Those JBL D131F are real lookers
The JBL speaker was a real milestone in speaker design. I get real ticked off when companies like Weber state they make a JBL clone when technically what they offer is no where never this level of speaker technology. While it looks impressive on the outside its guts were a fantastic design. Thats why it is an insult to suggest a technology match without similar design features.
As can be seen in the Tube Chart below the JBL D131F were a "special order" item. In a 1966 Blackface Twin Reverb is
JB on the Tube Chart for the JBL Speakers and
SO written on Production Line section for Special Order. In 1966 Jimmy Hendrix ordered a cousin to this amp.
These speakers with magnets "fully charged," all original factory parts and aluminum domes might just be the "tone kings," but I have a few favourites and not one is perfect for every genre. The D131F is my "big stage" guitar speaker choice for 60s rock in a Fender tube amp backline. I would never ever let a reconner touch these babies that hadn't been a JBL technician employee. A regular reconner can never set these up right and you do need all the original parts and follow the JBL procedure to a T. I believe the same methodology for all great speakers.
Same with Oxfords there are only a few old tech wizards with the parts and experience that know how to setup the Oxfords needed for recording studio work. Most people have never heard an excellent example of the 2 to three excellent Oxford speaker model outside a hearing recording. Most of the time also the general public and guitar amp guys are unaware which amp speakers were used on what. People outside recording haven't a clue about the speakers used by the various large studios.
Thats why I laughed when I first heard the "Oxfart" jokes, because I knew these people hadn't a clue from a recording engineer or transducer acoustics engineer perspective. The joke was that starting in 1966 on Oxford are crap speakers, because they have excessive "voice coil gap." I can't see any actual basis in recording studios how this is true for what is considered a highly regarded product in that sector. What is odd is that for over 20 years that a few of the Oxford speaker models have been used to record 1000s of some of the most popular hit songs. So wouldn't be funny if one of those gets selected for world's historically best guitar amp speakers. The irony of it. From my perspective there have been a number of really great speakers from Oxford, Celestion and JBL. I would have to throw in a couple of the Jensens too. Each of them have speakers that are Tone Kings in specific genres.
It appears Ted Weber started the Oxford rumours and for over 10 years it propagated through sites like TDPRI and some of its members. Lots and lots of Oxford speakers ended up in the public dump because of the bad mouthing.
Just by coincidence this week I learned that Weber had
Quality Control Issues when assembling speakers for Scumback, a former OEM client account of theirs. The issue was around excessive "voice coil gap." As everyone now knows Scumback and Weber ceased doing business together in a real public %&*-fight.
Quote:
While I am having significant issues with the last few batches of speakers I received (2 out of 3 bad/built wrong discovered today alone), every speaker I sent out in the last two months was checked, run through FBI, or mounted in a cab and played by me personally to make sure it was good before it shipped.
It's taken a considerable amount of extra time weeding out the bad ones, and I have a nice pile going here that cannot be rebuilt due to having out of round frames/excessive gap/noises/vibrational rattles and loose magnet issues. When I get the time I'll be sending them back to Weber for credit, or just trash them, and take the loss. The whole scenario behind this has been so distasteful and disgusting that I'm going to concentrate on my new production line progress, and deal with this problem later.
Jim Seavall
Scumback Speakers & Cabs
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