New Speakers!

When your amp isn't making a joyful noise and waking up the neighbors or shattering windows, it's not a time to sulk. There are other things that you could be doing, like sprucing up your sound with a new set of speakers.

The cab with Eminence designed Fender Speakers. Recording session, March 2012.

I use a home-built open back birch plywood cabinet for the business end of my amplifier setup. The cab was bought second hand loaded with two 12 inch Eminence designed Fender speakers, with 50 watts power handling each. They were satisfactory speakers, and sounded acceptable at lower volumes, though at higher performance volumes sounded spiky and uneven. Needless to say, I was never too happy with their sound. 

Upon removing them from the cab, I noticed what looked like two significant tears in both speakers, that were haphazardly repaired with a putty of some sort. I guess now seeing the ramshackle way they were patched, no wonder things sounded as odd as they did. 


So I took the plunge into the shallow end of the pool and bought some relatively inexpensive speakers made by Weber VST, the Ceramic Signature 12B. As stated on the website the Ceramic 12B would be an economic replacement for the Jensen C12N, which greatly interested me since the Jensen C12N is what was commonly used in the blackface Fender Twin amplifier. You may be thinking, "dude, you play a Marshall clone; why not use Celestion Greenbacks like the old Marshall cabs?" Yes, that would be the clear way to go, but I'm kinda a weirdo. There is something about the Marshall-meets-Fender thing that really interests me. So I ran with it. 


These speakers when shipped weighed impressively more than the lightweight Fender speakers and installed effortlessly into the speaker cabinet. Weber VST have a reputation for great sounding, quality speakers, and have been long used as a replacement or even upgrade for vintage Fender guitar amplifiers. 

Cab loaded with Weber Ceramic 12Bs.

Speakers are sometimes the unsung hero of the amplifier setup. Everyone talks about the head, what tubes your packing, but speakers, the different Celestion, Jensen, Eminence, Oxford, etc. models offered, wattage rating, speaker efficiency, alnico versus ceramic magnets; these discussions don't come up as much. And I will admit, the idea of different construction methods of speakers are quite complex and I don't understand them all too well, but upon listening to different models, even made by the same manufacturer, sure exerts a great deal of influence on ultimately how your amplifier will sound. Distortion character, frequency content, dynamic range, touch, and even perceived loudness of your amplifier is ultimately governed by the speakers, how many, and in what cabinet.


Needless to say, I can't wait to get the amplifier finished, so I can start rocking on these bad-boys.