JBL Array 2235 Be project

Good post/project Cooky, ive only heard one set of Arrays the 1000s, they weren't in the best room, but sounded very promising indeed.
Id love to hear the other versions (although this might be difficult in the UK), i think a guy over on Wam had a set(1400s) for sale a while back.

 

The Horns

1

 

Ah, interesting. I've always wondered what that narrow dip in the 9800 / 4338 response was about. Now I know. Not so sure it can't be heard, but I don't think it's too important.

 

The 9800s are *seriously* huge, but S4600s would take up "only" about the same volume as current speakers + stands.
RRP is about 900,000, but I've seen them on sale for around 700,000. Less than 500,000 seems pretty good. I think it would be possible to negotiate a bit more.
The LSR6332 really interest me as the true successors of the NS1000, but I wonder how much of a step forward from the Yamahas they would be. Maybe this is what I should investigate.

 

A peruse of the JBL system tech library shows this hf notch running through all the K series, the S series and the Arrays it's position varies with horn/driver/xover-even the Everest DD66000 has it..

 

Although it would be nice to have a flat FR, looking at the nature of the dip and the frequency, I don't think it's a big deal. Overall response is admirably flat, linear and low distortion.

 

wonderful thread cooky!

loving it.

I am especially impressed with 'coating' the Be diaphragms. You must have been shaking at the knees !

I would never dare attempt this on mine, the sheer cost of the damn things is astronomical. The TAD ones are over £1k(!) for a set. I have heard there will soon be 3rd party Be diaphragms available, and roll-on that !!..

Have you tried the horn on its side? - do you hear any horn colouration from echo from the ceiling with the horn pointed this way?

Did you 'build' the crossover yourself too? part-active part-passive? If so, even more impressed !!

 

Hi Cooky,

Can you please post a picture of the speakers taken directly from the front. I just wanted to get another perspective, the horns look like they are slightly off-centre.

 

I was a bit! but being arty helps with the brush action and I did go through loads of coke cans for practice.

Indeed, a 4" Be dropped into a 2450 and you have JBL's top of the line uber comp driver-the 2450 have the new phase plug I believe.

I did try it and it was fine if not as precise stereo but a more room filling sound.
I have 9ft ceilings and haven't noticed any bounce/echo.

I could just go via my XTA and PEQ the flattest response but there was so much tweaking done by Greg Timbers/JBL and by the looks of things half the Lansing forum to arrive at the best filter network I'd be mad not to build it. I'm using an actively driven bass but heres the voltage drives for MF/HF


..and the network
actually the network is further tweaked with some very slightly altered cap values.

I've built one so far but will redo it neatly this time. At the mo' I'm running everything through the XTA as a 2 way and only pushing the 2435 out to 14khz but the bass/mid integration seems to be working great the freq/polar responses of the LE14/2235 are very similar but there's more fun to be had here using the PEQ on the XTA.

Dev, the full on images posted so far are of the quick fix before the mounting plate was made, here's a later one-nearly every surface of the horns is curved and sometimes they do look to be on the piss but I assure you they aren't

 

Thanks Cooky. Great job.

BTW, what are the 2 drivers on the right? You building a pair for me? .

 

;-) JBL 2235's, someone is cloning some H9800 horns for me and I'm expecting a pair of 2431HPL comp drivers , the aluminium dia'd version of the 435 Be from the US any day now(btw only £90 each !!!!).
Plan is to build a much smaller 100L 2 way, kind of like a 4338 sans uhf driver. JBL pro push these comp drivers way past 14khz so it is a goer.

 

Quick n dirty RTA

This plot shows the raw response of just the 2435BE/SAM1 horn (dotted) and the quick peq'd response via the XTA(I didn't use the Auto eq function on the DEQ 2496.) Close on +/-1.5dB.
Once the passive network is in place I can expect to get it +/- 0.5dB. Thr Behringer measuring mic was placed @ 0.3m on axis.

 

BTW the vertical scale in the above plots is 5dB.
Some more pics of the mic/horn set up.
I RTA'd both sets of horn drivers and can't tell the difference between the plots so close enough!
Of note also is the very high efficiency of these horns means there's over 24dB of wriggle room when it comes to flattening the frequency response and the already extremely good distortion figures of the 3" Be driver are improved even further.



As I get closer to the 'ideal' eq with these horns the sound and stereo image just gets better and better.

Over 740 views but relatively few responses....... come on ZG ers it's freezing here!!

 

Some of us can't type for the drooling.

But seriously, I (along with the usual suspects) am following this with great interest.

 

Absolutely. A proper thread.

Tony.

 

now you are DEFO being greedy !



keep it up greed is good, apparently!

 

Thank you chaps.
Plans in place:
To finish passive networks.
Go 3 way and hook up the uhf driver.
To finalise extra peq on top.
To experiment with vertical position of the SAM 1 horn-the mounting plate has 5 different sets of mounting holes @ 10mm intervals.
Spike the bases and maybe try a slate plinth.
Cooky

 

Thing is Chris the 2235's are worth more in sound quality than I could sell them for and the 2431 comps are so cheap 2nd hand its a no brainer-but you are right; greedy

 

oooo how about rear channels in an arse kicking AV set up?

get a couple of 8's another horn and do a mid channel

me definately want!

 

Fascinating. Running it as a 2-way you seem to get flatter response than when JBL runs these as 3-ways. No HF dip!
This shows just what an exceptional piece of kit the JBL driver / horn combination is. Outstanding.
Flat response, low distortion, high power handling and controlled dispersion. What's not to like.