My best LANSING HERITAGE find was Altec, not JBL, and came years ago. I responded to an ad for unused custom PA cabs. When I got to the address the story that emerged was that these two fellas had been offered the job of cleaning out a warehouse because the lease had expired, the property owner had another use in mind, and the owner of the contents regarded all the remaining stuff as deadwood; I think their deal was a fee plus whatever they could sell. The cabinets were not what I wanted, but they were very cheap, so I bought them for all the one inch birch ply. Nearby was a stack of Altec factory boxes. What are those? Oh, those are some old horns. A local rock promoter had commissioned a sound system for a concert (Earth, Wind and Fire--Rain, Snow or Sleet--Kill, Maim, Destroy--I don't remember which it was) that had been cancelled. The compression drivers are long gone, but these are still here. Interested? Sure, what do you want for them? They consulted. Well, we were going to take them to the dump. You can have them for $25 A PAIR. They counted. The ninth one was free, because it would be a singleton. Clearly a windfall for them. For me, nine NOS Altec 511E horns, $100.
I feel your pain.
"Audio is filled with dangerous amateurs." --- Tim de Paravicini
Last year a guy on craigslist had listed "JBL Speakers" as 'too big to keep'. He didn't even know the model number. They were in MINT Condition. He was 'asking' $175. I was the first caller, but it was in the evening, and he wouldn't let me pick up till the morning (he promised me!!!). The next morning .. the guy was tickled pink that somebody else had paid $25 over his asking price.
.
the L-100's that I rehabbed and gave to my son were $4 at GW. Still in daily use.
the 4311b's from GW for $10. got traded for OHM F2's that were originally $5600.
got 250ti's from CL for 550. refoamed them and put on CL for 2200.
East Asia engineer couple came down from Canada to buy them. We were set on price. Stupidly, we load them in their SUV before I take payment.
His wife is maybe taller than me and stands over and says "we drove a long way and need a discount".
Responded "OK , how about $50 off , for gas" .... HER: "NO, not enough"
ME: "OK, 2150 then" ... HER (happy now) "OK"
wonder what he had told her the asking price was ???
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
Wow, ".We drove long way and NEED discount." FU, don't tell me about your problems, lady! LMAO though regarding the $50 off vs $50 for gas. The audacity though. Wife and I once drove six hours one way to pick up a set of Klipsch Forte I's for $300. Our spare truck even broke down and I had to repair it on the side of the freeway. Didn't even tell the seller about any of that nor did I ask for any discount, simply gave what he asked.
I'd say my best JBL score to date is my set of XPL 200's.
when I bought the beautiful Walsh F's , I called and left a message . got a return call about 2 hours later. He said "you were the first caller and after you the phone went nuts, BUT ..you were the first and I take people in order"
So I went over. Nice guy. He asked how far I'd driven ... told him about 25 miles and he offered a "gas discount" on already "give away priced" speakers.
I REFUSED the discount that he offered. And he even helped me disassemble them and pack out to my truck.
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
I get that all the time in my business, which is BMW sales in Virginia. Just had a guy call from Miami interested in our 2021 Z4 M40i who said he couldn't find any within 500-miles of Miami. Then he told me we were asking too much at list price on a car I can't replace. Told me he'd be coming from a long way so he needed a discount. I told him to find one closer to home.
Had another customer on the phone, a woman from Richmond (70-miles away), asking about one of our used cars and wanted to know "what's the best you'd take for it". I explained the situation with the tight supply of used cars and the 30% increase in recent months on both wholesale and retail used car prices. I showed her how ours was already listed at $3,000 under suggested retail from several sources and that we really priced our cars to appeal to customers on the Internet and didn't leave a lot of room for negotiation. She insisted, so I said we might have a couple of hundred to play with, but not thousands. She said we must have more than that and I told her we did, but we liked to call it "profit". I suggested that if she was planning on coming up that she should do so only if she thought the asking price was a fair one and not to tell me how long and far she drove to see it, and then ask for a discount.
My best JBL find after over a dozen pairs still has to be the mint pair of L7s I found on Craig's List three houses down the road from me. It was a medical student moving who had purchased them from another med student who moved two-years ago. They're a bitch to take with you! He was asking $1000 for them and I told him honestly I wasn't interested in his price but since I was so close I'd love a chance to hear them. After listening to them on some AV receiver he was running them with, he asked me what i would give him for them. I told him I really didn't need any more speakers but I had $200 cash to spend. He agreed and I walked back home to get my truck.
