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Big JBL Theater items for the DIY Guy.

87K views 715 replies 69 participants last post by  uroford 
#1 ·
Last year I met a guy through Craigslist that bought out all the audio gear from a closed down theater in northern Kentucky. I bought some amps from him but at that point he said he sold all of the JBL speakers that came from the theater. Turns out that Scott S and MKTheater bought some of the JBL speakers around the same time and they were probably from the same theater in Kentucky. Long story short, those amps went good with MKTheater's speakers, so I sold them to him for what I paid. End of story.




Well yesterday I saw some big empty JBL horns on Craigslist and called the guy. He bought the complete horns but sold the compression drivers. He said where he got them and it turns it it was the same guy I dealt with last year!!!

I hurried and called the guy and went down to see what he had. Wow, he's got a LOT of JBL cinema speaker stuff. I posted the info in this thread and you can read how this all came about and other opinions:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1310069



I went back this morning to try and get pricing from the owner. Here's the info:

Quote:
He has 21 of the dual 15" models (4648-8).


He has 12 of the 18" model 4645C.


He has 120 of the surround speakers (8330)


He only had 2 of the big 31" x 31" horns and 2445H compression drivers left after selling the others. He does have the horns and throats for that model, but sold all the CD's separately.


And he thinks the 15's that go with it will be around $225-$250 or so. Same with the 18's, but did say it might be closer to $250 for the 18's.


He said he would sell the surrounds for around $50-$55 each! But that I might have to buy them all for that price. Sounded like it leaned more towards $50 each.



He also had 6 smaller JBL horns and compression drivers. Model was 2447H. The horn looked like it was around 20" x 20" or so. Maybe he had more than 6, I'm not 100% sure on that.



The last time he had this stuff it went REALLY fast and I couldn't get any of it. If anyone wants anything, please let me know. I think it would be tough to ship the cabinets, but I do have some wooden skids. That's how I shipped MKTheater's amps. So maybe you guys want the individual drivers?



Also, I'm not sure what to do about the surround speakers. He said "$50 - $55 each, but I'd like you to buy them all". He has 120 of those. I'd do it if you guys thought people would buy them. If not, then I'd have to get a price for them sold individually. I really don't want to sell left over stuff on Ebay or places like that.
 
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#2 ·
I'd be interested in the drivers only. I'm sure for some here it might be nice to get a finished cab but it would be a big, big job for you send those heavy things cross country. Unless someone would pick them up from you, that is.


Wow! I'd hate to see you have to deal with 120 surrounds, bro.
Good luck with that! I'll take another pair.



Put me down for 2-4 2242's if they look nice and are actually 2242's and not 2241's or something else. Maybe an extra pair of 8330's if you happen to snag some surrounds but those are big and heavy. So that's a 'sorta want' for the surrounds for me.
 
#3 ·
By the way, the quality of the items looked petty good. I'm guessing they look like the stuff Scott and MKTheater bought last year.


The drivers have a light grey tint to them, which seems to be their normal color.


I'll try to find a photo of the smaller horns and compression drivers he had. I don't know much about JBL stuff, but I do know those larger compression drivers were freakin' HUGE! Like 30lbs each!
 
#4 ·
My drivers looked perfect. The cabs.... not so much. There were scuffs, scratches, gashes and all sorts of mostly superficial damage. One even had a paintball hit on it!
One had looked like it had been crushed or smashed a little even cause there is a bent side to one of them. Hard to articulate but I could go take a photo of it if you guys want. Don't rememeber what the thread was called but I posted up a bunch of pics of mine when I got them.


Yes. The 2445/2446 is a HUGE compression driver. Lol, each one weighs more than my Tempest driver!
It's large but it's a CD with balls. A compression driver for a real man.



Ok, that didn't sound right but you should 'lol' anyway. k?
 
#5 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Simonian /forum/post/20052895


Put me down for 2-4 2242's if they look nice and are actually 2242's and not 2241's or something else.


What's the difference on those?



Is there anyway to tell which model it is without opening up the cabinets? The guy was removing the compression drivers and selling them individually because the model number was easy to see and he said "We did some digging and turns out these CD's sell for good money by themselves."


So if he saw me removing the 18" drivers, he might start wondering the same thing about those and raise the price!
Not good. With regards to the 18's, he had 6 with one big port, and I think the other 6 had 3 ports, but the box was still the same size. So it wasn't the smaller 18" model. But I didn't check on the 3 port units.



In the other thread, someone posted a PDF of the JBL stuff. It says what those 18" driver models are in that specific speaker.
 
#8 ·
Guys I just looked at the smaller horn. I think it's cast aluminum! It's 18" x 22". That's the one that came with the 2447H. The bigger one is fiberglass though.


He did say was getting more for those even though they were smaller. He thought they were selling better because of their smaller size. But I got mine for the same price because I said I was hoping to get 3 of the larger 2445H units, but he only had 2 left. So he gave me the smaller one for the same price.



Looks like that CD alone is over $500 new. Man that's expensive, no wonder why he was selling the stuff so quickly last time.



Rightbrained, I believe the PDF said those 18's were 22hz without adding any EQ. I think I also saw 25hz +-3db somewhere.


Is that 18" really a good driver?
 
