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Revisiting Jim Rogers JR149s

I've been doing a little more research and unfortunately the left-right imbalance I mentioned earlier is the drivers, not the crossovers. I swapped the crossovers over and the imbalance stayed where it was, so, annoyingly, I'll need to replace the drivers. I had a look and one speaker seems to have got a bit damp, there is some very obvious corrosion around the magnet of the B110, and without taking it out the T27 looks the same.

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I've decided I really like the JR149 sound so I'll go ahead and fully restore these regardless of expense - the cabs are in decent condition and everything else can be sourced eventually, albeit at a price.

Has anyone any experience of the recent Falcon FB110? This seems the most logical way to get a mint tightly matched pair of B110s assuming they actually sound like the original ones. The cost is not that much more than buying a really tidy old pair that may well have drifted off spec, and without the 'eBay turkey' risk, though I can't find any reviews of them anywhere. I've no option but to play the second-hand market with the T27s - I've stuck a wanted ad up in the classifieds room to see if anyone here has a mint pair either separately or in a less desirable pair of 1970s speakers.

All a bit annoying, but it's only a few hundred quid at the end of the day, and I'll happily pay that to get 'em performing to spec. I'm loving the sound so far and liking their natural yet crisp and clean tonality with jazz and classical. The annoyance is just the pair-matching is out so they can't form a strong central image or really disappear - one has a lot more mid-band punch than the other. I love the complete lack of boxiness and boom, they are just so well behaved. Definitely worth fixing.
 
Bit of a shame Tony but I'm sure you'll get them sorted.

I think the speakers sound absolutely amazing with CD, they seem to bring the best out of my Arcam FMJ CD23.

Possibly because my TT or tuner aren't quite up to the quality of the CDP.

I listen to everything through these speakers, humax box, TV, laptop through the TV for movies, and all of my stereo stuff.

I do think that I have the speakers a wee bit too high up though.

Tony
 
Having sold my red logo JR149s with type 24 crossovers, stands, brackets, original crossovers in the last month, I decided that was all a mistake and bought a pair of good conditions red logo jr149's on ebay on Easter Sunday... and plugged into a cold OA21 after thirty minutes of fiddling about with NACA4 I'm very glad I have...
Ruminations:
1/ I shouldn't have sold my A60 either!
2/ Instantly prefer them with an OA21 than nap12/160/snaps
3/ There's nothing I miss from the sound that came with type 24 replacement crossovers

What cable and amps are you gents using with them? I currently fiddling about with NACA4 but have some DNM reson which might suit the original connections better.
 
What cable and amps are you gents using with them? I currently fiddling about with NACA4 but have some DNM reson which might suit the original connections better.

I'm perfectly happy with the 1.5mm Van Damme Blue cable as it fits perfectly without impeding the alloy can bottoms at all. To be honest I suspect they sound at their best upside down with the alloy bases removed entirely, i.e. with the crossovers just sitting exposed on the new 'top'!

For amps I'm happy with either the 306 or 303, but not the Leak, which just seemed to run out of steam. The latter surprises me as I really liked 149s on a Radford at Scalford a couple of years back, though it was light acoustic / vocal music and I tried the Leak with some full-tilt electric Miles Davis (Bitches Brew)!
 
I'm perfectly happy with the 1.5mm Van Damme Blue cable as it fits perfectly without impeding the alloy can bottoms at all. To be honest I suspect they sound at their best upside down with the alloy bases removed entirely, i.e. with the crossovers just sitting exposed on the new 'top'!

For amps I'm happy with either the 306 or 303, but not the Leak, which just seemed to run out of steam. The latter surprises me as I really liked 149s on a Radford at Scalford a couple of years back, though it was light acoustic / vocal music and I tried the Leak with some full-tilt electric Miles Davis (Bitches Brew)!

Interesting thanks, will hunt down some 1.5mm cable...
I never used the wall brackets but that is basically suspending them so if they're improved not having the base on a firm surface perhaps that's the way to go...
 
I have just removed the original cables with some difficulty and repaced with some QED cables. Sound has improved dramatically.

Russian violin concertos followed by Eric Bibb and then Moby Play.

Well these 149s sound perfect on piano and acoustic guitar.

However the biggest surprise was Moby. These wee speakers can also do bass.

I had JR150s for 15 years and they never ever sounded this good.
 
New grills turned up yesterday:

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They fit well and I'm very happy with them. I'd say the measurements were pretty much bang-on - they fit perfectly top to bottom and have just a little excess length to tuck-in under the metal flap / strip thing on the rear. The speakers themselves still a work in progress as I plan to replace all four drivers in the hope of achieving a nicely sonically matched pair, so as usual whenever I buy vintage kit, this will be anything but a cheap project!
 
Very nice, but this is looking like "my grandfathers axe". What is left of the originals?

