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JBL 4430 ‘baboon’ horns

They look great - though I'm often surprised that quite a few speakers with large bass drivers don't go into the low 20s... frequency response for these quoted at 35hz.
 
Been offered those for 3300 by the seller, so watch if you’re interested.

he also has some other JBLs.
 
robbyd said:
They look great - though I'm often surprised that quite a few speakers with large bass drivers don't go into the low 20s... frequency response for these quoted at 35hz.
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Yes but it’s not mentioned if this 35 Hz is the f3, f6 or even the f10 so they may not go that low after all........
 
robbyd said:
They look great - though I'm often surprised that quite a few speakers with large bass drivers don't go into the low 20s... frequency response for these quoted at 35hz.
Click to expand...

Big efficient speakers play by different rules, they’ll do a life-sized kick drum, make a bass guitar sound like a real bass guitar etc. It’s all about displacement and dynamics IMHO, that’s where the reality lives. Plus you’ll get plenty of room lift.
 
-3dB Point is 34hz, one of the 2235 driver refoams looks to be a bit off round the bottom edge.
£3500 is more like a 4435 price imho.
 
cooky1257 said:
-3dB Point is 34hz, one of the 2235 driver refoams looks to be a bit off round the bottom edge.
£3500 is more like a 4435 price imho.
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Good information for the f3, thanks for that.
Refoaming ...........I don’t know about other people but personally, I saw about 10% of rebuilt surrounds that was done properly resulting in high quality speakers being almost ruined IMO. Too bad !
 
Gervais Cote said:
I don’t know about other people but personally, I saw about 10% of rebuilt surrounds that was done properly resulting in high quality speakers being almost ruined IMO. Too bad !
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One huge clue is just how many ‘recently refurbished’ speakers end up being sold…

PS It is one reason my Tannoys of choice are the London-era which all have hard-edge cones. They may slightly stiffen a little in time, but they never need new surrounds, the pair of Golds I’m listening to right now are likely over half a century old and they sound great entirely stock (crossovers are also untouched).
 
Tony L said:
One huge clue is just how many ‘recently refurbished’ speakers end up being sold…

PS It is one reason my Tannoys of choice are the London-era which all have hard-edge cones. They may slightly stiffen a little in time, but they never need new surrounds, the pair of Golds I’m listening to right now are likely over half a century old and they sound great entirely stock (crossovers are also untouched).
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Can we ever know now what 50yo speakers sounded like stock?
 
lawrence001 said:
Can we ever know now what 50yo speakers sounded like stock?
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It is an interesting question. I guess a lot depends on the speaker and how well it has been kept. If, like a well kept vintage Tannoy, ESL, Altec or whatever they still subjectively compete at the higher-end of the modern market, as they tend to do, I suspect it is safe to conclude they haven’t declined much. It also needs to be factored that this era of Tannoy, Altec didn’t have the highly tuned port loading designed to extract the last Hz of bass extension, so the driver stiffness altering a little just isn’t that critical as the cabinet loading is benign. My Golds are in large ‘aperiodic’ loaded Lockwood cabs which are a whole other thing to modern cabinet design, I don’t think they care anything like as much. Altecs etc are very similar, the cabs are ‘vented’ rather than ‘ported’, the goal being more to reduce air resistance rather than create additional bass energy. It just doesn’t matter if the cone resonance moves 5Hz or so from spec to the same degree.
 
Gervais Cote said:
Good information for the f3, thanks for that.
Refoaming ...........I don’t know about other people but personally, I saw about 10% of rebuilt surrounds that was done properly resulting in high quality speakers being almost ruined IMO. Too bad !
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It's a 'FFS' trigger for for me, besides the clumsy DIYers there are also established so called professional places regularly bodging/ruining vintage and classic drivers from Tannoy and JBL, it's such a shame as all it takes to get it right is care and attention eg;

50692066097_cf7aee2604_c.jpg


On the 'issue' of 15" Gold's surrounds drying out and shifting the Fs/VAS and 'as new' sound, I've measured some close to spec(27hz) and a worse case of 75 hz!!, certainly something to bear in mind.
If I still had a pair and a set of cone kits I'd re-cone them and return them to as close to factory as you'll get while storing the old cones as insurance against future mishaps.
 
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A few years ago I built a pair of 4430s after landing a pair of the correct bass drivers effectively for free. There are accurate plans on the Lansing Heritage site. Theres a thread about the build here
https://www.hifiwigwam.com/forum/topic/132714-jbl-4430-clones/
Anyway, afew years later I'm still using them and they sound better than ever.
How good? Well, I own various tannoy classics - Reds, Golds and Silvers in various cabinets, and prefer these. These would be a lot of speaker for the price offered, though to get the most from them you might want to use some Radian diaphragms and modify the crossover to bypass the active/passive switch.
 
ff1d1l said:
A few years ago I built a pair of 4430s after landing a pair of the correct bass drivers effectively for free. There are accurate plans on the Lansing Heritage site. Theres a thread about the build here
https://www.hifiwigwam.com/forum/topic/132714-jbl-4430-clones/
Anyway, afew years later I'm still using them and they sound better than ever.
How good? Well, I own various tannoy classics - Reds, Golds and Silvers in various cabinets, and prefer these. These would be a lot of speaker for the price offered, though to get the most from them you might want to use some Radian diaphragms and modify the crossover to bypass the active/passive switch.
Click to expand...
That's a nice build, I swapped my 2425 dias to radians too, for a sweeter, softer HF.
 
Lol these look about 8 feet tall in the pics, actually a lot easier to accommodate than I imagined - 90x50x45cm approx.

If my lottery ticket comes in on Friday I’ll have these and the Pass SIT-3 please...
 
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