#14 ·
Ill re-post this here. Thanks again E. Cool to see the '42 getting props. Back when I started my project it wasn't a very popular idea. Dont pay too much attention to the Xmax, these are rated conservatively and have huge Xmech.

They wont get you under 20Hz, but they do the split second super high spl that TD talked about a while back real well.





Quote:
Id be interested in some 2242s depending on the price.


I can paypal at any time or whatever you need.


Damn, Erich you are like the DIY guardian angel these days. Horns, flatpacks, surplus theater....awesome!


Id like to be able to do something for YOU one of these days.


BTW back when I was shipping a lot of drivers, I found that screwing them cone down

to a piece of ply or osb works pretty well to keep them from flopping about. It wouldn't be too good for something with a high roll surround tho.
 
#15 ·
The 2242 is arguably one of JBLs best 18" pro drivers. They sell for ~$650 new.


I own a 2242H driver that I have mounted in a 4.5 cuft ported enclosure tuned to ~35 Hz. Crossing it at 100Hz, it is one amazing driver. It is very tight and very musical, much more so than my high x-max subs.
 
#16 ·
Actually, the 2242H will do subsonics pretty well. Not as well as 8 LMS5400s, but it is possible in a vented or PR alignment.


4 2242H with 4 AE PR18-2100 model to 110db at 10hz in half space and 130db at 90hz....with 900w total!!!!


It normally wouldn't make sense to do, but at $250/driver and $500 worth of PRs it could be a smart setup. It wouldn't have the raw SPL capability of some systems at 10hz, but I'd be surprised if many subs would sound better than it from 20-100hz.


Erich, count me in for 3 of the 15" cabinets (6 total 2226Js). I don't really need the cabinets actually. I can pick them up the next time I'm in Cinci. I might grab four of the 18's too.
 
#17 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by bodhisafa /forum/post/20053143


The smaller horn you are referring to is the 2352 thats accepts the 2447H CD. In the JBL catalog it says its fiberglass/reinforced plastic.



That could be right. The backs on the bigger ones show obvious fiberglass. But the smaller ones are very smooth but feel quite strong. I didn't want to scratch at it too much to check.




Guys, what really sucks is that he must have had a decent amount of the 18's. I thought I heard the employee mention selling 8 last week or something like that. And I know he sold around 20 of those huge compression drivers because he was counting out the empty horns and told me he had those 2 left and sold the rest. Bummer.




Any ideas on the surround speakers? And what should I do about all the other stuff? Should we do it?


The odd thing is that there's another DIY flat pack project going on in the background by member Lilmike. I went and picked up something crazy for that project, but can't spill the beans yet because it makes me look like I've lost my mind.
It's got nothing to do with these JBL's that happened to come up yesterday. I had to go pick the other stuff up from deep in Kentucky today, and when I saw these JBL's I was a little stressed that I might miss them again!


This will be the last "project" I can help with this winter though because spring is coming fast. I was mad last year that I really didn't do much of anything during the winter but plow some snow, so I made sure that didn't happen this year.
 
#19 ·
I think he had 6 of the smaller 2447H compression drivers. And 2 of the larger 2445H's. The others must have sold quickly.


He has a LOT of the big empty horns and metal throats for the larger compression driver. I wrote down the price, but didn't think anyone would consider those beasts besides MKTheater! He said $75 for the horn and throat.



Remember, he only has 12 of the 18's left. I was thinking about 2 of those for myself (maybe). I will probably buy a pair of the 15's if you guys think they sound that nice. Other than that, I don't need anything else. The smaller compression drivers might be interesting, but I really don't need them.
 
#21 ·
I'm not going to bother with the Ebay thing, I've heard that kinda sucks. But I will make sure I get all the 18's because it looks like you guys can use them. Actually, I'm not sure there's enough to go around with only 12 available.


And I'll get a bunch of the 15's as well. It's suppose to rain today and tomorrow so I won't be able to actually pick them up, but I'll go pay for them today to make sure he doesn't sell the stuff. I have to make room at my shop anyway






What about the surround speakers for $50?


And the "smaller horns"? Those might be nice because they can be flush mounted inside a cabinet like the QSC waveguide, but they're 22" wide! I might use 2 or 3 of those.


And also the empty 31" horns and throat without the 2" compression driver?
 
#23 ·
It's one of those. It has a very slight texture, not the gloss black finish.


Sorry, I have no idea bout the different CD's except that the big ones weigh 30lbs and the smaller ones are 24 lbs!



I called the guy and told him to hold all the 18's he has left. I'm going down around noon today to secure those and some 15's with some $$$$.
 
#24 ·
Erich-


I missed that you had access to 2352 horns. Those are the 18x22" horns. They should be ~10" deep and take a 1.5" CD. I would be interested in 3 of those for sure as well. I'd take the 2447H CDs too, but I'm not as interested in those. How much for the horns?


Let me know what the bill is.



Max
 
#25 ·
I think he's selling the smaller horns with the CD's, and I think he only had 6 of those left. He said they sold very quickly due to their size.


Any interest in the larger 31" with the metal throats? He has a lot of them with no CD's. They're set up for 2", but I read you can buy an adapter to make them any size lower than that.
 
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