Choices.... Choices.... JBL D130F and E140
 

On a path to begin restoring a 2x15 cab I’ve had for years purchased used. Still have the Acoustic 360 head purchased with the cab.
Currently it is loaded with E140. I would like to place the old D130F back in place after re coning one since it was damaged after loaning to a friend for a party. Never again.... lesson learned.
Now the cab is a head scratcher. Looks to be custom but I’m not sure.
I always said it's a fender dual showman... But apparently it's not after looking around at several pictures here.

Inside dimensions are 11d x 28.5w x 42.5h.
There are two large ports cut out of the motor board (3/4") at 4"x17".
Surround walls are 2x3/4" ply all including 2x4 reinforcement around the walls and ports. Back cover (3/4") is reinforced with 2x4 and all nooks and crannies are packed with insulation/loose poly.
Speakers are offset not stacked.

So considering my options...
1) Who would you trust to rebuild the D130F?
2) Ohm rating on the D130F is 16 and 8 ohms so I guess it depends on series or parallel wiring to the jack what the ohm rating of the cab would be after? Currently it's 4 ohm with the two E140.

I am considering having Emperor build two single cabs for the E140 and have the Dual D130 cab as backup/home use.
Would be nice to also run all of them in stereo if needed for an outside gig and or at home to scare the family and neighbors from time to time. I will try to get some pictures linked soon.

You know the D130 were guitar speakers not bass speakers? The E140's ARE bass speakers. The D series bass speakers were the D140's

B-string knows his stuff!
 

Was trolling and about to say the same thing as B-String. E-140 IMHO, best 15 for bass. I have 2 Joe's Pro, loaded with the workhorses. They are 25 yrs old, and still country frying my outdoor gigs!

The issue with the D130 is that it's only rated at about 75w, which was a lot when it was first made. But, as mentioned above, the 140 was the bass specific speaker of the series, having a more rigid cone to deal with the lower frequencies. However, that's not to say 130s cannot be used with bass. Check out the thread John Kallas did comparing a K140, E140, and E130. The E130 works just fine as a bass speaker, if its specific characteristics are what you're looking for. K & E 130s I'd have no qualms running as a bass speaker, but I'd be wary of the D130, just because its power handling is much lower.

If you're getting other cabs for the E140s, then sure, pop the D130s back in the old enclosure and use the 140 cabs as your main rig.

As far as reconing, check out Orange County Speakers. I've heard good things about their JBL recones, which can be a bit of a tricky deal.

This was posted on the 'net years ago by Harvey Gerst who designed those speakers:

>Harvey, you seem like the guy to ask about this. I'm curious for a
>description of what *all* the JBL speaker numbers mean. For example,
>what is the prefix letter? I've personally seen D, E, and K, and I'm
>sure there are more; what does this represent? I've seen numbers like
>120, 130, and 140; these must not be size-dependent, as both a K140 and
>D130 are 15" speakers. Finally, what is the suffix letter? I've seen D,
>E, and F.

Well Hal, let me take you back to the late 50s, early 60s. JBL was a small
company with their main offices above a candy store, and the manufacturing
scattered in a number of buildings up and down the street, near Glendale, on
Fletcher Drive.

They made the following speakers;
the D130 a full range 15",
the D131 a full range 12",
the 130A a 15" woofer,
the 130B (same as the 130A, but 16 ohms),
and the 150 - a 15" woofer with a heavier cone.

The D stood for a metal dome and the A and B were for woofers of different
impedances. I don't remember if we made a 131A. We also made a D123 (full range
pancake 12" speaker) and the D208 and D216 (both 8" speakers but with 8 and 16
ohm voice coils).

Fender was buying D130s for use in their Dual Showman systems, but they were
experiencing problems in surrounds drying out from outdoor use, and burnouts
>from improper mounting techniques. I wrote a memo to the president of JBL,
outlining a plan to let me design a series of speakers made specifically for
musical use and he agreed. My plan called for modifications to the D130 and
D131, plus an all new bass 15" speaker, and a new 10" speaker.

Since Fender was our largest purchaser, I did not want the headache of trying to
re-introduce a whole new series so I kept the D130 name for the 15" and simply
added an F (yes, the "F" is for Fender - don't know why to this day I did that,
but I did). Since I was making up new model numbers, I decided where possible to
keep it simple, so the 12" (originally the D131) became the D120F, and the new
10" became the D110F.

