JBL D-130. What's the odds of blowing one, really?

George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

I have a Stereo Steel with closed back cabinets, both loaded with JBL-D130's. I keep reading that they were designed to only handle 60 watts or so. I know the volume of a speaker has a lot to do with it's efficency rating. I have read that some speakers are only 5% efficient and others may be as high as 25%. When I had a Twin Reverb back in the 70's, it came with two JBL's and I think it was an 85 watt amp. I was young and played with some really loud bands. I never blew a speaker. My Stereo Steel has two 350 power amps and came with JBL D-130 speakers. GD Walker has been supplying these speakers for hundreds of his Stereo Steel amps for years. I think GD knows his stuff,and would not have used these speakers if he thought they would blow easily. The band's I play in now are not that loud, but I am wondering what is the threshold you have to hit to blow a D-130. I really like the speakers and don't want to blow one. If I am pushing too hard, would I get any warning like distortion.

Cartwright Thompson · Posted 4 May 2019 1:52 pm

Everybody gets up in arms about the power handling of D series JBLâ€™s. Iâ€™ve been punishing them for 30 years and have never blown one. You can push them pretty hard and they wonâ€™t mind it. Donâ€™t peg it and hit your splat pedal , that might cause damage but youâ€™d be surprised what they will take. They say that an original cone D-130 is only rated at about 60 watts but experience has taught me that if youâ€™re carefull, they will take a lot more. Iâ€™ve been running a D-130 in an 80 watt amp, playing with some very loud bands, with no problems.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

I'll preface this with saying that I'm not an electrical engineer. My knowledge is mostly based on experience and my own research.

That said, steelers seldom use more than 30-40 watts when they play. The three big issues for speaker protection and longevity are:

1.) Playing using distortion - If you jam continuous distortion through a speaker, you can blow that speaker using an amp with a rating far less than that of the speaker. Yes, when you crank up the distortion, it's possible to fry a 60-watt speaker with a 25-watt amp! Been there, done that.

2.) The speaker cabinet design - a speaker will blow more easily in an open-back (non-dampened) cabinet because there will be more cone excursion for a given input.

3.) The programming - Chords and fat, extended bass tones take far more power to reproduce. The "average" steeler doesn't play with heavy programming. As an example, Chalker's programming was a lot more intense than Lloyd's or Buddy's.

With all that said, yes...you can be perfectly safe using two 60-watt speakers with a 250-watt amp. And, 60-watt speakers can handle more than 60-watts if the duration of that excess power is clean, and limited (time-wise). Luckily, we steelers mostly play with no distortion, and we're not "windmilling" chords at max volume. But as with most things in life, if you push it too hard, or do something you shouldn't, $#!& can happen. Laughing

David Higginbotham · From: Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA

I agree with the previous replies. But the D-130â€™s provided with the Walker amps have been re-coned with heavier cones and voice coils making them rated in the 300 watt capability. They arenâ€™t original. Only the magnets used.

George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

Thanks for all the insight. I knew GD re-coned them to 4 ohms, but didn't know about the heavier cone and voice coil. One of the speakers is 8 ohm so I am assuming it is original. I need the 8 ohm for my 100 watt Katana head (which I run at 50 watts) so it looks like I am good to go there. Most places I play don't have room for two speakers, so I seldom get to use both speakers. I will be using the re-coned 4 ohm with my Evans and Stereo Steel, the 8 ohm with my Katana back up amp,and the 4 and the 8 on the rare occasions I use two speakers. I just have to bump the volume up a little on the 8 ohm. I think I'm good to go.

Tom Wolverton · From: Carpinteria, CA

Donnyâ€™s point #1 is true, based on my experience. I blew out my D130f at a gig. I was running it with a Showman head. But I was playing about 25% of the songs with lap steel and distortion. I think thatâ€™s what killed it.
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Tom Dillon · From: La Mesa, California, USA

George, I asked this same question to GD Walker a while ago. This is what he said (paraphrasing):

- The actual JBL baskets used for his Stereo Steel cabs were D-130's.

