Vintage 15" JBL comparisons w/soundclips

[johnk_10]

Originally Posted by 60cyclehum

Sorry here's the photo

that's a beauty!

[Balog]

Great looking cab! Did you have plans, or just estimating the original dimensions?

[nouroog]

Originally Posted by 60cyclehum

Sorry here's the photo

Wow it looks awesome, congrats!

[60cyclehum]

Thanks everyone for the kind words. Here are couple more pics. The cab is still out in my shop awaiting corners, expected this week from Fliptops.

I got this idea about a year ago after I lost patience waiting for one of these cabinets to come up for sale in reasonable condition and proximity to me here in Tampa. These are so big/heavy/old that you almost never find one that is not completely beaten up or modified. To me, any mod that puts different speakers in is not acceptable.

My quest started off with buying a couple of speakers on ebay. I got one for $125, and the other for $249. Add this up, its about equal to what I would expect to pay in fair (not low and not high) deal. I have no idea whether either of them has been reconed. I wanted an eight ohm cab, so I bought the somewhat less common D140F-6, to be wired in parallel.

I made my own plans for the cabinet. Dimensions came from numerous sources, but mostly SunnShack. On that site is a letter from Conrad Sundholm where he says this is the cabinet design that came to him in a dream. I briefly mulled over building a 2000s cab, but sanity returned after I took measurements of my Model T, 24" wide.

I found photos showing the inside on this very TB thread. I made the plans using Visio. Later I learned that I could buy plans from Conrad, but by then I was committed to my Visio approach. Raw materials are one 4x8 sheet 3/4 inch birch ply, one 2x4 sheet of 1/2 inch birch ply and three 1"x2"x8' finished pine boards. All the joints are butt type, glued and screwed, except the horn baffle, which is routed into the sides.

I strive to make this cabinet cosmetically identical to the original, and that drives up cost. The tolex, grill cloth and misc. hardware came at a premium cost. Total production cost came to ~600US. I did make some changes to the design:
1. handles in the more typical location for a cabinet of this size, so two can schlep;
2. second jack on the back, which seemed a reasonable upgrade;
3. edges rounded over 1/2" and not the original 1/4". This is just because I did not want to spring for another router bit.

Before anyone starts fretting about the Model T, please know I took a bit of leftover grille cloth and applied it (100% reversible mod) to the steel grille on the head, just to create move visual continuity with the cab. The T appears to be a completely un-messed-with first generation unit. I picked it up at a used guitar store in Nashville ~1997. Guitar players are now getting all silly about this head. Go figure.

Anyway, I have some other old heads I want to build matching cabs for:

1. Sound City Custom 200 - this has the exact transformers from Hiwatt DR201. I'm gonna convert it, and then build a 4x12 ported speaker. I don't expect to find the right Fane speakers for it, so I will have to settle for something similar;
2. Fender Bassman 135. I have no intention of building the behemoth 4x12 speaker that came with this amp, but I will probably build a 2x12 or 2x15 early 60s Bassman cab for it.

Thanks for reading,
-Tony

[dukeorock]

Originally Posted by 60cyclehum

Thanks everyone for the kind words. Here are couple more pics. The cab is still out in my shop awaiting corners, expected this week from Fliptops.

I got this idea about a year ago after I lost patience waiting for one of these cabinets to come up for sale in reasonable condition and proximity to me here in Tampa. These are so big/heavy/old that you almost never find one that is not completely beaten up or modified. To me, any mod that puts different speakers in is not acceptable.

My quest started off with buying a couple of speakers on ebay. I got one for $125, and the other for $249. Add this up, its about equal to what I would expect to pay in fair (not low and not high) deal. I have no idea whether either of them has been reconed. I wanted an eight ohm cab, so I bought the somewhat less common D140F-6, to be wired in parallel.

I made my own plans for the cabinet. Dimensions came from numerous sources, but mostly SunnShack. On that site is a letter from Conrad Sundholm where he says this is the cabinet design that came to him in a dream. I briefly mulled over building a 2000s cab, but sanity returned after I took measurements of my Model T, 24" wide.

I found photos showing the inside on this very TB thread. I made the plans using Visio. Later I learned that I could buy plans from Conrad, but by then I was committed to my Visio approach. Raw materials are one 4x8 sheet 3/4 inch birch ply, one 2x4 sheet of 1/2 inch birch ply and three 1"x2"x8' finished pine boards. All the joints are butt type, glued and screwed, except the horn baffle, which is routed into the sides.

I strive to make this cabinet cosmetically identical to the original, and that drives up cost. The tolex, grill cloth and misc. hardware came at a premium cost. Total production cost came to ~600US. I did make some changes to the design:
1. handles in the more typical location for a cabinet of this size, so two can schlep;
2. second jack on the back, which seemed a reasonable upgrade;
3. edges rounded over 1/2" and not the original 1/4". This is just because I did not want to spring for another router bit.

Before anyone starts fretting about the Model T, please know I took a bit of leftover grille cloth and applied it (100% reversible mod) to the steel grille on the head, just to create move visual continuity with the cab. The T appears to be a completely un-messed-with first generation unit. I picked it up at a used guitar store in Nashville ~1997. Guitar players are now getting all silly about this head. Go figure.

Anyway, I have some other old heads I want to build matching cabs for:

1. Sound City Custom 200 - this has the exact transformers from Hiwatt DR201. I'm gonna convert it, and then build a 4x12 ported speaker. I don't expect to find the right Fane speakers for it, so I will have to settle for something similar;
2. Fender Bassman 135. I have no intention of building the behemoth 4x12 speaker that came with this amp, but I will probably build a 2x12 or 2x15 early 60s Bassman cab for it.

Thanks for reading,
-Tony

Oh my gosh...that looks so cool!

[halvoric]

I'm a big fan of the D140 and D140F drivers, also have a couple D140R's (from Rogers Organ cabinets). I put them in Music Man RH-115 cabinets (which came with CTS drivers I think) and a Dual Showman Reverb cab (the big 46" tall one).

[bcb123]

I traded a rare slot head EBO for a new JBL K140 back in the late 70's. Still use it today though it's been reconed once due to a defective Sunn Coliseum head that fried it. I still use it today, in fact it's the gold standard by which I measure all other 15's by. It's currently residing in a tiny BagEnd cab powered by an Eden Time Traveler. Due to it's wide/flat freq range it really needs no tweet or mid to get a great sound, plus it goes down to 40 Hz. I didn't know that most so called "bass guitar speakers" didn't do that and could not even make a low E fundamental. I started using Avatar's which employ PA based speakers and that's when I realized that except for the K140, most everything I used before that was missing something. It's now relegated to my main recording rig since I don't want to risk frying it at some poorly wired bar gig or outdoor show. Even though it's power ratings, xmax, etc. won't hang with say a 3015LFA for low weight and shear brute force for example, it's still miles ahead of most modern speakers in the tone dept. I knew there was a reason I always liked that JBL!

[waynearcuri]

Good Day...Nice job on the presentation...I have a mint E140-8 that came out of a PA system...Can you give me an idea on the value?....Thank you Wayne

[johnk_10]

I see them go for anywhere from $100- $150.