Houston, the Eagle has landed! JBL Everest Speaker

[Robh3606]

I have Array 1400 clones with berylium drivers and the matching Array 880 center. I use the 1400's in a dedicated 2 channel set-up and they sound just fine on music. You could listen to them all day long no fatigue and no honk. The detail from the Be drivers is really something and in this application the 045Be tweeters really get to shine as they are crossed over at about 8K as opposed to 20K in the Everests. The extension out past 20K is marketing as the primary market is Japan for the Everests. I use the 880 in my HT where I have flanking active mains and it is very good as well. Natural vocals and great dynamics.

Amir you are one lucky guy to have them in your showroom. One of these days I need to go find a pair for a listen.

Rob

 

[Filecat13]

One of our newer members, Filecat13 aka Doug, owns the Everest baby brother K2's, a full-on Synthesis theater, and a couple of other JBL systems. The Synthesis theater was mind-blowing, but I didn't really get to spend any quality time with the K2's.

If you didn't get any quality time with the K2s, you'll just have to come to the next meet. I might do another in August.

By then Grumpy and I should have our JBL custom project up and running: Quad-amped L250 enclosures modified to use 908Ti, 904Ti, and TM025Ti drivers along with the LE14H-1 woofer. BSS gear will provide the active 4-way crossover/EQ, and four Hafler pro amps will provide about 2400W of balanced power. And WTH, with a couple of channels left over on each BSS unit, we may draft a couple of Synthesis® S2S subs for ULF duty.

As for the K2s, they fit the normal home better than the Everests, and properly set up will deliver quite an experience. In my case, they're backed (per the designer's advice to me) with a pair of passive subs (S2S subs again) for the bottom octave or so. This is a near-Everest experience in a much more home-friendly and economical way. By "economical," I mean for about half the cost.

Still, if I had a shot at getting some Everest IIs in the house, they'd probably already be in there.

 

[RUR]

If you didn't get any quality time with the K2s, you'll just have to come to the next meet.

Oh, darn.

/Ken

 

[microstrip]

Actually, the reception of the DD66000 in Europe was overwhelming - french magazine Revue du Son et du Home Cinema published and enthusiastic review and german Audio magazine give it almost its maximum score, close to the Alexandria 2. Not bad!

 

[flez007]

I have Array 1400 clones with berylium drivers and the matching Array 880 center. I use the 1400's in a dedicated 2 channel set-up and they sound just fine on music. You could listen to them all day long no fatigue and no honk. The detail from the Be drivers is really something and in this application the 045Be tweeters really get to shine...

Rob

Rob, would you share with us more on your Array 1400 clones?, did you use JBL drivers?, cabinet improvements?

 

[Robh3606]

Rob, would you share with us more on your Array 1400 clones?, did you use JBL drivers?, cabinet improvements?

Sure be glad to. I used all JBL drivers. I have the stock Le-14H-3 woofers that I purchased about 2 years before I built up these clones. The beryllium drivers are also JBL. The compression drivers are essentially 435Be's. These are the same drivers as the 435Al with the only difference being Aluminum vs Be diaphragms. Both are coated with aquaplas to dampen the diaphragms.

The tweeters are 045Be vs 045Ti in the stock systems. Again the only difference is the Be vs Ti diaphragm material. The Be drivers are more efficient than the stock drivers so the padding had to be adjusted and Be diaphragms also have more output above 5K than the Al so I had to shift a pole in the HF crossover to get the same on axis response.

The crossovers are Charge Coupled while the stock systems are not. Fortunately we had access to the complete crossover schematic which included the inductor DCR values so we could order coils with the correct value. Several of the coils had to trimmed down from stock values as they were not standard values.

The cabinet?? Well they are certainly not clones aside from driver spacing and baffle width which is close but not exact. I just used generic 3/4 MDF with lots of internal bracing and a couple of layers of dampening compound to coat the inside of the cabinet. They have a flared 4" port and 2" radius prefab corners on the front side which really helps stiffen things up. Nothing special.

Unfortunately JBL has really pulled the plug on selling drivers and horns used in their commercial systems. For years the "official" policy was they were not for sale however you could still get them. Now it's over. I was very lucky to be able to get the horns and 045Be's before the doors got slammed shut.

I had a lot of fun building them.

Rob

 

[kach22i]

Good looking speakers.

 

[flez007]

Thanks Rob, I am still on track to get a listen of the 1400 Array someday next week.... this new headhunter thing is killing me!