JBL L25 Prima

The JBL L25 Prima is one of the most visually distinctive speakers JBL made in the 1970s. It's a bookshelf design with an integrally molded synthetic resin enclosure that JBL called Acoustiform. It's a 2-way, 2-speaker bass reflex system, using a 25.5 cm cone woofer (model 125A) paired with the LE25-1, the same 3.6 cm cone tweeter found in the legendary L-100 Century. That shared tweeter is one of the few hard links to the rest of the JBL lineup, and it gives the Prima a familiar sonic fingerprint.

The cabinet is what sets the L25 Prima apart. Instead of wood veneer, JBL molded the enclosure from Acoustiform, a synthetic resin of their own development, which allowed a one-piece box with no seams. It came in six colors - red, yellow, blue, brown, white, and black - each with a matching net grille. Matching shelves (models SM25 and P25) were sold separately, sized to stack with the speakers, so a pair of Prima could become a modular audio-and-record storage system. At ¥67,200 per unit around 1973 (later ¥89,900), it wasn't cheap, and the plastic construction drew mixed reactions. One French collector noted that "the plastic cabinet would make people smile today."

Sonically, the Prima is described as very typical of 70s JBL: colored in the midrange, with a woofer that had a lot of excursion. Owners report it worked well with modest amplification - one ran his pair off a NAD 3020 - and the sound is generally remembered fondly. The foam surrounds on both woofers and tweeters degrade with age and need replacement. A listing on the Dutch site Marktplaats called the model "zeer zeldzame" - very rare - and noted the aftermarket foam rings for the tweeters were still on order.

The record on the L25 Prima is thin. No frequency response, sensitivity, or crossover data has surfaced, and production dates conflict slightly between sources (1972-1976 per one, 1973-1974 per another).

Known specs:

- **Type:** 2-way, 2-speaker, bass reflex, bookshelf

- **Woofer:** 25.5 cm cone (125A)

- **Tweeter:** 3.6 cm cone (LE25-1)

- **Impedance:** 8 Ω

- **Power handling:** 35W continuous program

- **Dimensions:** 480 × 390 × 380 mm (W×H×D)

- **Weight:** 16 kg

- **Enclosure:** Molded Acoustiform (synthetic resin), six colors

- **Price:** ¥67,200 (1973); ¥89,900 (1974, later revision)