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I think you're both right. Reducing coupling caps to below 0.01uf - even 1nf on some old DLRV circuits- does cut bass.
And the same goes for cathode bypass caps e.g. the 0.68 values on some old Marshalls
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04-15-2014 01:42 PM
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Speaking of speakers. I bought a spare Weber British Alnico, 35w(?) 10" to mate with another speaker in a 2x10 amp. I've since decided to keep the amp as it is. I was going to list it in the for sale section, if anyone needs an alnico for cheap.
Last edited by 2bornot2bop; 04-15-2014 at 03:23 PM.
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Of course many speakers don't reveal their true character until broken in, and I've bought used cabs and combo amps that were owned by people who only played at bedroom levels and speakers were still not broken in.
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Break-in is the most overrated/overhyped phenom in the industry. Seems to be some sort of internet folklore as far as I can tell. IMO, what really happens is your ear gets used to the way something sounds and your brain normalizes it.
You can see this this by switching to a different speaker for a month or two and coming back to it.
I did this recently when I got my quilter amp. When I first got the amp, it sounded mid-rangey and nasally to me. Played it for 3-4 weeks solid and grew to really dig the sound. Switched to my AI amp for a month. Came back to the quilter and low and behold, it sounded mid-rangey and nasally again.
What had happened was my ear had normalized the sound.
I ask the question...If a speaker changes so much, why does it always get better? Wouldn't the theories of chance dictate that it would change 50% of the time to sound worse? Same thing with guitars. It's funny how they always improve with age. They never change for the worst.
Soapbox over...
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I have been happy with a Eminence Beta 10A over the last 5-years in both my AI Clarus + RE Nighthawk 10ER cabinet and more recently with my Evans RE200 rigs. It's my playing that I have not been happy with!
Last edited by iim7V7IM7; 04-16-2014 at 08:03 AM.
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i like the beta 10 but it's dark sounding.
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Not to my old ears...
to be fair my RE cabinet has a band pass crossover at 1600 Hz to a Emi NSD-2005 HF driver. But I keep it about 80% off. I also think it does not sound dark in my Evans (plenty-o-ambiance and shimmer).
different ears...:-)
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(IMO and YMMV...)
Originally Posted by iim7V7IM7
do you play any rock or fusion or bensony tones? Because you definitely can't get that out of the beta 10. The speaker just doesn't reproduce the frequencies necessary to get that. It just doesn't. It sounds great for that dark, smokey jimmy bruno tone that is relatively popular these days but it lacks high freq content. When I switch between my RE Stealth 10 and my open back cab with the tonker in it, it's like a blanket has been removed.Last edited by jzucker; 04-16-2014 at 08:40 AM.
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No I don't Jack. I play mostly solo jazz chord melody with my SS amps. I do play fusiony stuff with my tube amp. BTW, my RE cabinet is rated 58-16,000 Hz.
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oh, so you have the full range cab? No wonder yours doesn't sound dark!
The regular RE stealth 10 is dark because the beta 10 is a woofer without guitar high frequencies!
IMO of course...
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Jack,
I also have one in my semi-open back Evans RE200. Again, the speaker sounds flat and musical to me. Perhaps you associate the lack of some the HF harmonic content (>4x the fundamentals) with being associated with what you characterize as dark.
Bob
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I'm sure you're right Bob. The frequencies between 4k and 5k are the ones that make up the benson part of the tonal spectrum. I used to have an evans and found that it was way too dark. Buffington walked me through some capacitor changes to the amp and it made almost no difference. Later, I plugged it into another cab and realize it had tons of high end. It was that they were using a really dark woofer in those amps.
I'm not saying the beta 10 is not musical. i'm just saying it's limited. I'd rather adjust the treble from the amp or the guitar than have it permanently imparted by the speaker.
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I guess I'm nocturnal then...:-)
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Some valid points. I suppose a more accurate test would be to buy two identical speakers, and break one in for a period, leaving the other unused. Then compare them. Originally Posted by jzucker
Break-in is the most overrated/overhyped phenom in the industry. Seems to be some sort of internet folklore as far as I can tell. IMO, what really happens is your ear gets used to the way something sounds and your brain normalizes it.
You can see this this by switching to a different speaker for a month or two and coming back to it.
I did this recently when I got my quilter amp. When I first got the amp, it sounded mid-rangey and nasally to me. Played it for 3-4 weeks solid and grew to really dig the sound. Switched to my AI amp for a month. Came back to the quilter and low and behold, it sounded mid-rangey and nasally again.
What had happened was my ear had normalized the sound.
I ask the question...If a speaker changes so much, why does it always get better? Wouldn't the theories of chance dictate that it would change 50% of the time to sound worse? Same thing with guitars. It's funny how they always improve with age. They never change for the worst.
Soapbox over...
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woody, i've challenged people for years with this and to my knowledge, nobody's taken me up on it. Reminds me or religious discussions because in the end, i'm always accused of a naysayer and the people who claim that it makes a huge difference are *NEVER* willing to prove it.
I'm not saying new speakers don't have a break-in period. I just think the changes are relatively small and the psychoacoustics by far outweigh any physical changes in the medium.
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I just bought an older Eminence 15" speaker reconed hemp that is very cool with my 5E3 head and my Quilter MicroPro. If you haven't tried a hemp speaker, might see if you can.
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the cannabis rex only handles 50w. Not good with SS amps unfortunately. Again, designed to be used in arrays.
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I have never used the Beta-10, on the contrary I have experience with Beta-12 in the JazzAmp, which
is definitely a dark speaker. But I guess the two should be similar.
As I posted in another thread the 10" Rajin Cajiun speaker in Henriksen amp can really make a difference if you are after some funky/fusion tone, also with solid body.
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Too much focus IMO on the "speaker" alone and not the speaker + cabinet + amp tone-stack. They all interact and shape what we hear vs. "the speaker" itself. The same speaker with a different system might sound different.
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i don't disagree that they all interact but I disagree that too much emphasis is on the speaker. There are reasons that speakers such as the celestion gold, vox alnico, jbl d120 and K120, altec lansing, 12L, Force 12, jenson C12, etc., are universally recognized as great speakers. Originally Posted by iim7V7IM7
Not all these speakers sound good for clean, semi-clean and dirty but each of these speakers sound amazing with a huge array of guitar amps.
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Yes- and the great majority of these classic speakers were expensive, even in the 70's. These days we expect - or are led to believe we'll get- the same or better performance from cheaper units, even allowing for inflation.
Obviously technology has moved on, but even so maybe it's naive to expect many of today's choices to match the performance of the 70's classics; they cost a lot at the time for a reason. OK, maybe not the Jensen..
I agree with JZ about neo speakers; with today's technical progress theoretically they could sound great, with the bonus of low weight, but in practice I can't think of a neo that comes near any of the speakers named.
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agreed. I think part of the problem today is that the perceived market for clean guitar speakers is virtually nil so there's no incentive for speaker manufacturers to do much R&D
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True Dat
Every aftermarket speaker being made now seems to be a tired rehash of some British or American speaker from the 60s designed to replicate the sound of a long dead arena band.
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and it's even worse than you've alluded to because nowadays, few bands can play live in a club with even a 50 watt tube amp so the speakers are designed to get the overdriven, arena sound at low volumes with low wattage amps.
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Hi Bob, Originally Posted by iim7V7IM7
try this "experiment", if you haven't done it yet. Plug a stratocaster or e Telecaster into your Evans
and try tweaking your tone knobs in order to get a sound suitable (according to your taste) for pop/rock/funky.
Maybe also try with an overdrive/distortion pedal in front. I'd like to know your impressions.
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