That left the new bass speaker. I didn't want to leave it in the 13x range
because it was different and the 150 was already being used by our theater
woofer. The 140 was not being used, so I named the new bass speaker the D140F.

After I left JBL, I understand they came out with the black crinkle finish and
renamed them E series. The first major modifications were made in the K series,
as I understand it.

Here's another of Harvey Gerst's posts (sorry but t's really long):


> It's amazing about the variation in answers you'll get. Watts of what
> kind? RMS at 30 hertz? White noise? The question has almost no
> meaning without stating some parameters.
>
> If you look at the original spec sheet for the speakers in that series
> you'll see that the D-130 is rated at 25 watts. Since this appears on
> the rear of the pamphlet that gives dimensions for recommended B/R
> enclosures, one should assume that it is 25 watts when mounted in the
> proper cabnet.
>
> You should find that about 20 to 30 watts into one of these in a
> proper sized enclsure will drive you out of the room. If you put it
> in an undersized and over damped box like a Benson then the speaker
> will take more power, but it will need it to get the volume.
>
> The D-130 was/is an effeceint speaker. It doesn't need a lot of input
> to get a lot out.

On the other hand, I saw a lot of D130's come through with fried voice
coils that were running off a 12 Watt Williamson amp during the 50's and
60's. Integrated music from HiFi systems caused one kind of problem -
using the D130 as a musical instrument speaker created other problems.

That's why I suggested the D130F (which was a redesigned D130), made
expressly for musical instrument amps, as were the D110F (a totally new
design), the D120F (a redesign of the D131), and the D140F (a new design
using existing parts).

Power specifications for the F series were nominally 35 to about 60
Watts. How did I arrive at these figures? Pretty simple, I played guitar
and bass through them and kept increasing the power till they blew. Then
I downrated them from the power that fried them. Pretty hi-tech, huh? It
seemed to work pretty well (of course we didn't have synth players back
then).

The major amp manufacturers back then were Fender, Sunn, Kustom, and
Ampeg. Rickenbacher and Mosrite also bought some, but nowhere near the
volume of the other amp makers. All had JBL speaker options.

And yes, the "F" stood for Fender, since they were the largest single
buyer, and also distributed the F series to music stores. They had no
part in the design or the idea for the new series, I am solely to blame
for that.

--
Harvey Gerst

Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://users.aol.com/harvgerst/records/studio.html
Indian Trail Records
http://users.aol.com/harvgerst/records/records.html


From hargerst@airmail.net Wed Sep 11 15:43:48 CDT 1996
From: Harvey Gerst
Newsgroups: alt.guitar.amps
Subject: Re: How many watts can a JBL D-130 safely handle?
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 13:54:45 -0700
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Teleologist wrote:
>
> Dick Dale seems to be the one claiming Fender went to JBL on behalf of him.
> In "Fender Sound Heard Around the World" he's quoted as saying the "F was
> invented as a result of melting voice coils & destroying surrounds". It's
> also stated that "the aluminum dust cover was Leo's idea". In his 9/96 GP
> interview he talks of the 'Dick Dale' kit available from JBL which includes
> a larger magnet, larger voice coil, thicker wires, aluminum dust cover, &
> rubberized front rim which brings the speaker(presumably a D130) up to Dick
> Dale & Fender specs! I'll be 'kind' and say that he comes off as 'a bit
> arrogant' in the interview!

I never had the honor of meeting or talking to Dick Dale, so I'd have to say
that perhaps his memory has been clouded by the passing years. It's true that
the JBL F series was partly about improving the current 2 models being used by
Fender and others, namely the D130 and D131. It was my proposal to expand the
line of speakers and at the same time, make some refinements to those speakers
to make them more suitable to the guitar market. Here's what I did and why:

Opened the voice coil gap slightly on the D130F to allow more tolerance in
mounting. Most people didn't realize that even though 8 mounting holes were
available, only using four is the recomended mounting. And you don't screw them
down tight to the board - that warps the frame. You use two fingers to do the
final tightening - the casket will them complete the seal. When you warp the
frame by overtightening, the voice coil can go out of round and eventually drag
and short out. I opened the gap slightly to allow for this problem with just a
very slight loss in efficiency - less than 1 dB.

