JBL D140F

[edrowe]

If the D140 was such a great speaker, why did JBL quit making them? Same for E-V SRO's.
-Ed

[bigobassman]

Can't answer the question specifically, but in general, seems that when a product is real good, and product meaning any product, that manufacturers can't leave well enough alone and discontinue for some replacement just to have a "new and different" product.  Sometimes it's better, sometimes not.  My experience is mostly not.  Remember "new Coke?"  Maybe some will do as car manufacturers have done recently.  Introduce "reissues" such as '69 Mustang, Dodge Challenger and Chevy Camaro.   

[loudthud]

This is a story I put together from several sources. I can't verify it but it seems reasonable.

Back in the 60's, JBL had a government contract for some models in the D series. Government contracts demand that you give them the very best price, and that you never increase the price. I think this is intertwined with what was at the time called "Fair Trading" a rule governing retail sales which ment you could not get JBL's at a discount or the dealer would not be allowed to sell JBL's. Conrad talks about this in one of his interviews posted on the Sunn Shack site. He bought 10 JBL's from a dealer in Portland and JBL dropped the dealer when they found out. The only way JBL could increase the price was to discontinue the D series and replace it with the K series. Same speaker, just slightly different cosmetics. Now when the government came calling, you would think JBL wrote into the contract that they could increase the price if the price of Cobalt went up which it did. The E series has ceramic magnets that don't use Cobalt. They came out when the price of Cobalt got so high that sales of the K series started to fall off. FYI, the ElectroVoice SRO series and Altec speakers like the 421A had ceramic magnets.

[EdBass]

 

This is a story I put together from several sources. I can't verify it but it seems reasonable.

Back in the 60's, JBL had a government contract for some models in the D series. Government contracts demand that you give them the very best price, and that you never increase the price. I think this is intertwined with what was at the time called "Fair Trading" a rule governing retail sales which ment you could not get JBL's at a discount or the dealer would not be allowed to sell JBL's. Conrad talks about this in one of his interviews posted on the Sunn Shack site. He bought 10 JBL's from a dealer in Portland and JBL dropped the dealer when they found out. The only way JBL could increase the price was to discontinue the D series and replace it with the K series. Same speaker, just slightly different cosmetics. Now when the government came calling, you would think JBL wrote into the contract that they could increase the price if the price of Cobalt went up which it did. The E series has ceramic magnets that don't use Cobalt. They came out when the price of Cobalt got so high that sales of the K series started to fall off. FYI, the ElectroVoice SRO series and Altec speakers like the 421A had ceramic magnets.

While this seems reasonable, and I'm certain that the cost of the rare magnets materials played a big part, In the case of the JBL's I think it probably had a lot to do with the power handling capacity. The D140 was a bass speaker, the "King of the Hill" in it's day, when and 75 watts was a lot of power.
Remember when a Crown DC300 was a "monster" amp, and when the 350+ per side BGW's and Phase Linears were just unbelievably powerful?
Of course now days sound systems often run into the tens of thousands of watts, and people regularly run 500 - 1K watts in their bass rigs, sometimes in 2 or 3 rack spaces, and those old AlNiCo speakers just won't keep up the pace. It's a shame, nothing sounds quite like those old D series, but by todays standards they are dinosaurs, just like the old power amps.
There are still old school AlNiCo drivers being made, but almost exclusively designed and meant to be used in guitar applications where a 50 watt watt amp will generally get the job done, unlike the required power usually percieved to be nessesary for bass guitar.

The SRO was AlNiCo and switched to ceramic magnets, and then the same speaker became the EVM series, and I think pretty much still exist as the "Force"? series.
Altec is a great example of power generally (and rather quickly) increasing, they went from the 420 series with AlNiCo magnets to the 421 series with ceramic, virtually the same 3" aluminum VC, same cast aluminum basket, and upped the power rating from a whopping 25 watts to 150 continuous program.

[edrowe]

Very interesting. What would be a good replacement for a D140?
-Ed

[Zulubilly]

If you have a JBL D140 reconed, will it be to the same specs as it was when it was new or will it be another speaker in a D 140 basket.  Just curious as to whether you can still get the proper recone kit.

Thanks,

Zulu

[EdBass]

If you have a JBL D140 reconed, will it be to the same specs as it was when it was new or will it be another speaker in a D 140 basket.  Just curious as to whether you can still get the proper recone kit.

Thanks,

Zulu

As far as I know, the factory D and K series kits are long gone. Until recently, the recone kits for the E series (ceramic magnet MI speakers, the last series of Musical Instrument speakers that JBL manufactured) were available, I haven't looked lately. The E series is a drop in replacement for the D and K series, however they have stiffer suspensions and wider VC tolerances, which actually work to increase the power handling capacity at the expense of a little sensitivity.
There are various non factory recones available, search this site for the threads, it's been pretty thoroughly covered in previous posts.

Very interesting. What would be a good replacement for a D140?
-Ed

I think that's wide open, and so subjective that there is no set answer. There are lots of 15" drivers that sound good for bass, but IMO only a D140 sounds like a D140. Having said that, I rarely use them myself. I usually use EV's in my gig rigs.
At my house I do have a 200S and a Sunn 115 cab with a D140F that I use for practice a (so it hardly ever gets used ), and at low level with a P bass it sounds so good you can taste it. Thick and rich with lots of bottom and nice definition, like a JBL should sound. 

[Johnny Guitar]

Could you please tell me the order that the different series came out and again which are Alnico?  Did the "K" Series replace the "D" Series and then the "E" Series replace the "K" ?

Thanks for the great info guys!
Johnny G.

[CLD]

My 1972 Kustom Charger combo has a K-140 in it.  (It has a great sound, by the way.)  According to my speaker tech, JBL changed the letter designation to K  because President Nixon had wage-and-price controls in place at the time so JBL couldn't raise prices on the D-140 and renamed it K-140.  A friend who owns a vintage guitar store said there are some differences between the D and the K but they were too minor for me to recall.

[george]

Don't forget that an edge wound VC is about 6X the cost of a "standard round wire" design. Try finding a replacement VC for a JBL LE5-5/9.....

[basiklybass]

First was the "D" series. The the "K" series which used newer adhesives and slightly more windings to increase the power handling. The ceramic magnet "E" was last in the series but survives today in basically the same form as the 2226. "E"'s do have a slightly larger gap to increase the power handling again.

As stated, when the "D" came out, 25 watts was a lot of power. Now 2500 is average. But the efficiency of the speakers has dropped from the 100's to the low 90's and sometimes even into the 80's. Louder? Not necessarily.....just more power.

There are edge-wound coils out there and one supplier just came out with an aluminum wire version with the same spec's as the "D" 120/130's had.

I would suggest an RCF as a close replacement however the price is the same so......I also like Utahs with the giant magnets and 3" VC's, They make a nice pairing with JBL's, fill out the sound so to speak.