Your Favorate JBL's from the 70's

Back in 1978 I had JBL L65 Jubals and a Pioneer receiver.
Never should have sold them.
Not because they sounded that good, but because of what they would sell for today.

I owned a pair of L212's. They had incredible imaging. I also owned a pair of S8's. The big 3 way with an 075 bullit tweeter 375 midrange and a LE15 woofer. Replaced the 075 with 077's and the sound became a lot smoother. Those were the days.

In my 20's I drooled over a pair of 4343's. In my 40's I bought a used pair and I substituted the better 2122 midrange and the 2235 woofer. I have always loved the punch of a JBL. The 10" driver made the voicesand instruments sound so good with a better transition to the 15" woofer. Biamping these made them sound even better. tubes on the midbass, midrange and tweeter and SS on the woofers. What a great sound.

My first JBL's in the 70's were four S8R systems in custom cabinets. I bought a Marantz 4300 receiver to power them. I had the optional SQ and QS decoders as well as an off board Dolby four channel unit. I later changed the 375 and short horn out for the LE85 and 12" horn. I felt it had a more extended HF response and was smoother. I changed the 075 out for a 077 for better response and more even distribution. About that time I added a pair of Phase Linear 400's and bi-amped the S8R's. A bit later I tri-amped them with a Pioneer D-23 electronic crossover, a pair of DH 500's and a Nikko MOSFET Alpha III amp for the top end. I also had a TEAC 3340S four track 10" R-R, 360 cassette deck, Benjamin Miracord turntable, DBX 3BX w/remote. I changed out the Marantz 4300 for a Marantz 3800 preamp and went back to two channel sound a year or so later. In the early 70's I though that was a great system with room filling effortless sound. Most of the time I hardly tripped the amps idle lights on louder passages during normal listening. But, I had a couple thousand watts on hand to kick any transients out with no distortion or clipping. Efficient speakers are great!

JBK L26