Did the same thing on the D131 (and renamed as the D120F).

Using parts from the D130A
and D150 woofers, I created a new woofer desinged for bass guitar applications called the D140F. This had a copper voice coil and an
aluminum dome.

Using the magnet assembly from the D123 and the basket from an LE-10, I added
the D110F to complete the line of musical instrument speakers.

The surrounds were NOT "rubberized". JBL had developed a high viscosity coating
to add to the existing hifi line of speakers that reduced
ringing. I used it for a different reason. The hifi speaker surrounds dried out when exposed to
excessive sunlight and heat, and I reasoned the viscose coating (we called it
"goop" back then) would help prevent that.

> The other reference to Fender going to JBL was in conjunction with the
> development of the 1959 Vibrasonic. In Morrish's Fender amp book - Bill
> Carson recalls testing a protype JBL with a copper instead of aluminum
> voice coil & a thin paper cone? Can you shed some light on this obscure
> piece of JBL history?

Bill's probably refering to the D130A which was simply a standard JBL woofer at
the time - all the woofers
had copper voice coils. The 130A was basically a D130 with a copper voice coil and a paper dome and was used in the 001 system
primarily (D130A, N1200
xover, and 175DLH driver/horm assembly). I felt the cone was too light for bass guitar and we wound up using the cone from the 150 woofer
- a heavier unit. The duraluminum dome was added to the D140F, instead of the
paper dome for cosmetic reasons at first, but later proved useful in adding a
little more top end to the bass (not much though).

> For the original poster - regarding power ratings, I checked my
> official(3/70) JBL spec sheet for the F models and the 110F, 120F, & 130F
> are all rated at 100W continuous, the 140F @ 150W continuous. JBL defines
> 'continuous power' in my 4311B spec sheet as 3dB greater than RMS which
> would put the RMS rating of a D130F at 50W. On the other hand, D120Fs &
> D130Fs ran reliably in Showman 12s, Showman 15s, and early Boogies at
> considerably more power, so Mr. Gerst's & JBL's ratings are not marketing
> hype! It also appears that the 120F & 130F use identical magnet structures
> @ 11 pounds, 12,000 gaus flux density, and 275,000 maxwells total flux.

The D120F and the D130F, like their close cousins, the D130 and
D131, all shared the same voice coil, dome, spider, and magnet assembies, except for the
slightly wider gap on the top plate. I think the flux density was really around
11,700 gauss or so on the 120F & 130F because of the slightly enlarged gap,
mentioned earlier.

Power handling was always a touchy subject and I just basically guessed at what
I thought it could
handle, based on normal playing. It was a little tricky since we were dealing with rock, country, jazz, and blues players and the power
handling figures were just suggestions, regardless of how official the spec
sheet looked.

We now return you to your regularly sheduled programing.

--
Harvey Gerst

Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://users.aol.com/harvgerst/records/studio.html
Indian Trail Records
http://users.aol.com/harvgerst/records/records.html


From hargerst@airmail.net Thu Sep 12 10:30:38 CDT 1996
From: Harvey Gerst
Newsgroups: alt.guitar.amps
Subject: Re: How many watts can a JBL D-130 safely handle?
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 06:54:53 -0700
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Harry Avant wrote:
>
> That is probably true but we're mixing oranges and grapefruits here.
> Kroger's original post asked about the power handling of a D-130. Not
> a D-130F. I'll stick to my earlier post which listed the power rating
> well below the specs for the F series.
>
> I think Kroger did get a D-130 without any F, G , Q or what ever and
> that should make for the difference in power handling. And as we all
> know all to well the cabnet and so forth will make the "specs" moot
> anyhow.

Harry,

The D130 and the D130F were essentially the SAME speaker. Exactly the
same voice coil, cone, spider assembly, magnet, basket. The only things I
did to the F are listed in a previous post, along with my reasons for
doing them.

I revised the guitar ratings since those D130 ratings were for INTEGRATED
music, like a symphony or a full band playing from the radio, tape or a
record. The rating for a single live instrument like a guitar is much
different, since there is nothing below 80 Hz or above 5 or 6 KHz coming
out of a guitar (at least back then). A D130F (or a D130) could easily
live with a higher power rating and we/JBL/I adjusted the rating
accordingly. The new rating would also apply to a JBL D130 if used for
that purpose.

