JBL L88 Vintage

[fuzz092888]

I was just wondering if anyone could provide some insight about these speakers. I got them for free, woofers are still the same, but the tweeters were upgraded. They sound pretty good and I'm using them for stereo speakers connected as zone 2 for my receiver. I was just curious if anyone could tell me anything about them. Thanks.

 

[bikdav]

It almost looks like a version of the L-100. I've heard the L-100 many times and it was much better for rock instead of classical. I liked it.

 

[Swerd]

If I remember correctly, the JBL L-88, a 2-way speaker, had the same woofer and tweeter as the 3-way L-100. Just how well a 12" woofer worked with a 1½" cone tweeter is a good question. Apparently that woofer was smooth to as high as 5 kHz, and the tweeter could go as low as 1 or 2 kHz, so it is possible to imagine them working together. That woofer's output would not be very widely dispersed in the midrange frequencies, but on-axis it would be OK. It is possible that the L-88 may have sounded like it had a hole in the midrange.

I don't know anything about the L-88's crossover, but if it was anything like the L-100 it was extremely simple, really too simple. For details about the L-100 and raw frequency response curves of the woofer and tweeter, see this link where I describe my old L-100s and the design of a new crossover for it.

JBL did sell a kit to convert the L-88 to a L-100, but I doubt if it is available today.

 

[3db]

A friend of mine had a pair of JBL100s and they sounded good with both rock and classical.

 

[markw]

The L-88's were intended to be a poor man's L-100. The same speaker but without a midrange.

They did have an upgrade path though.

They sold, at that time, an upgrade kit that contained all the parts needed to upgrade these to a full-blown, three-way L-100