No more 10" Neo Speakers?

[aquin43]

Has anyone else noticed that all the manufacturers seem to be discontinuing their 10 inch neo guitar speakers and the price for the remainder of the stock has more than doubled? The only 10 inch neos in regular supply seem to be bass speakers where the extra flux density makes up for the heavier cones.

[omphalopsychos]

Get the Jensen blackbird 40. I don’t see a reason to use a 10” neo speaker when it weighs the same as a small ceramic or alnico magnet (plus or minus half a pound). The Jensen blackbird is a great sounding lightweight speaker that can accommodate relatively high wattage. Very full sounding across the range.

[aquin43]

Its more the sensitivity. The Blackbird is 3dB less sensitive than the NEO10-100 that I used to use. That is a factor of 1/2 on the effective amp power. AlNiCo is too expensive (unavailably so) at the flux densities required and ceramic very heavy.

[omphalopsychos]

Yeah I feel you wrt the sensitivity but 40w power handling is a lot. With modern solid state amps and a single 96 db 1m/1w 10" driver you can handle a lot of clean volume with minimal weight.

[Gitterbug]

The Jensen N10/100TR (Tornado) is as good as they get. I have no indication about it being discontinued. Uraltone in Helsinki has 16 in stock, I have 5, Tube Amp Doctor has them, and so does Thomann and many others... As for the choice between this and the 40W Blackbird AlNiCo, it's a close call. The Blackbird is a tad less sensitive on paper, but equally loud to the ear. I prefer the Tornado for straight-ahead jazz, and most of my popular TOOB 10S cabs have been loaded with it.

That the Blackbird AlNico is now cheaper that Tornado in many places may tell us something pertaining to OP's observation. Neodymium is in high demand due to its use in wind power aggregates. 95% of it comes from China. The commodity price went fourfold from 2020 to early 2022, but has since almost returned to pre-Covid levels. Given the bottlenecks and lead times along the supply chain, speaker manufacturers may still be suffering from the price peak. It's conceivable that remaining high-price inventories sell out faster with 12" speakers, a larger and more expensive product category.

This is all pure reasoning without inside info on my part.

Edit: Scanning through manufacturers' pages, it's striking how few 10" speakers are being offered overall. Celestion lists a few ferrite models and just one AlNiCo version, the Gold.