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So i got these old JBL L100S speaker cabinets. They're both rated at 8ohms and have what I assume is a 15 inch speaker. Only problem is they got these red/white inputs on the back, instead of a 1/4 input. so is there a way I could mickey mouse it to where a head would work through them?

Thanks dudes, if needed i can take some pics.

Do you not have a guitar cabinet. Those are home stereo speakers from what I can tell. Not guitar speakers. As to whether ot noth they can be modded, they probably can, but I don;t know how good they are gonna sound or how well they would hold up to any gigging.

Yeah, they're home stereo speakers. I was wondering if i could switch out those inputs for a jack, if that'd be possible. Is there a major difference between a home speaker cabinet and a guitar cabinet? they seem to be the same size, ohmage, and have the same type of speaker.

Get a speaker cable, cut the jack off, take off insulation. Now you have two wires. One goes into red, the other goes into black.

I've made banana clips to 1/4" jack wires before and run guitar cabs w/ home audio power amps. It works fine. The other way should work fine, too.

Might sound like shit though.

Sweet, thanks!
Gonna try it out and see how it sounds, i'm thinking it'll sound massive considering these are pretty loud. Just gotta buy a kit to replace the foam around the speakers and stuff and get em' back to stock. then i might paint over that shit looking fake wood that covers it.
Not mine but they look like this without the speaker cover thingys:


EDIT: Thinking about adding some casters at the bottom too b/c they're pretty heavy. That depends if it sounds good though.

Protip: the tweeters (and possibly the midrange drivers) will make the guitar sound horrible. Open 'em up, remove the crossover and wire 15"s straight to the jacks.

Bear in mind, this will change the impedance though.

Doog wrote:Protip: the tweeters (and possibly the midrange drivers) will make the guitar sound horrible. Open 'em up, remove the crossover and wire 15"s straight to the jacks.

Bear in mind, this will change the impedance though.

THIS.

If those are 15"s, those cabinets must be huge.

Thanks for the tip. How would it change the impedance though? I think the speakers look more like a 12 or a 10. When i asked my father about the size since he was the original owner, he said 15. Apparently these things are beasts though.

EDIT: Did some research here and found out they're 12" speakers.

There is a reason you don;t see people picking up old stereo speakers though.

The cabinets are not built to be moved around, beer spilled on them, used as a stool for Chico sex. They we more cheaply made

The horns/tweeter like Doog said will likely sound Shit.

They don't have carrying handles of any sort.

They are likely made of cheap grade press board as oppossed to guitar cabinets being typically made of varying degrees of quality plywood (from cheap to 3/4" voidless birch plywood, etc)

Can they be modded to work, sure. They would probably work fine (once you cut out the smaller speakers) in a practice space or jamming at home. But you will have to be pretty careful with them if you planning on moving/gigging with them.

I get what you're saying. Probably not a good idea, i'd probably be better off buying a cabinet or something. wanted to try the cheaper route since i have two of these things just sitting in my basement doing nothing since my dad bought some bose speakers.

PROTIP:
The first this you should ever do with something you don't know about is figure out how much it is worth in MONIES.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-JBL-CEN ... 2a15a17853

Also, I do not recommend using any speaker for guitar but guitar speakers.

At one show my old band played a while ago, the bass player from another band asked me if he could use my cab but his amp was a different had an 8 ohm output and my cab is 4 ohms, and I know there's times where you can use different ohm ratings with each other without breaking things, but I don't understand that, plus his amp only had those weird banana plug outputs, so he had some weird looking jerry rigged speaker cable that was connected to the banana plug out on his amp then had a female 1/4" end that he then had another 1/4 inch speaker cable plugged into. I said it seemed weird and risky and I didn't feel comfortable with that being plugged into my cab.

Basically when it comes to amps and cabs, I follow the "if something seems weird, it probably shouldn't be done" logic, and I've never broken anything by following that rule. Just because something CAN be done, doesn't mean it should be done.

Billy3000 wrote:At one show my old band played a while ago, the bass player from another band asked me if he could use my cab but his amp was a different had an 8 ohm output and my cab is 4 ohms, and I know there's times where you can use different ohm ratings with each other without breaking things, but I don't understand that, plus his amp only had those weird banana plug outputs, so he had some weird looking jerry rigged speaker cable that was connected to the banana plug out on his amp then had a female 1/4" end that he then had another 1/4 inch speaker cable plugged into. I said it seemed weird and risky and I didn't feel comfortable with that being plugged into my cab.

Basically when it comes to amps and cabs, I follow the "if something seems weird, it probably shouldn't be done" logic, and I've never broken anything by following that rule. Just because something CAN be done, doesn't mean it should be done.

Amplifier Outputs

• All speaker outs from amps are Positive + or Negative -
• You can use whatever connector you need to, they have changed over time. And you can wire them backwards - all that will do is move the speaker backwards - for example when hitting a note the speaker will move inwards instead of outwards, if one speaker in a cab with others is wired backwards it will generally be out of phase with the others and more prone to cause frequency cancellations in certain situations.

Cables
1/4" Speaker Cable

• Tip of cable is +
• Sleeve is -
• Can be used as instrument cable in a pinch, but it's not shielded so more prone to noise than instrument cable.
• Speaker cable is just two wires, one +, the other -. As long as the wire can handle the voltage/current you can use it. It's common to make speaker cable from extension cords that can be found at hardware stores by just adding 1/4 plugs on the ends. You will know a wire/cable can't handle it when it gets super hot, smells funny, and burns up.

1/4" Instrument Cable

• Tip of Cable is + / Sleeve is - but shields the + to reduce noise.
• Not recommended to replace speaker cable. Not designed to handle high voltage/current like speaker cable and might fail. If your speaker cable breaks a connection between the amp and the load (speaker), you may cause damage to a tube amplifier.

Matching Ohms
It's generally good to match ohms of amp and speaker for optimum performance. Solid state amps are more forgiving with ohm mismatches and generally can be turned on without a load/speaker safely (turn off before connecting a load/speaker), but in my experience it's generally ok with tube amps to be a typical ohm rating off, like 8 into 16 / 4 into 8.



Common Connectors

• Here I was about to list types of connectors with pics, but I am so tired
• Fuck it
• Google

Those cabs totally need binding and blocks. Just be careful or you won't be able to zip up your coat and you'll have to eat with gloves.

*snicker*

I don't think they'll sound absolutely awful, but maybe a setup to leave at home and goof about rather than a TOEN MACHEENE

Doog wrote:I don't think they'll sound absolutely awful, but maybe a setup to leave at home and goof about rather than a TOEN MACHEENE

That was my thing. If you needed something to mess around with or if you were gonna leave them at a practice space as a back-up or so as not to haul a heavy/expensive rig around I'd give them a toss. But I would not plan on being able to use them as a live rig. Otherwise we would all be hitting garage sales as these old stereo speakers are so out of style/use (my little 4" boston acoustic speakers sound as good and full as my full size JBL's ever did) that they can be had for peanuts at flea markets, garage sales, salvation army, etc.

Now, I would be curious how a couple little noston acousitcs or something mounted up high in a practice room would work our for monitors??