gonzo's next guitar cabinet experiment:

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GONZO-X

GONZO-X

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Eminence Legend 122

it's 16 ohms, 35 watts capacity, with a 6 oz. magnet.

!!!!!
:D

well, the idea behind this is....
my Celestion vintage 30 (a 60 watt driver) is well matched for my boogie at max volume, but not for the small volumes i'm having to record at now.... in the house...

and inside the demeter isolation cabinet i have, the vintage 30 has a midrange i do not like-
as if i'm not pushing the speaker hard enough to get the full range of sound out of it..

so, this new speaker is an experiment....

take a low watt speaker, with a tiny voice coil, carefully dial in the power section on the boogie, possibly add a THD Hotplate (or 'future' small wattage tube amp), and push it harder within the iso cab... move more air, across a wider frequency.


bandwidth: 80 hz - 5.5 khz

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You've definitely heard this one before! Inspired by the success of the 10" ALNICO (Legend 102), this version gives a 12" alternative. The ALNICO is famous for its warm Bluesy tone. This model is ideal as a replacement or for extending the power handling capabilities in vintage boxes. Expect a much thinner tone and a lot less body from these vintage reissues. These speakers were designed to recreate the 'Jensen' tone from years ago. They make great replacements in lower power vintage amplifiers.

eventually, i'd like to add a modded Fender Champ to this mix..

possibly, THD yellowjackets to the boogie (6L6's to EL84's) as well, for a completely different flavor...
 
...and judging from the frequency response graph it is so bright it will rip your ears off! :eek:
 
yeah, it'll be real interesting to see how this works out..

i expect i'll be doing some post eq off the boogie head, to dial it in...
but hey, it's an experiment, so i'll throw everything i've got at it!
LOL ;)
 
well, did the surgery last night!

it was quite easy, actually, getting the celestion vintage 30 out, and putting the legend 122 in...

you can thump on the cone, of each speaker, and here a distinct 'tone' to each one.
as if they were tuned, to something.

ok, carefully i dialed in a low to moderate volume, with the demeter iso door open...

1st thing i noticed, was that the cone actually did move more..... and had more 'thump'.
the low end, was decidely more intense, but the high end (2khz and up) was harsh.

i kind of expected this, both from the fact that it's a new speaker, and the peak chart shows how it's freq response is pretty high up to 5.5khz, then drops off.

i've got a 5 band eq on my boogie head, post power, so that works real well for dialing out troublesome high end.

i took the 6khz band down about 2db, and that took care of almost all of the harshness, without losing any high end clarity.

i also rolled off a little at 80 hz, and this cleaned up some of the boom.

i didn't have time to actually record with it yet, that's the acid test.
i did close the door, cranked the amp a little harder, enough to get the latch on the door to rattle.......!
and this sounded good. really good.

1st impression:

well, compared to the vintage 30, this is a much rawer sound....
much more 'rock' sounding....
the vintage 30 (60 watt driver) seemed very refined in it's sound... with midrange peaks where i don't like em, but it's as if the cone barely moved, and the sound was kinda 'hi-fi', if that makes sense.

now, this legend, with it's ridiculously small voice coil, was actually working...
and it's sound, was much more visceral, more air moving, more cone action...
it breaks up much earlier... i'm not used to hearing 'speaker cone distortion'....
and in some ways, i didn't like it.... and in other ways, i much prefer it.

strange, but i suppose it's an acquired taste.

i played full gain, and clean....
the clean, sounded really good, with humbuckers, it almost sounded like a Fender Bassman.......
with the boogie channel set just at below breakup, it really sounded more authentically fenderish than the celestion ever did.

an interesting aside:
when i played van haleny-style licks, with the gain up and the edge dialed in, it sounded much more like a set of greenbacks in a 4x12 config, than the single vintage 30 could ever get near.

really raw, i dig it.

i'll record something this weekend.....
 
I recall that one of the favorite mods a lot of Marshall users did to their cabinets back in the '70s was replacing the speakers with Fanes (which I think may have even been one of the optional original equipment speakers in Marshall cabs). I'm not sure if that brand is even around any more...

Anyhow, the Fanes had pretty small voice coils as well, as I recall, and after about 10 or 15 minutes of playing the voice coils would get nice and hot, and start producing some unique distortion of their own - kind of like having a little more saturation after the power section. Very cool sound.

I wonder if your new Eminences will do the same. Looking forward to hearing more about them. :)
 
I've been thinking about doing something similar but with a Weber MASS 150 ahead of the speaker. Weber has a line with I believe 7 ounce magnets.

Might try Beam Blockers too to control icepick harshness.
 
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