Fender Twin troubles

[rucarlso]

Here's the deal: I recently refit my Silverface Twin with new tubes and drivers. The drivers I put in are Eminence Alphas. A friend had put the same speakers in his Twin and I liked the sound.

I seem to have lost some volume. I have one of the Silverface Twins that has a master volume control. Even with that cranked and the channel volume cranked I still don't get anywhere near the loudness I was getting before I did my dubious handywork.

I'm looking at the spec sheet for the Eminence Alphas. It says that the speaker's impedence is 8 ohms. The back of my Twin says it takes 4 ohms. Is this my problem? In case you can't tell, I am a nitwit when it comes to technical stuff like this. I'm a helluva guitarist, though.

Can anybody begin to help? I'd be most appreciative.

 

[Chill]

Two 8 ohm speakers wired in parallel = 4 ohms, so that's probably not your problem. Though if they are mistakenly wired in series at 16 ohms, you should notice a decrease in volume.

My first guess would be the speakers themselves. Even wired at 4 ohms, the eminince alpha 12's put out about 95dB/W in the midband, while their guitar speakers put out more like 100dB/W in the midband (e.g. the Legend GB12 and 125). You cut out 6dB, you halve your volume. And eminence's dB ratings are reported to be not as loud as other manufacturers'.


I'd search over at the plexipalace forum to find out what speakers came with SFTR's and then look for a replacement or upgrade.

 

[Major Tom]

I second that about the speaker efficiency - it can make a huge difference in volume. Are you sure that's not a good thing? - Twins are extremely loud, quieter speakers will let you crank it up and get some power tube saturation at a more manageable level...

 

[rucarlso]

Thanks so much for the advice, guys. I'll check into it. And yeah, it's not a totally bad thing to be a little softer. And I can get to some beautiful saturation without having my neighbors call the cops...that's a good thing. I was playing it some more this morning and found that I do love the sound of the Alphas (I'm rockin' an SG right now and the combo of amp and gtr is great).

I'm such a gear slut, my best bet is probably to just pick up yet another amp.

Thanks again for the hlp, I'm gonna try and see what could be done and then weigh the options.

 

[Clive Hugh]

You can never have too much gear, use 2 twins, one on each side of the stage.

 

[Be Loveless]

I used to have a 1969 Twin. It sounded great at first. Then it was'nt so clean. Then I got it rewired. Then I got 5,000 adjustments. A little while later I got it re-tubed and re-re-tubed. Then I said....FUCK THIS SHIT. It was just like my dodge dart. Everything was perfect when it was perfect. Everything was shit when the smallest of paremeters was off. I sold the twin and bought a ROLAND JC-77. It has never let me down and takes severe abuse. No tubes to fuck with. I can carry it in one hand and my guitar in the other. I STRONGLY suggest that you check out a JC-90 (they don't make the 77 anymore) and a JC 120. I think that you'll be pleasantly suprised. Tubes suck. I will never go back. Just try it.