FINALLY Re-Capped The Little Amp

[stevieb]

Yesterday, replaced most of the caps on my little Monkey-Wards Model 6000 5-watt amp. Idle hum way down, amp still has a very fuzzy, distorted tone with volume more than half way up- that's okay, it is what it is, and I like it that way, for the most part. Still has the original speaker, which is cheap and old, so I have decided to have some fun.

Existing cab is taller than it is wide, varnished pine, not plywood- amp is either in a replacement, home-built cab, or all the tolex has been removed and the cab varnished. Original grill cloth still on original baffle board, with original speaker (I had one of these as a kid, remember this stuff from then.) I am going to build a new, shorter cab, cover it with a tweed cloth (cheaper vinyl instead of woven cloth) and put two speakers in it- either 6's or 8's. Local speaker rebuilder has a bunch of Fender 12's, pretty cheap, but they are 16-ohm speakers, so I am wary of using two of them.

Which brings up this: how do I determine acceptable speaker inpedence? Original speaker has "24, 6548, SP8300" ink-stamped on magnet cover. There ' something printed on the speaker cone, but I can not read it all. As I recall, my other M-6000 had a speaker transformer, but I am not 100% sure of that, and this one does not- altho this speaker has mounting holes for a transformer, I see no marks to indicate one was ever mounted.

Once I am done with this little project, I hope it sounds much better- I will, as a finishing touch, flip the face plate over, and put some fancy-script name and chicken-head knobs on it, to make it appear to be an expensive botique amp. Then I will bring it to too-big-guitar-group rehersal, and parade it before my band mate who has turned his nose up at it, just to see what he says THEN. Of course, I will pretend it is an expensive botique amp.

Other suggestions appreciated, too. And yes, Light, I will even listen to you...

 

[dementedchord]

you'll need to meter it to findout what the impedence is... just remember that the dc resistence will be less than ac resistence so a 4ohm will read somewhere around three... an eight ohm will read around six-seven etc...

 

[antichef]

Yeah - I think in the range we're talking about, resistance is a good "surrogate" for impedance, so if you get a resistance reading on the speaker in the neighborhood of 4, 8, or 16, as dementedchord is saying, then that's your number.

I've got a bunch of really old practice amps like that, but not a montgomery wards one (I don't think - I have one that has had the brand logo removed and can't be sure what it was). I took most of them to a local amp tech, but I'm starting to pick at a few of them. I have been putting Weber speakers in them if the existing one is bad.

 

[stevieb]

Yeah - I think in the range we're talking about, resistance is a good "surrogate" for impedance, so if you get a resistance reading on the speaker in the neighborhood of 4, 8, or 16, as dementedchord is saying, then that's your number.

I've got a bunch of really old practice amps like that, but not a montgomery wards one (I don't think - I have one that has had the brand logo removed and can't be sure what it was). I took most of them to a local amp tech, but I'm starting to pick at a few of them. I have been putting Weber speakers in them if the existing one is bad.

Thanks, I wondered if I could meter them, and what "correction" factor to use.

M. Wards was not in the habit of putting their name on all the amps they made. My first Model 6000 was a Xmas gift when I was 11, and still believed in Santa, so I never knew where it came from (Santa's workshop makes guitar amps?? Cool!) It was decades later when I learned it was from Monkey Wards.