for folks to have fun with "audiophile" gear on a budget. This entire system...w/ speakers, horns, tube amp and repairs, cables, cd player, and crossovers cost me less than $200.

 

thrift stores here I come

 

Almost all of the vintage stereos in the thrift stores in my area are in junky condition but if I had more space, I'd hook up various vintage stereo systems to go along with my home theater system.

 

The HT system would be in the living room in a perfect world with vintage or all professional in various rooms of the house where I'm at but with my setup, I can hook up both vintage and modern components in the same system for the "best of both worlds" due to the mixer I am using for a phono preamp.

 

The Panasonic solid state console my uncle has (from the 1970s) is great in that it has great sound, great speakers that still work, the cartridge can be replaced in the future, it does play 8-tracks, 78s, and even has a line-in. The turntable still works well to this day on it. I'd someday have a separate room in the house for TV and HT stuff, while the Panasonic would be in the living room or my bedroom in the future. I'd even take the 8-track recorder and the reel-to-reel tape deck (both still work to this day).

 

That I am. In the future when my uncle dies, I will most likely end up with his stereo equipment, his vinyl, etc.

 

I've seen nothing but total junk at our local thrift shops. I mean, we're talking about those old all-in-one changer/8-track/AM-FM sets, or beat up old consoles. The good stuff must go rather quickly. The only thing with tubes I saw was a Magnavox table radio. It was filthy, and someone had drilled a hole in the top where someone had installed an industrial-looking toggle switch to turn the power off. BUT, I could get you a half dozen dot matrix printers from the mid 80's.

 

Boy, isn't THAT the truth.... Nothing but Dataproducts, old Epsons, Okidata 390s....

 

Even "junk" with tubes in it is potentially worth grabbing, IMO. I can't tell you how many times I've found free broken stuff or cheap shabby "garbage" only to find a rack of Telefunken 12AX7s or 7591s or something inside. A salvaged console can easily turn into a couple hundred bucks....tubes, knobs, drivers, crossovers, power amps, turntables, etc. I've even been known to load up a ratty old organ or two I've found discarded on the street just to take it home and take <edited by: Gary> the tubes out of it, etc.....only to return it to the curb afterwards <edited by: Gary> . Heck, I just bought a pile of old organ parts from a guy for $20. Out of the deal I got a working leslie/tremelo unit that is absolutely KILLER for guitar and vocals, a rack of about 40 12AU7s(a lifetime supply) in the tone generating circuitry, and a mono power amp with four 7868s, which is a cool $100 worth of power tubes alone.

Lately I've really been into putting together multiple hodge-podge systems comprised of "junk" just to try them out and experience music in different ways. To me, this is an entirely new audiophile experience in the sense that all of these vintage systems have strengths and something unique to offer the listener. In fact, the most amazing "audiophile" experience I've ever had was not a $100,000 system in a sound-proof room. Do you know what it was? It was a Charlie Christian 78 on a mint condition vintage Wurlitzer juke box. I'll never forget that sound. I find this kind of thing much more rewarding then seeking out the mythical be-all, end-all super-system that doesn't exist.....and even if it was possible to satisfy me, I'd be bored of it in a week.

 

Back in high school, my friend and I used to go out garbage picking on our bikes, and we'd sometimes pick up a TV chassis to strip it of all the components. (I remember having to balance some unwieldly thing on top of my handlebars on more than one occasion! ) I still have a couple of parts drawers filled with "stuff", but these days I don't have the room or the time to keep anything else, and plenty of unfinished projects laying around to work on. I'm going to hit it lucky one of these days, however, and find some old Dynaco gear or maybe some nutty family selling Grampaw's old McIntosh gear for pennies on the dollar at an estate sale.

Best "garbage" I found was at the curb at my neighbor's house. Backed into my driveway one night and saw what looked like a bunch of RCA jacks on the back of something--it turned out to be a Kenwood receiver. I hunted around on eBay for a couple of weeks and found out it was 100wpc front, 15wpc rear (this was a "Dolby Surround" receiver, made in the days before "Pro-Logic"). I cleaned it up, straightened the volume knob, let it dry out for a week, and fired it up. At first it gave me an error message about a problem with the power amp (shorted output, maybe--it still could have been wet), but I moved to the "B" set of speaker terminals and it has worked for the past couple of years as a bedroom system. Since the neighbor's son was a metalhead, I thought it may have been toasted...and if so, it would have been back out at the curb.

Once found a tubed public address amplifier in one of the aforementioned trash runs (may have been a Bogen...?), but I have no clue what ever happened to it. My folks may have tossed it.

 

Those cabinets are gorgeous, Prix (the JBL's that you started the thread with). Dawn would LOVE to get her refinishing hands on those ;-).

Every time you tell us about another acquisition I wonder how on earth you're going to get to the bathroom or kitchen without tripping over something and killing yourself! Your house indeed should be the first stop on a Northern California Hoffman.TV Tour!

Your comment about the old 78 playing on a jukebox touches a chord with a lot of us, I'm sure. The simplicity and directness of original equipment just does something to the sound, doesn't it? Every couple of months or so I'll turn out the lights and go through a stack of Coleman Hawkins, Harry the Hipster, Spike Jones and Slim Gaillard 78's on this fella I found at a Ventura thrift store a few years back: