Blues Jr. with brittle treble

  • Thread starter Thread starter thebigcheese
  • Start date Start date
soundchaser59 said:
Did you go here...

http://www.eminence-speaker.com/soundclips.asp

and listen? These are a good start, but in the end they are no substitute for hands on.

I tend to only try the high power heavy magnet speakers, so Tonker, Swamp Thang, CRex (because of the hemp-impregnated cone), Commonwealth, Texas Heat, various Webers, Tone Tubbys (100% hemp fiber cone), and several Celestions. The Celestion Alnico Gold is superb, but it is not a budget speaker. If I were playing loud loud loud all the time I would go with the Swamp, but I would prefer the CRex if a ceramic Tone Tubby was out of budget.

Check here http://www.svvintageamps.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=21 before you buy, just to tease yourself, best prices I've seen on most models.....but they dont sell Eminence. The CRex and Swamp are running about $100-110 shipped, and for another $40 bucks or so you can look at a Tone Tubby or a Weber. Weber's ceramic Silver Bell is sweet (Brad Paisley clip on the alnico, at Dr Z's site!), as is the Weber Texas, or Michigan if you want smoother and tighter and heavier sound. There are a hand full of used Silver Bells on ebay right now, but they may be alnicos, which BillM says will not fit.
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I've been giving those sound files a listen. I'm mostly torn between the CRex and the Swamp Thang. Obviously, it's hard to really know based solely on those files, but it seems to me that the ST has a bit more bite for the heavy distortion. On the other hand, I think I like the clean and overdrive tones of the CRex better. They seem a little nicer in the bass and overall more defined. The heavy sound is probably something that could be overcome with a little pedal tweaking, but... I dunno. The CRex is a 50 watt, whereas the ST seems to be a 150 watt, so Lt. Bob would like that better.

Soundchaser, any thoughts on my thoughts about the two speakers?
 
soundchaser is a pretty good resource for speakers so I'd put some faith in his opinions on this however ....... you're getting into territory that starts to get strongly into personal preference.

At some point you'll just have to see what you think because there are so many variables and especially the subtleties in sound really depend on your own taste.

As for speaker breakup ..... no ..... it's not a 'crackling' sound.
Maybe a better way to look at it would be 'sweet spots' ...... if you take a 100 watt speaker and only drive it with 10 watts or so ...... then you don't get its' full freq response.
An equivalent might be if you have an amp and you need it so soft that you end up only turning it to 1/2 out of 10 ..... well, when you have the volume knob barely on, the amp usually doesn't sound all that good. It's not getting pushed enough to develop it's full tone.
A celestion Vintage 30 is an awesome sounding speaker ...... but if you run a 1/2 watt amp into it ........ not so much. It wouldn't be sensitive enough to respond properly.

So, IMO, it's a good idea to have speakers that sorta match the output of the amp.
I actually bought a speaker from soundchaser that he really liked a lot. But it's a 100 watt speaker and at the low volume levels I often play at, it sounds bleh.
I hooked up my Ampeg V-2 to it and cranked it for one outside gig I did and it really sang.
But with my Blues Junior hooked up to it it sounds worse than the stock speaker.
It may surprise you but the fact is, unless you're running that Blues Junior wide open (master and gain) you're rarely even putting out 15 watts.
I often end up with the gain on mine at around 4 and the master on around 3. At that setting I'm probably only putting maybe 5 watts into that speaker.
No way it's driving a 100 watt speaker into its' sweet spot.
 
That's about where I play mine, too, unless we are on a gig, in which case it is louder. I have also noticed that amps, or at least tube amps, sound much better louder, but I wasn't aware that had anything to do with the speaker. Makes sense, I suppose. It can't produce as great of a sound if you aren't pushing all that material. So the 50-watt Cannabis Rex would be a better option from that standpoint, and also from the standpoint that it sounds better overall on the Eminence comparison site, though a 30 watt would be even better if I could find one.
 
thebigcheese said:
That's about where I play mine, too, unless we are on a gig, in which case it is louder. I have also noticed that amps, or at least tube amps, sound much better louder, but I wasn't aware that had anything to do with the speaker.
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Well that's not just because of the speaker. The overdrive sound of tubes is part of what rock guitarists consider good tone.
You get typically some compression and emphasis on 2nd order harmonics when you drive tubes into distortion.
That's a very general statement and isn't always the case, but it siffices for this conversation.
So it's a combination of everything.
 
Well, based on your suggestions, other suggestions/reviews, and the sound samples, I think I'm gonna try out the Rex. I have to order it, so hopefully it will be everything I could ever want, but really I just want to get rid of the grating high frequencies of the stock speaker, so I imagine that the Rex should be able to at least deliver on that. I'll post my impressions after I get it in next week if anyone is interested. I may also record some before and after sound clips, if only to help myself compare.
 
thebigcheese said:
Well, based on your suggestions, other suggestions/reviews, and the sound samples, I think I'm gonna try out the Rex. I have to order it, so hopefully it will be everything I could ever want, but really I just want to get rid of the grating high frequencies of the stock speaker, so I imagine that the Rex should be able to at least deliver on that. I'll post my impressions after I get it in next week if anyone is interested. I may also record some before and after sound clips, if only to help myself compare.
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That would be great.
I'm kinda curious about that speaker.
 
Lt. Bob said:
That would be great.
I'm kinda curious about that speaker.
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Excellent. In that case, I will definitely do the sound clips. I think the amp sounds best with my MXL something or other (one of the nice ones), but it probably makes more sense to use a 57 for a comparison like this. I will probably also not do a close mic so that you get a better sense of how the amp sounds as a whole, though the room isn't that great.
 
