SF Twin Reverb Speaker Replacement Suggestions

[yebdox]

I have a '72 Dual Showman head that was blackfaced by Rick at Vintage Sound several years back and put in a new Twin cab. When I bought it, it came with 2 Weber Californias, which I immediately swapped for Celestion GT12-65s, which warmed it up quite a bit. I have those pristine Webers sitting around somewhere (actually I think I have 4 in total) - not my cup of tea, but if those sound interesting, I'd be happy to let them go for cheap. I'm not sure what they run currently, but I will make you some kind of deal, just to thin out my closet

[DawgBone]

I have a '72 Dual Showman head that was blackfaced by Rick at Vintage Sound several years back and put in a new Twin cab. When I bought it, it came with 2 Weber Californias, which I immediately swapped for Celestion GT12-65s, which warmed it up quite a bit. I have those pristine Webers sitting around somewhere (actually I think I have 4 in total) - not my cup of tea, but if those sound interesting, I'd be happy to let them go for cheap. I'm not sure what they run currently, but I will make you some kind of deal, just to thin out my closet

I'd take you up on them if I wasn't flush with more speakers than I have amps to put them in already. That's a good offer. Maybe OP should take notice....

[yebdox]

I'd take you up on them if I wasn't flush with more speakers than I have amps to put them in already. That's a good offer. Maybe OP should take notice....

Thanks. OP reached out, which will probably prompt me to go through my inventory of tone failures Will likely post the entire list at some point, need to haul them all out... Webers have just not been my cup of tea over the years, mostly gravitate towards celestion and eminence. There's a big stack of mint 12's sitting in a storage cubby in my basement office.... Scary. Have to attack it sometime, this might be a good motivator.

PS - preferences do not equal criticisms in my world.

[DawgBone]

Thanks. OP reached out, which will probably prompt me to go through my inventory of tone failures Will likely post the entire list at some point, need to haul them all out... Webers have just not been my cup of tea over the years, mostly gravitate towards celestion and eminence. There's a big stack of mint 12's sitting in a storage cubby in my basement office.... Scary. Have to attack it sometime, this might be a good motivator.

PS - preferences do not equal criticisms in my world.

Are they ceramic or alnico Californias?

I know there are a lot of construction differences between them and JBL's. The JBL had an edgewound voice coil and far more massive magnet but every report I've ever read from people who own them say they approximate the sound very well so I think it would be a good choice for the OP to try out. Ted Weber really knew his stuff IMO. If they haven't been run hard they might need some break in time but if I was looking for speakers for a Twin I would be on your case to dig em' out! Hopefully things work out well for you guys. Best-dawgbone

[Little Jay]

I put these Pyle-made Fender Blue Label speakers in my Twin Reverb clone and like 'em better than the Jensen C12Ks and Jensen NEO 12-100s that were in there first.

Very balanced sounding speaker with good power handling, that still has a moderate weight

[wzpgsr]

My Twin Reverb is in a head cab. I have an old Bassman cab retrofitted with a 4-ohm 15" Weber California ceramic in it, and it sounds great.

[KirkP]

I like the Eminence Patriot Red White & Blues in my 1974 Twin Reverb. It seems very neutral.

Fender’s George Benson model of the Twin Reverb uses a pair of Jensen Tornado speakers. The neodymium magnets greatly reduce the weight. I have a Jensen Tornado in another amp and like it.

Note that Twin Reverbs will sound scooped with any speaker unless you roll the treble and bass knobs way back. I start with both at the minimum setting, then gradually roll them up to taste.

[yebdox]

Are they ceramic or alnico Californias?

I know there are a lot of construction differences between them and JBL's. The JBL had an edgewound voice coil and far more massive magnet but every report I've ever read from people who own them say they approximate the sound very well so I think it would be a good choice for the OP to try out. Ted Weber really knew his stuff IMO. If they haven't been run hard they might need some break in time but if I was looking for speakers for a Twin I would be on your case to dig em' out! Hopefully things work out well for you guys. Best-dawgbone

The Californias (4) are all ceramics, two brand-new that I immediately did not like and was not patient enough to break in and the other two came with the Twin rebuild, which I believe had very low time. They sounded pretty much the same and so I swapped them out for G12 –65's, which are much warmer and more in my tone palette.


