Looking for JBL 2235's, 2235H woofers for a studio monitor project

[nevetslab]

Having caught up with an old friend who I had lived with in the days I worked for Cherokee Recording Studios in the early 80's this past week, and the subject of the pair of studio monitor cabinets he acquired from Coco came up again. Coco (Steve Branden) was the head of the maintenance dept at Cherokee, and learned his room tuning chops from George Augspurger). The three control rooms there all head George's early version of his dual woofer 3-way studio monitors, which had JBL 2235 woofers in focused-baffles, JBL 2441 drivers mounted to the 2390 Horn/Lens for mids and JLB 2405 slot tweeters, all triamp'd from BGW amps. I got to thinking about my JBL 2390 horn/lens cabinets with 2441 drivers mounted to them, and at this stage, not really wanting to sell them, I thought time to make a Christmas present of them and a pair of my BGW TRIAMP's that John Debord of Compact Monitor Systems gave me at the end of his selling off the assest of his company. Perfect match for Vince's studio monitors, if we can come up with the woofers and tweeters.

Vince sent me a couple pictures of the monitors Coco had surpervised the building of:



After seeing these photos, and doing some digging on the internet, those flat-front horns appear to be the early version of TAD TH 4001 midrange horns, having seen wave guide 'fingers' just inside the throat past the driver mounting flange. I found these images:



Vince hasn't yet been able to remove the horns from the baffle, but the depth of these appear to be only around 8.6" deep, and.....kind of look like they're made for 1' throat drivers (my JBL 2441's are 2" throat drivers, with 7" dia motors. He sent me a photo of the cradle that was mounted in the cabinet, and they look like what I feared....smaller drivers. So, still playing with the original thoughts of getting my JBL 2390 Horn/Lens mounted into these cabinets, we'd need to cut into the baffle below the existing horn opening to accomodate the narrower/taller JBL 2390 horn, and mount them to a baffle that would cover up the opening for the TH4001 horns. The mounting depth needed for the JBL 2390 Horns/2441 driver is 17.5". I haven't yet gotten the real depth from the front of the cabinet baffle to the inside back wall, but from the photos he sent me, the depth of the cabinet looks to be shallow. That would mean adding depth to the new horn mounting baffle to gain the required depth to mount the horn/lens/driver assembly to these cabinets. That much appears to be feasible.....assuming the driver size for these existing horns ARE not going accomodate the larger JBL 2441 drivers of mine.

What's needed to put this project into being feasible are finding a used set of JBL 2235 or 2235H woofers....may need to be reconed, but that's the current need.

Below is a photo of what the original Cherokee Studio Monitors looked like....or close to it, as they had the slot tweeters mounted differently, with a pair instead of the single in this photo:



So, I'm now on the hunt for two pair of JBL 2235's (Alnico V Magnets) or 2235H (Ferrite magnets). There may be enough space to mount a JBL 2202 or 2205 Tweeter below the left port on the left speaker, and right port on the right speaker. I'm assuming the depth of the cabinet will require an extended horn/baffle to fit the 2390 horn/lens with the 2441 driver. Of course, if it turns out the existing horns ARE built for the 2" exit drivers, all the better. Though I LOVE the soft edge these horn lenses add to the midrange character.

Anyone know of any these woofers being available?

[The Dude]

All I can say is good luck finding those without spending 3 arms and 2 legs. If you do find them at a decent price, it's fairly likely they will need at least the foam surround replaced. The 2235 is basically a 2234 with a mass control ring glued into the voice coil form. If you do find some to recone, be sure to save the ring. I'm not aware of anyone who makes a recone kit that supplies the ring, though there might be something out there I'm not aware of. That said and IMO, the ring doesn't radically effect response and lots of folks removed them in the 44 series monitors because they preferred the response. I have a pair of 4430's for sale, but you can't have just the drivers.

[The Dude]

To add: The 2220,2225,2234, 2235, etc. can all be reconed to be 2235's. So, if you can find any of those baskets in decent shape, you could recone them to be what you want.
And, I'll be damned. I looked, just out of curiosity, and found these:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/11509386125...8AAOSwJUdejcQn

https://reconingspeakers.com/product...235-mass-ring/

I guess you can still get the rings. I just haven't needed one for a long time.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Nevets, I may have a 2235 lurking in my garage. Last I looked its surround was intact. It may even be NOS. As for other JBL's that might be converted, I have a couple dead JBL 15's lurking around but doubtless you could locate similar frames closer to you & avoid a big shipping bill.

