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Help with JBL c60 Soveregin s8r speakers???

Hey Guys.

I recently came across the craigslist find of a lifetime a set of JBL c60's with the s8r driver package. I would love to talk with anyone that has experience with these. So far the sound is pretty good and i know it is to be some of the best. The giant 375 mid horns are ear piercing loud, i have played with the crossovers and tamed them a bit but still... I would like to ask about the best way to run these i read alot about tri amping and using a active crossover and cutting out the lx5 and n7000. My first try at listing was thru my pioneer sx-1050, with a moscode super it phono pre that did not go well at all. Now they are hooked up to a adcom gfa-555 sounds better but not great. A am starting to fear i cannot afford these speakers, meaning yes i have them, great, but now what.. The gear to run these guys well may be out of my reach. Again please let me know if ya know anything about these JBL's.. Thanks for your time
Zack
zchristian386
tubeking
65 posts
 
I have a pair of JBL L200's that when first hooked up after a long period of not being used sounded awful. I let them play for a few hours and the caps started to do there job and the sound was much better. Two things I would recomend is having the caps replaiced in the existing x-overs or better yet build better new ones(do NOT damage the existing ones as they will be needed for future resale) Second I have never heard horn speakers sound as good with transitors as with tubes. I know someone some where will disagree with that but pretty much that is the generally excepted path to go. Every time I have used transistors on horns(many times/many speakers)they sounded harsh and fatiguing.
zchristian386 OP
3 posts
 
Hey thanks for the repley. I have read of others saying the same thing. I do not have the skills to custom build a set of crossovers. And your right i dont want to mess with the original crossover.. What i was thing of is getting an active crossover and bi anping.. Would i need one ss amp for the woofers an adcom gfa-555 that i have for now and and one tube amp for the tweeters and horns. Or do i need two tube amps one for tweeters and other for the mid horns. Someone i know has a mcintoch 240 he wants to let go of, do you think it can drive the 2 075's and the two 375's with just 40 watts per channel. I am new to tube amps and juct can not understand how a 40 watt tupe amp can compare to a 150 watt or so ss amp.

Thanks for your help.
tubeking
65 posts
 
The Mac would be very good. I would look to the internet perhaps the JBL site with the vintage information for a x-over schematic. You could have someone you know build a new one with better parts or even try a company like Madisound that builds x-overs. I would also try the MAC your friend has NOW (as is) so that you can get a taste of the tube sound to see if this is possably your cup of tea. Beleve it or not the Mac is more that powerfull enought for your speakers. Going multi way is expensive and frustrating for a beginner.
ths364
181 posts
 
You could try the active crossover- Adcom on the bass and the McIntosh on the highs should sound very good. Have you eliminated floor reflections? If you have hard floors placing a rug in front of the speakers can tame some of this.
I'd try the active crossover- it effectively eliminates the potential bad components in the original crossover while retaining originality. I'd bi-amp instead of tri-amping. If that ends up working you could then have new crossovers made if you wanted to. Make sure to look up at what frequency the original crossovers kick in. Crossing the midranges in at too low a frequency can roast them pretty quickly. This information should be available at the Lansing Heritage site. Good luck!
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