- JBL 15 baskets up until 1980 were all made up of the same frame and magnet, but with different voice coils on different models. The coils changed/improved over time.

- The JBL's he used were all re-coned to a higher wattage spec. He said I could consider them as K130's.

- When mounted in his ported closed cabinets, those speakers when used with his amps can handle anything all the way through the low notes on C6.
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George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

A little off subject, but I have been thinking about stacking my two Walker cabinets to get around my space limitation problem. I have held off because the bottom cabinet will have more bass due to the coupling effect, and I also have been wondering about phase cancellation with them stacked and close together. I could stack them on an amp stand to get a better balance. I am going to try it at home first, and then on a gig. No harm in trying. I just love to experiment.

Richard Sinkler · From: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

Stacking them was my first thought. You can get an isolation pad like some bass players use to counteract the coupling issue. As far as the phase cancellation, just make sure the hot and ground wires go to the same terminals on the speaker and the same at the plug that goes to the amp. I don't know if having 2 speakers at different ohm ratings would cause phase problems though.
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Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Well, the odds are much greater than 0%, that's for sure. Laughing

I blew an original JBL D-130 powered by a blackface Deluxe Reverb (in a separate cab) playing clean pedal steel with a pretty moderate volume band at the Bullfrog Brewery in Williamsport, PA, not a particularly loud venue at all. It sounded great right up to the minute it blew, no warning, it just went silent and I scrambled to shut the amp down to avoid risking a no-load situation. Indeed, the voice coil had opened up.

I also blew a D-120 some years earlier. That was guitar with a rockabilly band, not particularly distorted but louder. But beyond that, I've seen a lot of JBLs blown by others also. I personally love them, and my main amp steel amp right now is a silverface Deluxe Reverb with an original-cone D-120F. So far so good, and I have a couple of spares.

The other thing is that you don't know what a 50-year old JBL had already been through before you got it, not to mention the deterioration that any speaker endures simply from age.

I am an electrical engineer by training, and I agree with pretty much everything Donny stated.

1. High volume, near-square waves with a duty-cycle approaching 100% are real rough on speakers. The cones are at the limit of excursion most of the time and the impulse created by being forced to constantly change direction as close to instantly as they can go creates a lot of heat. Smooth sine wave program is much easier to handle.

2. The D-130 that blew was in a totally open-back cab, the D-120 that blew was in a, you guessed it, Deluxe Reverb with an open-back cab. It doesn't take a big cone excursion to mess things up. The speaker may not blow, but if it pulls it sufficiently far out to get cone rub, it's pretty much toast anyway.

3. And program material does matter. I do try to play fairly big, fat chords quite a bit - I can hear the speakers protest sometimes. You can be going along with single notes or double-stops on higher strings at a pretty good volume, but if you double-down with a fat chord on lower strings, it is often noticeable. I think that is precisely when it's nice to have a big honkin' speaker like a Black Widow, EVM, or something like that.

So you can believe that I try to be careful not to push the original JBLs I have left too hard. But I assume that if I continue to play them regularly, they eventually will fail and need a recone.

George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

Richard, I will be playing stereo with a left and right channel and two separate power amps. Separate channels and power amps for each speaker. Should this make the phase cancellation a non-issue? i did check with GD Walker on using one 4 ohm and one 8 ohm speakers. He said no problem, but would have to bump up the volume slightly on the 8 ohm to balance things out.

Dave,it appears like the one's you blew were originals, not re-coned for higher wattage by Walker.My 4 ohm is original Stereo Steel but I swapped out the other one with an 8 ohm, which may not be re-coned for higher wattage.

Steve Hinson · From: Hendersonville Tn USA

I don't worry about blowing up JBLs anymore...

I'm using the Eminence EPS-15C...

Lighter and sounds the same to my ears...

SH

Jack Hanson · From: San Luis Valley, USA

A survey of current owners of Peavey Sessions and LTDs from the '70s that were factory-equipped with D-130s should help answer the original question. Many, if not most of 'em, blew out. Mine did.