". . . as you have no doubt noticed, no one told the 4345 that it can't work correctly so it does anyway."—Greg Timbers
What goes around, comes around! I've paid $200 for each of two pairs of L7s and L5s. About the same I paid for each of my two pairs of LCR305Ps brand new. Same amount for 4412As including shipping. I was stuck on that number for a while.
But, in retrospect, my best deal was probably when my Dad left his 030 system at the curb for Goodwill and I dragged it into my bedroom closet back when I was 9-years-old, and later had ordered new 030 system and was building an MDF version of a C50 to put them in, when I came across a used mono-system C37 with the 030 load that the dealer ordering my components was happy to sell me for something like $125. And I still have it today.
". . . as you have no doubt noticed, no one told the 4345 that it can't work correctly so it does anyway."—Greg Timbers
That's much like how I am when buying stuff, I like to be fair and hope for fair prices in return. The latter usually doesn't happen all too often, seems I have a nasty reputation for overpaying and underselling.
Jeez Louise.. If they need to ask for a discount on a BMW or equivalent, they probably can't afford to drive one, especially a used one. On the other hand, I think some people like to gloat about how a great a deal they got or how much they saved off of MSRP
Last edited by DerekTheGreat; 07-09-2021 at 07:34 AM. Reason: Grammar
7 years ago, i was working at a ski resort and they decided to get rid of all the 'old junk' loudspeakers hanging from posts, outdoors near the ski trails. The boxes were all rotted and filled with nests and all...
A lot of different mids and horns for tweeters but, all of em with either 2220 or 2205 woofasss!.
The cones were useless but, i cleaned-up the frames/ motor structures, bought 2225 and 2235 re-cones (OEM) and had, brand new, JBL's woofers to work with!. All of those for the price of recone kits. Got 7 frames in all.
It was a good score, and I'm glad you were there before those frames went into the land fill. However, not to be a nag, and this could well be entirely moot now because all of those cones are NLA--but, just for the record, neither of those cones had the correct geometry for the 2220/130A frame, which is unique. I'm sure those rebuilds made sound, but their relationship to design performance--that would be an unknown.
It could be that the 2220 cone was NLA even at that point; I don't recall when it was dropped, so perhaps your reconer did what he could (though he should not have, IMO) rather than turn down the business. For any readers who come after, should they find some NOS kits, this is in hope they will be put into the correct frames.
"Audio is filled with dangerous amateurs." --- Tim de Paravicini
You guys have some really amazing scores and stories! I'm new to this forum. Despite only recently getting my first pair of vintage L100's from the original owners, I've been a life long JBL fan. Ever since I saw/heard my Dads business partner's L100s when I was a child. Later on in high school a friend's dad had a pair of 4345's that simply blew me away. The L100's I recently got, I got for a good price I think but nothing outrageous like the stories in this thread. I did get them from the original owner(which was important to me) and they're in incredible shape except they don't have the original foam quadrex grille covers. The Original owner said they fell apart about 8 years ago so he had them replaced with normal black speaker cloth. They look nice but I went ahead and ordered a pair of blue quadrex foam covers to replace them. I also added new foam for the LE25s. They sound as amazing as I remember.
I've also been working on collecting the drivers for a pair of 4350s for the last year and a half. I plan to start building the cabinets shortly. This brings me to my best JBL find. Early last year I managed to find a pair of pristine 2405 tweeters on a Polish version of craigslist. I don't even remember how I stumbled upon that website, I don't speak or read polish, I live in California but some how I did and on a whim messaged the person to see if they would ship them to CA. They were asking the equivalent to 200 US dollars shipped in Poland. After convincing the lady selling them to ship them to CA I ended up paying just under 300 for the pair. I know compared to some of the stories here that may not sound like that great of a deal but when I search for the same model tweeter on ebay the prices I'm seeing for perfect condition ones like the ones I got are absolutely insane.
The other drivers I purchased for my 4350 project I got for reasonable prices as well but nothing remarkable.
I started working at that store in January 2010. But I began selling BMWs in Charlottesville after convincing the Porsche dealer to get the BMW franchise when I was there in college. He added BMW in 1975 and convinced me to come work for him after graduation in 1976. I was there for 19-years before his successors in the biz made me want to leave and I opened my own store, then edited a BMW magazine for ten-years. Eventually landed at the mega-delaer-owned BMW of Charlottesville 11-years ago. Time to retire—again—soon. Hope you kept the M-roadster!
". . . as you have no doubt noticed, no one told the 4345 that it can't work correctly so it does anyway."—Greg Timbers
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