So fortune (and a lot of junk shop and estate sale visits) has brought into my possession 3 pairs of vintage JBL speakers with 10" woofers:
L26 Decade, L50, L110.
All are in very good+ condition and have been re-foamed and re-capped by me. From what I can gather, all 3 of these speakers were available for sale in the late 1970s - early 1980s, so if you walked into a store in '78 or '79, you could have purchased any one of these speakers. What really surprised me when putting them next to each other is that the dimensions are different for each speaker, so it looks like JBL started from scratch with each design with no consideration for production streamlining/simplification.
How do they sound? I am not a super critical listener, but I've always been a 3-way speaker fan. A tweeter, midrange and big woofer just seems right to me. My gold standard speakers are JBL 4312A Control Monitors. They were my first "real" speakers and I bought a pair new when I was in the Army in West Germany in the '80s. I've owned and listened to many speakers since then, but the 4312As are still my favorites. I was dumb enough to sell my original pair many years ago, but I have since bought and reconditioned another pair. I also prefer solid state amps and used an old Technics SU-V707 90 watt/channel integrated amp when comparing these speakers. That being said:
L110 - very close in all ways to the 4312As. Base may be a little tighter but maybe I'm jaded knowing the woofer is smaller. Great speaker. Like the 4312As, they tend to be unforgiving of poor recording quality, but that's to be expected from an accurate speaker.
L50 - pretty darn close to the L110s, but the highs are not quite the same. Not worse, just different, maybe a little warmer. I assume its because the L110 has a dome tweeter vs the cone tweeter in the L50s. My hearing doesn't go up past ~14kHz any more, so maybe a younger ear would see more of a difference. Speaker grills make a difference. You want to turn the tweeters down a notch or two if you listen without the grills.
L26 - listening to these is like listening to the L50s with the bass and treble knobs turned up a notch on the amp. Not a bad thing, especially at lower volume. I miss the midrange driver visually, but the sound does not suffer badly.
Some other notes:
All 3 sets of speakers are a pleasure to listen to. When spaced properly, they put you "in" to the music. I couldn't do blind testing because I'm alone, but maybe I'll get to it in the future.
I didn't do a direct comparison, but I believe the L50 and L110 crossovers are of similar design to the 4312As. The L26 crossover was very simple, there was only 1 cap to replace.
The L26 and L50 speakers are rated 35 watts/channel RMS while the L110s are 75 watts/channel RMS
L26 Decade, L50, L110.
All are in very good+ condition and have been re-foamed and re-capped by me. From what I can gather, all 3 of these speakers were available for sale in the late 1970s - early 1980s, so if you walked into a store in '78 or '79, you could have purchased any one of these speakers. What really surprised me when putting them next to each other is that the dimensions are different for each speaker, so it looks like JBL started from scratch with each design with no consideration for production streamlining/simplification.
How do they sound? I am not a super critical listener, but I've always been a 3-way speaker fan. A tweeter, midrange and big woofer just seems right to me. My gold standard speakers are JBL 4312A Control Monitors. They were my first "real" speakers and I bought a pair new when I was in the Army in West Germany in the '80s. I've owned and listened to many speakers since then, but the 4312As are still my favorites. I was dumb enough to sell my original pair many years ago, but I have since bought and reconditioned another pair. I also prefer solid state amps and used an old Technics SU-V707 90 watt/channel integrated amp when comparing these speakers. That being said:
L110 - very close in all ways to the 4312As. Base may be a little tighter but maybe I'm jaded knowing the woofer is smaller. Great speaker. Like the 4312As, they tend to be unforgiving of poor recording quality, but that's to be expected from an accurate speaker.
L50 - pretty darn close to the L110s, but the highs are not quite the same. Not worse, just different, maybe a little warmer. I assume its because the L110 has a dome tweeter vs the cone tweeter in the L50s. My hearing doesn't go up past ~14kHz any more, so maybe a younger ear would see more of a difference. Speaker grills make a difference. You want to turn the tweeters down a notch or two if you listen without the grills.
L26 - listening to these is like listening to the L50s with the bass and treble knobs turned up a notch on the amp. Not a bad thing, especially at lower volume. I miss the midrange driver visually, but the sound does not suffer badly.
Some other notes:
All 3 sets of speakers are a pleasure to listen to. When spaced properly, they put you "in" to the music. I couldn't do blind testing because I'm alone, but maybe I'll get to it in the future.
I didn't do a direct comparison, but I believe the L50 and L110 crossovers are of similar design to the 4312As. The L26 crossover was very simple, there was only 1 cap to replace.
The L26 and L50 speakers are rated 35 watts/channel RMS while the L110s are 75 watts/channel RMS
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