How many here have a Session or LTD with a factory original, un-reconed, D-130?

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

John Neff · From: Athens, GA

I've used D130s and K130s for years, and have recently reconed 3 K120s with D120F drop in kits from Soundspeakerrepair.com I've had one in my Deluxe Reverb for a couple months, and last night I brought it to gig having underestimated the volume situation - steel and overdriven guitar. It held up for the night, but today its crackling with some frequencies. I just noticed some gaps around the dust cap, so reglued, and waiting/hoping its the fix.

George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

Dave, I went through a Telonics 12", the Emminence that Tommy White recommended, a Paul Franklin PF-350, and a Travis Toy TT-12. All of them sounded good, but I didn't think any of them sounded as good as my D-130's. The eps 15c mentioned by Steve sounds like a great choice. If I blow one of my D-130's, I will probably give one a try or a Peavey 1501-4, which is supposed to be a direct replacement for a D-130. I did just make arrangements to buy back the original 4 ohm D-130 that was in my Stereo Steel cabinet so that I get back to the original speaker that came in it. The 8 ohm will go into a separate cabinet for my Katana head.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I agree that old JBLs are pretty special, especially in a lower-power amp like a Deluxe Reverb, where putting in a JBL sort of eliminates the advantage of taking a light amp. But they sound so good that I do it anyway.

Pete Burak · From: Portland, OR USA

I have also never heard of any regularly gigging Steel player on this Forum or in real life blowing a Transformer by using the wrong Ohm Speaker, in any Amp.
fwiw, I did hear a Bass player blow a speaker on a gig once, and luckily it was during the last set... sound was still coming out, and we were laughing very hard at the distorto tone!
To my ear the Peavey direct replacement for JBL D130 sounds alot more treble-ee than a JBL D-130. I have them here side by side with a Walker Stero Steel.
Which brings up another point... I have never had to turn my Walker rig up past 12 o'clock on the Master Volume.
I usually run all of the volume knobs around 9'0clock (Gain, Volume, Master). I'm guessing half volume is working with 100Watts, and I use a Volume pedal which lowers the signal level again. Those things are powerful! But I have never blown a speaker on a gig.

Joe Alterio · From: Irvington, Indiana

I had a K130 in my Session 400, which "supposedly" had an even higher wattage handling than the D130. Weekly gigs and regular practices meant a recone every 2 to 3 months. Ted Weber told me that the JBLs couldn't handle anything close to 100 watts, let alone what the Peavey was able to crank out. Mike Brown, too, has said that the whole reason the BWs were created was because of the JBLs blowing on folks.

I eventually gave up and went to a Black Widow, but I hardly ever use that amp because I really don't like the tone from the BW. And I have a Steel King and a Vibrosonic that sound amazing!

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Steve Hinson nailed it with the EPS-15C. I did field testing of the EPS-15C for Eminence. The first time I tried it my impression was "this sounds like the JBL K-130 I had in a Fender Twin Reverb".
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Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Steve Spitz · From: New Orleans, LA, USA

The only one I ever had a problem with was destroyed by FedEx.

Mike Brown · From: Meridian, Mississippi USA

Speakers can fail/blow under the right circumstances................any brand, any model.

Brett Lanier · From: Madison, TN

Most of the time what happens with a JBL is that you get a little coil rub on the magnet. The speaker isn't blown but it'll need a recone when that happens. I've been through a ton of JBL's... But, they are by far my favorite speaker for steel so I keep using them.
Now that I have a better idea of what they can handle, i replace them less often.

Mike Vallandigham · From: Martinez, CA

I bought a 1960 Vibrosonic Amp that had the correct JBL D-130 (not the D-130F)

The seller told me the speaker was correct, but not orig. to the amp.

I took off the grille/baffle board for a little cleaning/inspection and I found huge chunks of JBL Aluminum duct cap pieces down between the baffle and the grille cloth.

So someone really blew the s**t out of one at some point.

This was the non "F" version, so a little less robust.

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