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Revisiting Jim Rogers JR149s

If the caps are in spec I’d leave them. Mine weren’t even close!

I would have thought if you could find appropriate pins for the crossovers you could easily use the existing wiring and push-on connectors without bothering with the white 4-pin plug. That would make swapping between crossovers very easy. You are going to need pins either way, I can’t see them being that hard to find. You could probably get away with soldering a bit of solid-core twin & earth mains wire of the right thickness for the plugs to the boards.
 
I know I was blathering about a Falcon or similar remake of this classic a while ago and someone pointed out the cabinet might not be a good economic proposition for a manufacturer. ISTM a driver and crossover kit might be the way ahead?
 
There's a refurbed set of these on ebay, is £800 a fair price? The foams aren't to original spec/style but the crossovers have been re built.
 
There's a refurbed set of these on ebay, is £800 a fair price? The foams aren't to original spec/style but the crossovers have been re built.
Jim Rogers JR149 Loudspeakers - 70's British Classics - Fully Rebuilt - Red Logo | eBay

If you mean this he's been trying to sell them for about two years. The cost of new drivers and crossover was about £450 from Falcon a few months ago - plus another £40 (about) if they were matched drivers. And then there's the cost of the wiring etc, and the labour. If you pursue it it's best to ask to see his receipts for the crossover and drivers.
 
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I know I was blathering about a Falcon or similar remake of this classic a while ago and someone pointed out the cabinet might not be a good economic proposition for a manufacturer. ISTM a driver and crossover kit might be the way ahead?

Falcon showed a remake of the JR149 a few years ago, but they took it in a very expensive direction with carbon fiber cylinders:

18527099_1304758876238705_516432629834388586_o.jpg


I don't know if they ever made production.
 
If the caps are in spec I’d leave them. Mine weren’t even close!

I would have thought if you could find appropriate pins for the crossovers you could easily use the existing wiring and push-on connectors without bothering with the white 4-pin plug. That would make swapping between crossovers very easy. You are going to need pins either way, I can’t see them being that hard to find. You could probably get away with soldering a bit of solid-core twin & earth mains wire of the right thickness for the plugs to the boards.


I could, yes, but the "new" boards would have pins very close together so risking short circuits between the push-on female parts, even if sleeved. I was going to make up small "adaptor" cable assemblies with the plug one end to fit the new PCB's and a small piece of Veroboard with spaced pins as per the older PCB as the other end.
That way there are no mods to the JR149's and their originality is preserved whilst I mess around with circuitry.

I am doing the same thing with the JR150's as I have spare boards for them as well and they of course also have these connector shells, (4 pin & 2 pin).

I also have a pair of the rarer JR METRO speakers that will come next; they were supposedly outstanding if you believe the JR METRO brochure's speil, only one of mine has a bass/mid driver that was damaged in transit, (the magnet was knocked off when it was obviously dropped!) and there is no maker's name on the thing, which looks like a B110 replica, same size, same shape \and with a 1" aluminium former voice coil
 
Very hard to put a value on JR149s IMO. Either they are hopelessly undervalued, or LS3/5As are hopelessly overvalued, as to my ears they both play at the same quality level, albeit with a slightly different skillset. Both are superb small speakers and I certainly view mine as say a £1300-1500 pair of mini-monitors (which being blunt is what I think LS3/5As are worth!).

PS The problem with both is getting a really good pair. I obviously ended up rebuilding mine, but I think I have done so very sympathetically, I would expect them to sound like a new pair if one had access to a time-machine back to the late-70s.
 
Jim Rogers JR149 Loudspeakers - 70's British Classics - Fully Rebuilt - Red Logo | eBay

If you mean this he's been trying to sell them for about two years. The cost of new drivers and crossover was about £450 from Falcon a few months ago - plus another £40 (about) if they were matched drivers. And then there's the cost of the wiring etc, and the labour. If you pursue it it's best to ask to see his receipts for the crossover and drivers.

The wooden tops look like they could have done with a better job of refurbishment, like they wanted a serious stripping back to bare wood.
 
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The wooden tops look like they could have done with a better job of refurbishment, like they wanted a serious stripping back to bare wood.