Ted Weber rebuilt my ceramic (black – finned) EV SRO that came in my original Mesa Mark I from the late 70s (ordered direct from Randall at the time!). I may let that go, as it's just still a bit too bright to my ears, along with a 12F-150, Eminence Delta Pro 12A, a couple of Warehouse 12s (don't remember which models), Weber Blue Dog, 2 10 inch Allen models (I believe built by Weber) and a few different Celestion 12s, mostly in the higher wattage range. Right now, I like the Eminence Cannabis Rex, Swamp Thang and most Celestions over 50 watts. Not a speaker breakup guy, just clean at any volume, pedals for drive, with a bit of push applied to a tube power stage. Dang, I miss playing loud

FYI, I did answer a private post from the OP, but there is no record of it being sent, so will respond again, don't mean to appear rude!

Update: For some reason, I am unable to respond to private messaging on an iPad. It allows me to type, but will not send a message, so will respond some other way to OP (ie computer).

2nd update: apologies to the OP, I've sent multiple responses without understanding this system. I thought I would see a running thread, ala standard email and did not know that I would have to track things in the "sent messages" folder. My bad!

[Hammertone]

...The E-V “coffee can” AlNiCo S-R-O 12” weighs 19 lbs. It is 7 1/2” deep, and simply doesn’t fit into many speaker boxes. Fabulous sounding speaker. The Twin box is 10 1/2” deep.

E-V replaced this speaker with a ceramic version called the S-R-O. IIRC, It was produced before? the EVM, and then produced concurrently? with the first version of the EVM, then disappeared. Maybe it simply became the EVM? Don't know.

It came with a massive Martian black-finned back cover (for heat dissipation?). There are some variations to that cover. I suppose that removing the cover reduces its weight from crazy heavy to merely stupidly heavy. I have one - sounds great to me, but I have no reason to play it particularly loud.

Here are some pix from the net:
-S-R-O AlNiCo "coffee can" - there were some colour variations, but this is typical;
-S-R-O ceramic w/heat sink - there were some fin design variations, but this is typical;
-S-R-O ceramic w/heat sink removed (15", but shows the motor and the three cover mounting screwholes);
-EVM-I ceramic;
-EVM-II.

[Billy Z]

Jensen Jet Tornadoes are great in a twin reverb or pro reverb etc .

[stevo58]

E-V replaced this speaker with a ceramic version called the S-R-O. IIRC, It was produced before? the EVM, and then produced concurrently? with the first version of the EVM, then disappeared. Maybe it simply became the EVM? Don't know.

It came with a massive Martian black-finned back cover (for heat dissipation?). There are some variations to that cover. I suppose that removing the cover reduces its weight from crazy heavy to merely stupidly heavy. I have one - sounds great to me, but I have no reason to play it particularly loud.

I recall the SROs coming on the market in the early 80s. I was thinking about buying a pair, but decided I couldn’t live on the street for two months, and so paid my rent instead. A pair cost about the same as two months rent for the apartment I shared with silverfish and cockroaches. Those deadbeats never chipped in, and they ate my food, too - mostly cheap macaroni and cheese and four-for-a-dollar sponge bread.

[yebdox]

I recall the SROs coming on the market in the early 80s. I was thinking about buying a pair, but decided I couldn’t live on the street for two months, and so paid my rent instead. A pair cost about the same as two months rent for the apartment I shared with silverfish and cockroaches. Those deadbeats never chipped in, and they ate my food, too - mostly cheap macaroni and cheese and four-for-a-dollar sponge bread.

I had an early Mesa Mark I built for me around late 1976/early 1977 and it came with the black finned monster (identical to the one of the pics above) - so it's even older than you might remember. Still have it, after having Ted Weber recone it about 20 years ago... I think a screw driver went through the cone, somehow. Sold the amp in the late 70's as a starving grad student, but the buyer did NOT want that speaker, so I toted it around for years, looking for a cab to put it into. Sounds pretty sterile until you get some wattage moving through it.