JBL C36 Viscount

Name: JBL C36 Viscount
Brand: JBL

The JBL C36 Viscount is a floor-standing, bass reflex speaker enclosure from the 1950s–60s — the vertical counterpart to the better-known C38 Baron, sharing the same basic design. It was offered as an empty cabinet that buyers could load with various JBL driver combinations, and the record shows a wide range of possible configurations: everything from a single D130 full-range driver up to multi-way setups with 075 bullet tweeters and N2600 crossovers. The most commonly cited loaded configuration in surviving listings is the "030 load," which pairs a 16-ohm D130 woofer with a 16-ohm 075 bullet tweeter and the N2600 crossover network.

The cabinets could be bought with different speaker loads, and there was a left/right combination for stereo. External dimensions are documented at 490mm wide, 730mm high, and 400mm deep. Japanese pricing records show ¥83,900 per unit around 1965, dropping to ¥65,500 around 1967.

The production timeline is muddled in the surviving record. One source lists a 1952 release, another claims 1960, and a forum post places it in the JBL catalog "from the fifties up to 1969," with a final year as the S36 in 1970. Given the conflict, the safest statement is that it was a long-running model through the 1950s and 1960s.

Audio (May 1956, p.37) ran JBL's announcement copy for the 075 ring-radiator tweeter that often appears in these systems, though that predates the 1960 introduction date given by some sources — the timeline is genuinely fuzzy.

Surviving documentation on the C36 Viscount is thin. No frequency response, sensitivity, power handling, or weight figures have surfaced. What collectors know comes largely from period catalogs and the used market, where the cabinet shows up as a project. Bare cabinets have sold for around $399, while complete 030-loaded pairs with matching electronics have been listed for $899. A recent Korean listing asks 3,700,000 KRW for a collection-grade example.

Type: Floor-type bass reflex enclosure
Dimensions: 490 × 730 × 400 mm (W×H×D)
Common load: 16Ω D130 woofer + 16Ω 075 bullet tweeter + N2600 crossover ("030 load")
Vertical counterpart to the C38 Baron
Prices (Japan): ¥83,900 (c. 1965) · ¥65,500 (c. 1967) per unit