[nevetslab]

To add: The 2220,2225,2234, 2235, etc. can all be reconed to be 2235's. So, if you can find any of those baskets in decent shape, you could recone them to be what you want.
And, I'll be damned. I looked, just out of curiosity, and found these:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/11509386125...8AAOSwJUdejcQn

https://reconingspeakers.com/product...235-mass-ring/

I guess you can still get the rings. I just haven't needed one for a long time.

Now THAT is very good news. Though....as I recall, the 2235 (Alnico V) is a larger magnet than the 2220, 2225. Pretty sure the 2234 and 2235 are the same larger magnet assembly. But, as the cost of the monitor cabinet rebuilds are going to be pricey, this may be insignificant, as long as the four motors are the same. I don't have a gauss meter that would tell me the inherent strength of any motor baskets are, prior to reconning, though perhaps one of the local speaker recone facilities would have that. I did just hear today that Orange County Speakers has gone out of business, one of the premier reconing houses in the LA area. Cherokee reconned their JBL's in-house by Vince about every 3-4 months to maintain the monitors in that pure brilliance factor. We were, after all, pounding on the monitors with raw unrecorded sound from the mics in the studio, rather than just having the tamed level off of the 24 track machines hitting them. I never knew, prior to going to work at Cherokee studios, that loudspeaker's character behaved much like strings on an instrument. The first time I heard the change....I looked at Coco, and exclaimed.....Damn....you just changed the strings on the guitar, or cut a brand new oboe reed (I started my music career at age ten as an oboiest, indulged in classical music). That was the magic of Cherokee, and you'd hear comments from Shelly Yakis and Jimmy Ioveen, after putting up Petty's Refugee (their referrence tape to judge where the room's monitors were at for the beginning of a few months recording/mixing)....."Damn....it STILL sounds as good as it did last time!!!" So, hopefully, if we can find four decent motors and pick up the 2235 kits and mass rings, Vince still has the touch for reconning as he did way back when.

[nevetslab]

Following up on the woofer frame/motor, I found this link which has a chart showing the Theile-Small parameters of the 2215, 2220, 2225, 2226, 2231 2234 & 2235, and photos of the cone/voice coil of the 2231 cones. I don't have my thick JBL Binder which has all these data sheets, so you can read them. So many of the old JBL data sheets are tiny jpg images, and enlarging them enough to try and read....just a blur of images instead of readible text. The xmax spec seems like a key with regards to showing those with the long voice coils. Remembering the Alnico Magnet assemblies of the 2235 and LE15A, and those of the 2220, which looked similar in size to the D130, D140, 2205, seems like they were two different magnets...13lbs and 18lbs. Wasn't the depth in the motor deeper for the longer voice coils of the 2231 and 2235 than those with the shorter xmax throw (and I think shorter voice coils?

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...225H-and-2235H

[Leo_Gnardo]

Nevets, I poked around in the garage today & found my hi fi JBL - it's a 2231A - and the surround has fragmented. Other than that, it's in great shape. Found a stack of K145's, 3 of 'em, long kaput. These were supposed to be some sort of super K140, and had fancy protruding rings at the baffle flange. One of my recone friends told me long ago, those trim rings are removable, then you just treat 'em like K140's. If any or all of these pique your interest let me know.

I tried using MEF's message function but something's hinky there and I can't enter an address.

[nevetslab]

I just joined AudioHeritage.org to learn more on the older JBL woofers, including the K-series. I also heard back from Vince (owner of the TAD 2401 cabinets) that it will be sometime next year before he has the funds to invest in what woofers we find, and how they come back to life in the restoration of those cabinets. Are the K140's and K145's the same motor? Alnico V or Ferrite magnets? I don't recall.

While digging on the internet for more woofer info, I found the one photo in this thread showing the two cabinets now listed in their photo archive, so somebody is watching.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Are the K140's and K145's the same motor? Alnico V or Ferrite magnets? I don't recall.

K's are Alnico, as are D's. E's have that dinner plate size ferrite magnet.

[nevetslab]

Thanks, Leo!

[nevetslab]

While browsing the Lansing Heritage Forum that I just joined (for more recent vintage JBL info), I found the mounting details of the JBL 2390 Horn/Lens Driver info. The drawing showed the use of their Cast Iron 2505 Driver support mounting bracket, along with the horn/lens mtg centers, as well as the horn mouth opening and corner radius. My horns are still sitting in my lockers, mounted in horn road cases that was part of my band's PA speaker stacks. I had missed that mouth opening the first time.