Ok, so here's my impressions after the upgrade. The stock speaker is not a bad speaker, but, in comparison to the Cannabis Rex, it is a bit muddy and brittle. The CRex isn't exactly a whole lot less brittle (maybe it's just my ears or the room, or maybe the ratio of volume to master, which does seem to make a difference sometimes), but it manages to have more/better high frequencies in there without being any more harsh. At first, the difference in clean tones doesn't seem that noticeable, but listening to the recordings, you can definitely hear the crispness of the CRex vs the muddiness of the stock speaker. When you kick in the OD or the Metal Muff, it really does sound different, and mostly in a good way. I'm not quite sold on my Metal Muff tone just yet, but I'm confident I just need to tweak the pedal's knobs a bit to compensate for the change.

While I had my amp apart, I also added the TwinStack mod, but that shouldn't really make any tonal differences except that I can knock out all the mids if I want (but I don't want). I tried to keep the settings consistent so the comparison would be more accurate. From left to right:
Reverb: 2.5
Master: just under 3
Middle: about 2
Bass: about 10
Treble: just above 8
Volume: just under 5
I probably didn't need to be that specific, but that's where the knobs are. You could probably just round to the closest number without any noticeable difference. Clean sounds are totally clean (except that they go through my pedal board), then I do OD with my BYOC OD2 pedal, switches on Fat and Mosfet and tone knob probably around 1 o'clock with a minimal amount of gain, and finally the heavy distortion with my Metal Muff, volume around half, treble around 9 o'clock, mid around 2 o'clock, bass around 1 o'clock, distortion around 10 or 11.

I tried to make the mic mimic what you would actually hear rather than what you might record, so it's not an ideal mic placement. The amp is on the floor and the mic is at ear level (when I'm sitting) and a couple feet away.

Without further ado...
Stock speaker
Cannabis Rex

It's not a huge difference, but at this point, I'm not looking for huge differences. I like the tone I am getting, but still see areas where it could improve. I will probably do some of the other Billm mods later. Anyway, now you've got an idea what to expect if you get a Cannabis Rex. It's a pretty nice speaker and the dark green cone is kind of cool, although you'll never see it hiding behind the cloth...
 
cool!

the rex is definitely better.
A pretty substantial difference in body to my ears. Yeah, the highs ARE smoother but I hear the difference in the low mids and bottom end.

A good choice.
 
Yeah, there's definitely a difference in the rest, too. I'm liking my Metal Muff more now. I used to keep the treble more restrained on that pedal before, but I can turn it up a bit and get it to sound really crisp, but also very defined and not harsh. It's pretty awesome.

Which reminds me of a final point I was going to make: this speaker is not just a blues speaker, as most web sites and reviews advertise it. It makes an excellent rock and metal speaker, too.
 
Yeah,that sounds a lot better.
I guess I'm in the market for a new speaker.....as soon as I have the money.:o:D:rolleyes:
 
I didn't hear anything that couldn't be attributed to a slight change in mic placement, but I don't doubt the factory speaker is sub par.

I will be running my 5-15watt THD through a Vintage 30. Thats a 60 watt speaker. I used to run a 10-30 watt BiValve (often at around 10 watts) through a 412 of Greenbacks and it was a great sound when cranked.
Bedroom type volumes are the only real threat to tone IMO. There is no reason seek out an absurd hi watt speaker, but I wouldn't let it be a deal breaker unless you were powering a 212 or 412. I would say 5 watts is capable of sounding great with a 100 watt cab. But I wouldn't be fond of a 240 watt Vintage 30 cab or the standard 1960 cab that I think is rated around 300+ watts.
 
I can tell you that it wasn't due to a slight change in mic placement because I left the mic sitting in exactly the same place the whole time. I suppose the amp could have moved slightly, but again, the mic was at least two feet away, so rotating the amp 4 degrees or moving it 1/2" closer to the mic isn't going to make much difference.

Also, there is a noticeable difference just listening to it in the room. I dunno what you're listening on, but I can even tell a pretty good difference with my laptop speakers...
 
thebigcheese said:
I can tell you that it wasn't due to a slight change in mic placement because I left the mic sitting in exactly the same place the whole time. I suppose the amp could have moved slightly, but again, the mic was at least two feet away, so rotating the amp 4 degrees or moving it 1/2" closer to the mic isn't going to make much difference.

Also, there is a noticeable difference just listening to it in the room. I dunno what you're listening on, but I can even tell a pretty good difference with my laptop speakers...
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I've always wondered about that sort of thing. When someone posts a sound file on line for tone evaluation, there's a lot more in play than the gear in question. There's the mic, mic placement, recording gear used, sampling rate, playback speakers, etc... At the other end of that chain, how much like sitting in the room listening to it does it sound like? How much can you really tell?
 
ggunn said:
I've always wondered about that sort of thing. When someone posts a sound file on line for tone evaluation, there's a lot more in play than the gear in question. There's the mic, mic placement, recording gear used, sampling rate, playback speakers, etc... At the other end of that chain, how much like sitting in the room listening to it does it sound like? How much can you really tell?
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Well, I did my best to keep everything consistent. I think it does a pretty good job of sounding like what it sounds like in the room, but of course it will be a little different listening on different speakers after going through a mic and preamp. The only thing that could have moved a bit was the amp, but, like I said, the mic was a good 2 feet away at least.

As for recording gear, I already said SM57 and location, but it was running into a ART Tube Pre and then into my MOTU Traveler (original version). I think it was at 24/48k, but Windows gets a little screwy sometimes, so it may have been 24/44.1k. Recorded with Reaper, exported using the Lame mp3 codec.
 
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