Several years ago I saw Powerman at Bob’s party (Robie on AK) and he told me about a new build - he found Altec Valencia cabinets (empty, no drivers) on CraigsList and thought they would make a good platform to build speakers with JBL components that could be better than Valencia speakers.
Powerman (Dave) lives in the NW suburbs of Chicago and has an extensive collection of custom build JBL speakers and a big collection of JBL drivers and components and a lot of power amps. He's been collecting JBL drivers for many years, many from old movie theaters and nightclubs in the Chicago area and the midwest that were torn down many years ago.
So in Powerman’s words, this is what this Altec / JBL custom build is about.
"The Valencia cabinets that I refinished and cut a new top baffle board for were tuned to 40hz.
The components used are JBL 2225H a 15" woofer. I like it better than the 2226 which has a bigger rising response in the midrange. woofers are 8 ohms. The horns are very thick cast JBL 2345 much better than the Altec's and have proper loading to 800 hz and below.
The midrange / high freq. is a JBL 2426J. All components use original JBL diaphragms no aftermarkets. The crossover used are JBL 3110A rated for 300 watts with high frequency equalization for extended high frequency 8 ohm low and 16 ohm high. Also had to use a 16 ohm 50 watt Lpad to bring the horns down some more. Very efficient at 111db for the horns, the crossovers only give you a 10db pad. The woofers are 97 db so you dial down 4 db on the horns to match.
The system is 97db/1/watt and max input of 300 watts with 121db output. They work well with 5 watts and scary loud at full input. And new JBL black grille cloth. Weight about 128pds each. Dave"
Powerman (Dave) lives in the NW suburbs of Chicago and has an extensive collection of custom build JBL speakers and a big collection of JBL drivers and components and a lot of power amps. He's been collecting JBL drivers for many years, many from old movie theaters and nightclubs in the Chicago area and the midwest that were torn down many years ago.
So in Powerman’s words, this is what this Altec / JBL custom build is about.
"The Valencia cabinets that I refinished and cut a new top baffle board for were tuned to 40hz.
The components used are JBL 2225H a 15" woofer. I like it better than the 2226 which has a bigger rising response in the midrange. woofers are 8 ohms. The horns are very thick cast JBL 2345 much better than the Altec's and have proper loading to 800 hz and below.
The midrange / high freq. is a JBL 2426J. All components use original JBL diaphragms no aftermarkets. The crossover used are JBL 3110A rated for 300 watts with high frequency equalization for extended high frequency 8 ohm low and 16 ohm high. Also had to use a 16 ohm 50 watt Lpad to bring the horns down some more. Very efficient at 111db for the horns, the crossovers only give you a 10db pad. The woofers are 97 db so you dial down 4 db on the horns to match.
The system is 97db/1/watt and max input of 300 watts with 121db output. They work well with 5 watts and scary loud at full input. And new JBL black grille cloth. Weight about 128pds each. Dave"
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