At the moment absolutely everything bar the grills, which were non existent aside from a little black dust stuck to the wood! My aim as ever is restoration, I'm not looking to modify these, I was just unlucky in that, whilst being in very nice cosmetic condition, they'd obviously been stored somewhere a little damp and the rears (and I assume insides) of the drivers show a little tarnishing, which I assume is responsible for the fact they sound different to one another. No rattles, buzzes etc, all drivers very much 'on', they just sound different when one runs pink or white noise through them and as such can't really project a solid central image (which, when working, these speakers are astonishingly good at). I've ruled out the crossovers, they are fine, so most annoyingly I'll have to replace the drivers to get them working correctly. The bass drivers are easy, I'll just buy the Falcon FB110 replacements as they are bound to be perfectly pair-matched, the T27s I'll have to source second hand or NOS. I've got a line on a used pair that I can test out before committing to, so that's the next stage. I'll certainly end up where I want to with them, I'll just end up spending about twice what I intended in the process!

I like them a lot, they do a lot of things very right indeed. For example I think they compare very favourably to the ProAc Tablette Ref 8s I had a while ago, I certainly prefer them, so I'd say they were well worth spending out a bit on to get back into absolutely top working condition. To my mind they highlight perfectly exactly what is wrong with ported speakers, and probably what is wrong with boxes too! They are just so clean, clear and tight, none of that upper-bass boom or hollowness that blights so many small speakers. Sure, there's a tiny hint of a 'bextrene quack' to the 110, and the T27 probably isn't as good as a high-end modern soft dome (I'd take it over metal though), but they are a bloody good little speaker by any standard.
 
...they are a bloody good little speaker by any standard.

I liked them at the time, though I owned a pair of Kef Corelli's (B200/T27 in a sealed box) around them myself. Eventually sold the Corelli's to a mate's sister who I fancied. Didn't get me anywhere <sigh>
 
They are looking very tidy indeed, Tony.

Interesting post from chfs about cables...are you still avoiding that option?

Good luck with the driver search.
 
My Dad has been using a pair of JR149s on the end of a Naim 250 for the last decade and they sound bl**dy good. Come to think of it, both amp and speakers are probably due a service now....

Cheers
Adrian

Very much like my IBLs then..can't welly them but they love an amp with lots of grip.
 
Interesting post from chfs about cables...are you still avoiding that option?

It's not something I'm thinking about yet - at this stage my aim is restoration rather than tweaking. I want them to sound as close to a new pair in the late 70s as it is possible to achieve in 2013, that is all. To that end I chucked a pair of brand new Falcon FB110s into them earlier today, which are sounding very nice indeed. Just the top end left to sort out now.

As for amps they sound really nice on the 303, but open-up noticeably on the more powerful and grippier 306, so yes, I think they like a bit of power up 'em even at the low levels I listen at. If they ever become my main speaker (certainly possible later in life) I think I'd invest in something quite substantial to the point of overkill, e.g. a 909 if staying with Quad.
 
I am just about to try a Rogers A100 amp with the JR149s to see how they handle a bit more power than the A60.

Usual issue of A100 not having 4mm sockets but was tempted to add 4 during restoration. I don't like modifying but easily put back to OE I suppose.

It is easier than having to fit new wires to the 149s. Grilles look good Tony and there is a market for selling them.

Your old Marantz 7200 amp is coming in for a service next week so will try it too!
 
Grilles look good Tony and there is a market for selling them.

Your old Marantz 7200 amp is coming in for a service next week so will try it too!

I got two pairs of grills made up to keep a spare pair, the second set were radically cheaper than the first, so it made sense. As such I predict a bulk-buy would be a lot more affordable, so it is viable. I'm not sure I want to get involved in coordinating such a thing, but we could host a bulk-buy on pfm if anyone wanted it.

I'm very happy with my spec. They are exactly the right height to fit snugly but not so tight they buckle out at all. Maybe just a smidge too long, but they fit nicely if the thin ends are tucked firmly under the black flap on the back of the 149s, which IIRC is how the originals fitted. I suspect they are exactly 'right' to be honest as cutting a mm off any measurement (i.e. stripe width or cut width) would make them too short. The only thing I didn't attempt to emulate is the original foams have a bit of contouring top and bottom to space the foam just a little from the end-caps.

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Here's a pic with a bit of sunlight on them that shows the foam a little better. The foam itself is kind of a dark grey treated on the outside to make it black. Looks very good IMO and foamspeakergrilles.com claim it won't ever perish the way the original stuff did.

The 7200 should be pretty good with 149s I reckon, probably better in it's full power rather than in it's class A mode.

My Dad has been using a pair of JR149s on the end of a Naim 250 for the last decade and they sound bl**dy good.

Maybe no coincidence:

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The above is cropped from a old JR advert (that's Jim), look top right and you'll spot a Naim NAP 120!
 


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