They aren’t bare wood, just a wood veneer over particle board. It is a key reason most look so trashed now. I believe the tops and bases can be replaced (they are glued or taped on and are not part of the sealed cab), I’ve seen some with beautiful solid real-wood etc. I wanted stock and as close to mint as I could find sonI waited for years for a good pair.
 
They aren’t bare wood, just a wood veneer over particle board. It is a key reason most look so trashed now. I believe the tops and bases can be replaced (they are glued or taped on and are not part of the sealed cab), I’ve seen some with beautiful solid real-wood etc. I wanted stock and as close to mint as I could find sonI waited for years for a good pair.

That makes sense then why so many look a little tatty.
 
From what I can see there is a wide difference in the specs between the 149 and LS3/5a
149 frequency response 40 hz to 40 khz compared to 70 ha to 20 kHz for the 35a
 
From what I can see there is a wide difference in the specs between the 149 and LS3/5a
149 frequency response 40 hz to 40 khz compared to 70 ha to 20 kHz for the 35a

No idea what the +/- db figure is there, but they are certainly different in the bass and where they want to sit in the room. The LS3/5A has a bit of upper bass lift and the ‘BBC dip’, the 149 sounds flatter (if anything a bit mid-forward) and punches deeper but needs a wall near by to do it. I suspect if we are going with a standard +/- 3db 60-70 Hz is about it, but both give the impression of digging much deeper (being infinite baffle they roll off very gently unlike a ported speaker).

50846031882_a65010b4d1_c.jpg


This is with the listening seat/mic right in the middle of the room, a very nearfield setup, move a bit closer to the back wall and there is a lot more bass.
 
Is the T27 tweeter as good as modern designs are as I really like a detailed top end, detailed as not in a bright harsh way? I like a ride cymbal to sound realistic, which for me listening to jazz is a must. So many tweeters I hear fail this test.
 
Is the T27 tweeter as good as modern designs are as I really like a detailed top end, detailed as not in a bright harsh way?

I really like them, I don’t hear any nasties within its volume envelope and within the limits of my own 58 year old ears (neither did I as a teenager with my first pair of 149s and 20kHz ears). I have my own views on tweeters for sure and consider the bottom/crossover point to be exponentially more important than the absolute upper reach. This is why I struggle with so many (maybe all) metal dome tweeters. They just do not cross as seamlessly to the bass mid in my experience, I can almost always hear the join. The only exceptions I’ve heard are compression horns, e.g. Tannoys, JBLs etc, there I seem able to cope with the transition from cone material to metal. I’ve certainly always struggled with JM Labs, Epos, Harbeth etc etc, but I don’t with 149s, LS3/5As, BC1s, S3/5R, ProAcs etc.

Subjectively the T27 is fine with drum kit metalwork, vocal sibilance etc. The 149 & 3/5A are famed for their natural open midband, imaging and clarity, and that certainly includes well recorded drums. I listen mainly to jazz, which is obviously where the best drummers and studio engineers live, and on a good recording (e.g. ECM with say Paul Motain or Jack Dejonette on the kit) cymbals are stunningly real within my listening volume envelope. You can tell so much about where it is being hit, even if the sticks have wood or plastic tips (or are brushes). Assuming a good amp upstream they place things in a three-dimensional space too, you clearly hear the acoustic space around the kit. These little speakers obviously aren’t designed to generate live rock band levels, but as a nearfield mini-monitor they deserve their reputation. As an example the T27-equipped ‘gold badge’ Falcon LS3/5A has recently attained a Stereophile ‘Class A’ rating, which is very, very hard for a near-field mini to do. It may be the first ever, I can’t recall. It’s good enough.
 
That's all good to know Tony, if there's two things that spoil the experience for me are a bad tweeter and port boom or chuffing.
 
Is the T27 tweeter as good as modern designs are as I really like a detailed top end, detailed as not in a bright harsh way? I like a ride cymbal to sound realistic, which for me listening to jazz is a must. So many tweeters I hear fail this test.

By most objective standards, tweeter technology left the T27 in the dust decades ago. It doesn't have any advanced motor design, it's not particularly dynamic. What it does have is the ability to sound like it's cut from the same cloth as the B110, so the two drivers can be integrated into something that is unusually coherent and consistent across the frequency spectrum.

Of course the designer has to jump through hoops to get the B110 to behave...
 


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