Your Favorate JBL's from the 70's

My system is undoubtedly "better" than way back then, but I got just as much, more?, pleasure with my humble system back then. I have not thought about JBL in a long time, but when I got my first pair I thought I had it made. I reget not keeping them, they were certainly of a time and place.

I didn't have a stereo for the middle 70's but I ran sound for a rock band & we used JBL 18's in some 4560 cabinets, along w/some Altec 18's in VOC cabinets. Or was it the other way around? Topped off w/some Emilar horns, I just thought of it as my giant stereo.

I had L-88's with the wood veneer fronts, with cutouts for the grill cloth in front of the woofer and the top 6 inches for the tweeter.

As a high school senior in 1974, I had an after-school job and used my savings to buy a Pioneer SX-838 receiver (50 wpc), a Dual 1229 TT, a Wollensak 4765 (what a great cassette deck that was!) and a pair of EPI tower speakers. After a while, I decided to replace the EPI's, sold them to a friend and bought the JBL 88's from an on older guy who was the son of a friend of my parents. Man, they rocked! 12" woofer, bass port in front and a tweeter with an adjustable "tone control" knob to raise/lower treble output.

One time, I raised that treble knob all the way, turned the receiver's treble tone control all the way up, put on ELP's "Tarkus" (there is this cool, phasey drum thing on it) and destroyed the tweeters. I didn't know that there was a covering on the outside ring of the tweeter that had to be removed to expose the screws to remove the tweeters, so I removed the whole piece of wood that the tweeters were mounted to, sent them to JBL for repair/replacement. When I got them back, (replaced at no charge), the new tweeters were mounted in the wood, just as I had sent the old ones.

I guess the blowout occurred during the summer, because I remember going back to college with the L88's, and their not having any tweeters in them. I compensated by placing my old pair of dept. store stereo speakers (I think he brand was "Columbia") on top of the JBL's, and connecting both pairs of speakers to the two sets of speaker outputs in the Pioneer receiver. It worked great.

I had them 'til I got married, and then some. When I needed to downsize, I bought JBL 18ti's (much smaller, but with the JBL house sound). I recently replaced the 18ti's with GMA Europas, but the negative WAF forced them out. Now everyone is happy with Von Schweikert VR-1's, which have a very full sound for their size, but don't thrill the way the JBL's could.

I love this thread. My dad was one of the largest JBL dealers on the west coast. I worked for him as a kid, part time while in school. I used my money to buy JBL L100's, a Marantz 2270 receiver and a Marantz 6300 Turntable with an Empire Cartridge, I also had a Teac (can't remember the model) cassette deck.

I listened to tons of records with great joy. I wanted the JBL Jubal L65's but could never afford them.

Those were great days! I loved that sound, the blue lights, the knobs and switches. I had hours of fun and all of my friends wanted me to bring MY system to THEIR party. It stayed parked in my bedroom.

I had a friend who had a set of L212s. Listening to those speakers is what got me interested in hi-fi.