They can make you new foam in any of the standard JBL colors, or charcoal grey. Thanks to the guys at Foam Trends ( not having the grilles is not a deal breaker. $350-$500 seems to be the going price for a clean pair of L100вЂ™s, more if they have the grilles. Incidentally, I actually won them by 48 cents the bid before mine was $410.01.

вЂњIвЂ™ve got 10 emails already wanting these, so if you canвЂ™t make it here today, IвЂ™ll sell them to someone else.вЂќ I was off. A quick email to the seller confirmed that I could pick them up immediately. As I counted down from the last 10 seconds, and pressed вЂњconfirmвЂќ with two seconds on the clock, I had bid $410.49 and the JBLвЂ™s were mine. You have to win it!вЂќДЄ recent article on Ebay strategy said to always add 49 cents to the dollar amount you are bidding, and in the end, thatвЂ™s what saved the day. The owner specified local pickup and I was feeling lucky after a pep talk from Henry Rollins just the night before. They had been taunting me all week, hovering at $299, so I was wondering if IвЂ™d actually be able to steal them for that price. Over the recent Memorial Day weekend, my JBL dreams would come true. That metal-dome tweeter and a bit of a midrange hole present in the L-166вЂ™s just wasnвЂ™t doing it for me, so I didnвЂ™t miss sending them away, though the sculpted metal grilles were very cool. Little did I know it would be more than 30 years before I would acquire either of these treasures.ДЄfter a brief listening session with the JBL L-166вЂ™s that now reside at staff writer Jerold OвЂ™BrienвЂ™s house, I was still jonesing for a pair of L-100вЂ™s. This was the way Led Zeppelin was supposed to sound, larger than life, powered by the glow of a McIntosh MC275 power amplifier. And while my first listen of these speakers would last only about 90 seconds before I was shown to the door, it was awesome. I knew the guys inside listening would have to come out of there sooner or later, and when they did, I would dash right in. The grail I pursued was in the far back room, with all of the McIntosh gear and was off limits. They must have stapled my picture up in the employees lounge because the next time I visited the HiFi shop, all of the salesmen were instantly busy. Just like the auto-racing philosophy of selling on Monday what you ran on Sunday, the audio enthusiast of 1973 saw the L-100 as something to aspire to, including yours truly. Introduced at CES in 1970, the L-100 was built upon the strength of JBLвЂ™s highly successful 4310 studio monitors. вЂњA lot more than youвЂ™ve got, kid.вЂќ I found out later on that the MSRP for a pair of Century 100s back in 1973 was $273 each.ДЄnd so began a life-long interest in HiFi and a disdain for HiFi salesmen. I asked the sales guy, who by now had become pretty tired of answering questions from a kid who obviously wasnвЂ™t going to buy anything today how much a pair of these monsters cost. ( Stereophile was a fringe magazine back then, and I would not encounter it and TAS for a few more years.) On the inside cover was a JBL ad, featuring the L-100 Century. There would be no buying JBLвЂ™s that day, but I did buy a copy of Stereo Review. вЂњReeling in the YearsвЂќ sounded way better than it ever did on the Zenith table radio at home. At 13 years old, I was highly impressed when the salesman put a copy of Steely DanвЂ™s CanвЂ™t Buy a Thrill on the Dual turntable and let it rip. The first pair of вЂњrealвЂќ HiFi speakers IвЂ™d ever heard were JBLвЂ™s, a pair of L-26вЂ™s to be exact, with orange grille cloth and light oak cabinets.

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