JBL S105 Aquarius 1 Restoration Log

I purchased these speakers a while ago on craigslist, and it was probably a mistake, especially for $250.
Regardless, I am now restoring them.
As I purchased them, the grills are falling apart, the original 10" jbl woofers have been replaced by shitty radioshack woofers, the 10" woofer diffuser plates are missing, one of the bases is a bit messed up, one tweeter has a hole in it, and one binding post is broken.


Tweeter with hole, I have removed other drivers to clean speaker


Nice vintage JBL badging on tweeter


Nice vintage jbl badging on midrange


Cool vintage jbl badging on back of speakers



Also came with all original paperwork from 1971, including jbl product pricing guide.
These cost a whopping 288$ each in 1971. The legendary paragon cost a whopping $2500 though, or about $16000 now. Fun fact, the designer of the Paragon, Arnold Wolf, also designed the exclamation mark logo of JBL as seen throughout the 60's, 70's, and 80's, and is only slightly changed now.




My progress on these so far:
Cleaned out inside. Removed all fiberglass, and 2 dead mice.
I just ordered a new (used) tweeter for the one for $50. So already $300 in.

To do list: Find 2 JBL LE10A woofers, they come up on ebay now and again. I hope to score a pair for under $200. Rebuild grills using a frame and speaker cloth. I like the cool retro circles on the current one, but pretty hard to reproduced. Its made of a weird mesh plastic covered in fuzzy material, but has become brittle with age.

Cool reading on the JBL Aquarius
http://www.audioheritage.org/html/profiles/jbl/aquarius.htm

 

Well I just scored an original pair of woofers, reconed, but you really can't find them with original cones.
Only $100 + $40 shipping.

Once those arrive all I have to do is remake grills, possibly redo crossover and wiring if I'm feeling up to it, and then either keep or sell them. My parents say sell, get them out of our house. But idk... Depends on how they sound

 

I DON'T LIKE THE TONE OF YOUR VOICE YOUNG MAN.

 

Replaced the broken Tweeter and replaced the old mouse poop filled fiberglass with some poly fill

 

Not sure if you want to remove the mouse poop. I hear it has special spacial refractometry alignment qualities in the 42nd natural harmonic zone. I personally find that gray mouse poop presents an overall warmer and more lush sound, while white mouse poop is a bit more transparent and clinical...

 

I don't like the tone of his parents' voices. I think he's quite right to get them out of the house.



(Great project, @spwath )

 

@spwath you always seem to find some cool stuff on your local Craigslist. I know you're saving for a car but I think these odd refurbishing projects could make you a little money while also letting you scratch the itch to work on this vintage stuff. I love reading about these odd classics being brought back from the dead.

 

Yeah, I like it. My parents like the me making money and working on speakers part, they don't like the large half finished speakers sitting in their living room part.

 

Got them all put together, set them up and...
they don't work. Whenever either speaker is attatched, they are very very quiet, and when I turn up the volume, it sends the amp into protection mode and shuts off.

Any thoughts on where the issue could be? they worked before... I just redid the binding posts and added the woofers. Both speakers don't work.

 

Well I found the issue, now I just need to find the source. I measured with my multimeter across the + and - terminals, one speaker measures 1 ohm, one measures 0 ohm.

 

Have you traced the wiring? Could help to double checked each component and the wiring with you multi-meter to make sure there's not something mis-wired or shorted somewhere. Maybe the dead mice nibbled on something they shouldn't have?

 

I checked it somewhat, not completely, but I didn't seem to see anything wrong.
Weird thing is, they worked when I bought them, so im not sure what went wrong

 

Wow I am stupid, and just destroyed the crossover for no reason.

I was going through the crossover, looking at the schematic, and clipping the wires, measuring each time to see if the short was still there. I ended up clipping every single component out that went between the + and - terminals, and I still had a short.

I just realized, the back panel where the speaker terminals come out are plastic. The previous binding posts had plastic on them. The ones I replaced them with were just metal. So the short was the two metal binding posts on the metal plate. And my crossover is pretty much destroyed. Probably best to build a new one anyway.

 

Hey, at least you found it! Cheers

 

Time to rebuild the crossovers. pulled them out:

Crossover Schematic: https://manuals.harman.com/JBL/HOM/Technical Sheet/S105 Aquarius I ts.pdf

I plan on reusing the inductors to save money, but would probably be a good idea to replace everything else, right? Caps/Resitors/L Pad?

Loading up my shopping cart, trying to figure out if there is a way for me to save money, right now is about $90

 

What is the component that looks like a rock embedded in a tub of wax?

 

That's 2 caps and an inductor in there. Not really sure why its in a cardboard circle with some weird stuff in it.

 

That’s likely wax potting. It is some times done to reduce microphonics. If those caps are paper in oil, you should measure to confirm values and maybe keep them. May sound better than the new Daytons. The inductor, if it remains potted, is fine. Those resistors probably also bullet proof wirewound, just measure to confirm values. Cut leads are fixable with solder and wire. Save your money!

The big question is whether the re-coned speakers have anywhere close the original TS parameters, But absent a careful measurement, I’d just assume they do.

 

jesus, it's a potato battery reference voltage source hahaha, wow, looks primitive even for the 70's, like its 1920's radio tech...

 

What does that mean exactly? Is that why the components are in the carboard circle of shit?