Today's Finds

[pellothed1]

Well, I've only posted a few times and have no building experience but made two cool finds today that I thought I might share. I've read a lot and just haven't made a decision on what to build first.

My wife and I moved into a house built in 1961 about 2 years ago. One large room I've been using as a photography studio with plans on spiffying it up at some point. I think when the house was built this room was probably designed for entertaining and listing to music because it's got acoustic ceiling tile and this dampening fabric all over the walls. I'd like to eventually use this as my own listening room when I don't need it for my business any more. Anyway, today in an effort to fix a few of the ceiling tiles, I discovered hidden behind both ceiling tile and speaker grill, a pair of JBL LE8T's and JBL PR8's in quite good condition mounted in boxes that stuck into the crawl space above the room. The surrounds on both of the passive radiators are cracked, but the surrounds on both speakers are fully intact, with only a minor bit of glue on one where they glued the ceiling tile over the speaker grills, probably assuming the speakers were out of date and no good.

So, what should I do with them? They seem to be fairly rare as they are the alnico magnet version. I've got a quote at $50 a piece for re-foam and thought maybe I should do all of them, I don't know. The cones seem to be in good condition, just not real pretty, they are extremely rough in texture, didn't know if that was normal or not.

Secondly, I was down the street at an estate sale and saw two speaker cabs in the corner that were obviously from the 50's or 60's but had no markings of any kind. I could see enough through the grill to see that they had coaxial Pioneer speakers in them so I assumed they were car speakers stuffed in some old cabinets. Boy was I wrong. I bought them for $28 for the pair expecting to have some new car speakers for the doors of my vehicle as I had a friend that had accidentally kicked one in yesterday. Apparently the speakers are extremely rare especially in the English speaking world as I only got about 50 hits on Google, only 4 in English and none that showed any experience with the drivers. So, what should I do with them? They are dead mint.

Please see the pictures:

















You'll see the sticker on the tweeter magnet has a Mitsubishi Logo on it. Hope someone finds these interesting.

Tony

[Nelson Pass]

I'd buy a lottery ticket if I was you.

[pellothed1]

You know, I've never been much of a gambling man, but today's been a fairly lucky day...

[gmilitano]

Those look fantastic. I would go for the re-foam. You will pay more than $50 for a 4" full with a stamped frame.

[despotic931]

Those pioneers look like garbage, you could either pay to recycle them, or just ship them to me and I'll be sure to dispose of them...



-Justin

[pellothed1]

Ya' know, when I found them I was thinking, "Hmm I bet Justin up in Wisconsin can help rid me of these."

[despotic931]

Hehe, I'm touched! But, seriously they look awesome, gotta do something special with them!

[saabracer23]

Nice find!!! Its that time of the year I guess. My dad answered a an ad on craigslist and scored. A laywer was clearing a house for client who had died and for 75 dollars got a nice fairchild turntable with an expensive tonearm and stylis, a pair of 15 inch dual concentrics, the first pair of koss headphones made, a marantz system consisting of an 8B tube amp, matching tuner, and preamp. Plus more tube stuff all of it mint with paperwork!!! I wish I had seen it Nice find though I like old jbl stuff.

Dan

[cdwitmer]

Shee-it, you guys are killing me with these stories. I scored once in my life and now I have seven kids to show for it. That's all good and well, but I wish I could score big once in a while in audio too . . .

-- Chris

[pellothed1]

An 8B for $75 makes my story seem pretty weak. Anyway. I still haven't decided whether to build for only the LE8T's or both the speakers and PRs or just sell them, as OB experimentation is something I'm really interested in. Also, I've been using google to translate alot of what I could find about the Pioneers, and apparently they were in the orginal cabinets, which are really large with a huge port. The cabinets are approximately 4 square feet and the port is about 10 inches wide, 4 inches tall and 4 inches deep. Makes me wonder if they might not be a pretty good candidate for OB given their small magnet, relatively stiff paper surround and the box size. Maybe you guys with more experience could weigh in.