Jbl jrx 115

This is an inexpensive passive speaker sold by JBL for small PA systems with 1-15" woofer and a 1" throat horn loaded tweeter. It's pretty inexpensive, typically selling for about $300 per box, give or take a few bucks. It sounds pretty good as long as you don't push it much and it's suitable for moderate volume practice rooms or small, low volume club use.

However, if you try to use it for much else, well, read on....

I used my pair as part of an array for a medium sized gig (room occupancy around 200) in conjunction with another, different pair of JBLs with a 1 inch and 15 and a pair of Peavey 18"subs. When I got them home afterwards the horns didn't work. When I did a little research on the web I discovered that the horn driver used in this cabinet, the Model 2412 is notorious for failing. Furthermore, JBL does not sell a replacement diaphragm for the driver and expects you to purchase an entire driver for $85, although the diaphragm is easily replaced in about 10 minutes if you can get one.

NOTE - the same 2412 driver is used in the Eon series of powered cabinets and from what I've been able to find out, fails in those on a regular basis.

I opened up one of the cabs and was shocked by the chintzyness and low build quality of the driver. All the 1 inch JBL drivers I had used previously employed a 2 inch voice coil constructed with edgewound aluminum wire - JBL has always been known for edgewound voice coils. This unit had a 1 inch coil made of thin, round wire. The entire diaphragm assembly was of cheap, low build quality construction and design, reminiscent of some of the Asian drivers sometimes found in musical instrument amps but not as robust.

I was able to locate a third party source of replacement diaphragms (SoundSpeakerRepair.com), which sells a plastic framed version for $21 and a metal frame version for $38, which beats the hell out of having to buy a whole new driver from JBL. I opted for the cheaper version, as I can't see spending more than necessary to fix a driver that is junk to begin with.

I'm EXTREMELY disappointed in the quality of these drivers; they are not the sort of units that I expect to see in JBL PA products.

When they blow again - and I'm sure they will - I'm going to scrap the stock drivers and replace them with units from Peavey or Eminence, both of whom make 1 inch throat screw mount drivers that offer much better performance for the money. At $85 a pop I can get a REALLY GOOD Peavey driver. I would have done that this time except that I just drained my gear fund buying a AKG C12A......

The 15" woofers in these cabinets are not bad - they're the M115-8A which has a 3 inch edgewound voice coil and is a decent quality speaker, although not as good as the 22xx series professional drivers which have 4 inch coils.