If you had called JBL back then, you would have been transfered to me and
that is what I would have told you. Since I was in charge of that
division, I was responsable for creating those ratings and that was
our/my official position on the subject. As far as power handling, there
was no difference - the rating was changed to more accurately reflect
what the D130 or D130F could handle if used with a guitar as the source.

The lower rating also still applied if either speaker was used for full
range music reproduction. For what Jim Kroger wants to do with the
speaker, my original comments and ratings still stand. These were my
"babies" and if you want to disagree with me, that's fine. If you were at
JBL at the time I was designing these, we could have had some rousing
discussions about it. And besides, I think I also wrote those spec sheets
for the D130 as well.

--
Harvey Gerst

Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://users.aol.com/harvgerst/records/studio.html
Indian Trail Records
http://users.aol.com/harvgerst/records/records.html


From hargerst@airmail.net Sat Sep 14 10:15:40 CDT 1996
From: Harvey Gerst
Newsgroups: alt.guitar.amps
Subject: Re: How many watts can a JBL D-130 safely handle?
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 02:42:25 -0700
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Teleologist wrote:
>
> A couple more Q's & I'll leave you alone:) - Didn't know the D140F has a copper
> voice coil - is it an edgewound ribbon like the aluminum coils? What were the
> reason(s) for using copper (vs. aluminum) in the D140F?

Yes, the D140F had an edgewound copper ribbon
voice coil. Copper has better heat conductivity than aluminum (think pots and pans) but it's heavier and not as
responsive to high frequencies, due to it's weight. For use in woofers, copper is
the wire of choice.

Actually, had I thought about it some more, I should have probably made the D140F
more of a full range speaker, but it was basically
designed as a replacement for people using D130A woofers for live music.

--
Harvey Gerst

Thanks for collapsing the Harvey information here... I've read some of these elseware over the years.

Will have to contact Orange County and get this one fixed.

Will also have to rethink (remember) this cab is not going to be for my larger amps. Was using a GK400RB for a long time with it and likely not cranked.
Been wanting a small tube amp so this may be the perfect fit.

No question about it. That's exactly why you see them in so many old ampeg fliptops.

Question is would the cab in question be a good fit dimension wise? I could always rebuild the motor board and port it differently.

Inside dimensions are 11d x 28.5w x 42.5h.
There are two large ports cut out of the motor board (3/4") at 4"x17".Surround walls are 2x3/4" ply all including 2x4 reinforcement around the walls and ports. Back cover (3/4") is reinforced with 2x4 and all nooks and crannies are packed with insulation/loose poly.
Speakers are offset not stacked.

Starting to get interested in the new bassman 100t. Like the 25w/100w and auto bias options... Very nice. Would be a good mate for this cab and at 100w could probably keep up with the drummer using the E140 stack. Hmmmm....

Now to find a deal on a new one as opposed to buying a older used referb casue the new features make it so flexable.

Sent the speaker to Orange County. Well see what it looks like upon return.

Picture of the cab front currently loaded with the e140.

Poor D130F thats on it's way to Orange County Speaker.

Looks like it was at a Who performance :D

Yep just like Pete pushed his headstock through the cone. Never got a good answer to what happened. Whomever really did it at that house party didn't want to fess up. I did get 80 bucks or so out of them but it was difficult for a drummer to grasp that these speakers are expensive to repair. Now this was probably 15 years ago so the recone cost is probably double what I would have paid back then.

Looking for tolex to recover and deciding on metal grill or go to silver face grill cloth. Opting for the metal grill to keep this from happening again.

It's not a silverface but could look like one. :)

As promised OCSpeaker called me after receiving the speaker to the repair department. Suggested using the aftermarket cone as they have QC issues with the original parts JBL is making in Mexico...
Will be back here in 7 to 10 days or so… All good no hurry.
*RANT ON* Can we just friggin bring manufacturing back to the states? This is getting to be a normal reply with no resolve in the future. Not just on this subject matter mind you.
There were two major mistakes Clinton made during his presidency. 1) Signing NAFTA and 2) Keeping his junk clear of Monica. *RANT OFF*