Upgrading the speakers in my 2x 12 cab.

Saddlepunk

I have a 2 x 12 Harley Benton cabinet that I bought from a friend - the G212 Vintage with two Celestion Vintage 30's - whatever that means. I know nothing about speaker cabinets; I bought it because it looked like a lot of big and heavy kit for £50!

I play my guitar through it and it sounds fine, but I was wondering how much better would it sound, and would I notice the difference, if I put some nicer speakers in it? If so - which speakers? All suggestions are welcome, and don't just restrict yourselves to 2 x 12 ", I quite like the idea of altering it to fit 2 x 10" or 4 x 8" or whatever would be best.

I've got a Jorma Kaukonen Riviera with humbuckers, and an electro acoustic 12 string with a lipstick pickup and Piezo that I plug in now and again and play (or rather would like to) blues & jazz at home for my own enjoyment, no gigging, so I don't need loud.

crunchman

This isn't really a review.  You might be better moving this to the Amps section.  If you hover over the right hand end of the blue bar at the head of your post, and click on the wheel, you should have the option to move it to the correct section.

Vintage 30's are good quality speakers that you will find plenty of pro players using.  If you take them out of the cab and sell them on Ebay, you could probably get something around £50 each for them.  You got a bargain with that cab.

However, V30s are more typically thought of as rock speakers than Blues or Jazz, and aren't to everyone's taste.  They can be quite aggressive sounding.

You could try Celestion Greenbacks or Creambacks.  They are similar quality and price, but a different flavour of sound.

WGS are also good:
http://www.lean-business.co.uk/eshop/wgs-guitar-speakers-wgs-12-guitar-speakers-c-204_207.html?zenid=bvtg49jd75quknthhbglr76l20

ICBM

One Celestion Creamback G12M-65 and one Creamback G12H-75.

An absolutely perfect-sounding pair in that cabinet, from experience.

If you want to retain something of the more modern/aggressive V30 voicing, replace just one of them with either a Classic Lead 80 or a G12T-75.

Saddlepunk

Thanks for all the advice - I now know more than I did, and am now the happy player of 2 x 1974 G12S-20 Green back speakers that cost me nothing!

 My ears aren't that good so I can't claim to hear much difference, but being 20 watts a piece with small magnets, instead of 60 with big ones, I can turn up the amp - which is good - and playing the Riviera this morning was really good fun (which tells me it must have sounded great).

Thanks ICBM and Crunchman - very grateful to you both. You gave me a lot to think about and research.

Bygone_Tones

G12S are great bedroom speakers. What cones do they have, and what model number (T number on the chassis)?  Also what amp are you using?

Saddlepunk

Kurt Mueller cones and T1416 on the chassis. And date code HK24 makes them 24th August 1977 - according to your fabulous website - which is around the time I remember going to Thames Ditton to visit a shop called Comerfords.

Amplifier (cringe) - Marshall MG100HDFX.

[The bloke I bought the cabinet from sold me a H&K Tubemeister 18 1 x 10 combo for £250 and mentioned he had the 2 x 12 aswell if I wanted it for £50 - so I did. I loved the Tubemeister and in recent months started experimenting with it driving the 2 x 12 with an attenuator in between.

A few weeks back I fell for a gorgeous acoustic and in order to liberate some money I decided the amp was wasted on me, sold it for £300 and bought a Marshall MG100hdfx for £100 (I also got a few quid for the attenuator and a reverb pedal I no longer needed).]

ICBM

Be very careful - those are very nice speakers (even though not very highly-regarded in the past due to their low sensitivity), and the amp you're using is in the danger zone for them if you turn it up. It would be a shame to blow them.

You have a 40W cabinet. If the speakers are 8 ohms each that's a 4 ohm cabinet so you will get the full 100W from the MG100, and even though it's not a very 'loud' 100W it will easily blow those speakers. Even if they're 16s the cabinet is now 8 ohms the amp will put out around 60W, which is still too much for safety.

If fact, given their tendency to die anyway, I would get rid of it and spend the money that you were going to on new speakers on a new amp immediately. Anything - literally almost anything, except an Orange Micro Terror - will be better, and anything of 30W or under will be safe with the speakers.

If you really can't do this, wire the speakers in series not parallel - even if they're 16 ohms each - which will limit the power of the amp enough to make it safe. This is not that easy with the PCB panel in the HB cab, I know. But better just to replace the amp - really.

Saddlepunk

ICBM said:

Be very careful - those are very nice speakers (even though not very highly-regarded in the past due to their low sensitivity), and the amp you're using is in the danger zone for them if you turn it up. It would be a shame to blow them.

You have a 40W cabinet. If the speakers are 8 ohms each that's a 4 ohm cabinet so you will get the full 100W from the MG100, and even though it's not a very 'loud' 100W it will easily blow those speakers. Even if they're 16s the cabinet is now 8 ohms the amp will put out around 60W, which is still too much for safety.

If fact, given their tendency to die anyway, I would get rid of it and spend the money that you were going to on new speakers on a new amp immediately. Anything - literally almost anything, except an Orange Micro Terror - will be better, and anything of 30W or under will be safe with the speakers.

If you really can't do this, wire the speakers in series not parallel - even if they're 16 ohms each - which will limit the power of the amp enough to make it safe. This is not that easy with the PCB panel in the HB cab, I know. But better just to replace the amp - really.

Brilliant advice ICBM, thanks. I was going to ask Bygone Tones if they recommended a different amp to get the best out of the new speakers. It occurred to me that a smaller one would be best.

Thing is, I don't turn it up, and I know form the Tubemeister - which could be run on only 1W - that tube amps can be very loud - what do you suggest, and why not the Micro Terror? 

Oh, and would you believe it - I deliberately wired the 8 Ohm speakers in parallel because I thought making the amp work harder would be a good thing!!

ICBM

Saddlepunk said:

Thing is, I don't turn it up, and I know form the Tubemeister - which could be run on only 1W - that tube amps can be very loud - what do you suggest, and why not the Micro Terror?

Because it's the worst-sounding amp in the history of the world, ever .

Actually the *Tiny* Terror is quite nice though, if you like that sort of Orange compressed midrange tone.

Saddlepunk said:

Oh, and would you believe it - I deliberately wired the 8 Ohm speakers in parallel because I thought making the amp work harder would be a good thing!!

You weren't to know this, but that's a very bad idea with a MG100DFX, even if it wasn't a hazard to the speakers. Making the amp work hard is the first step to making the power chip expire . They are one of the least reliable amps I can think of.

Any valve amp in the sub-30W range will be fine - as low as you like, there's no reason you can't use a 1W amp with those speakers if you want. Most will probably be designed for an 8 or 16-ohm load, so you will need to put the speakers in series anyway.

I'm not sure if there are any digital/solid-state heads in that power range - most tend to be higher-powered.

Bygone_Tones

Saddlepunk said:

  I was going to ask Bygone Tones if they recommended a different amp to get the best out of the new speakers. It occurred to me that a smaller one would be best.

My usual rule of thumb is to use an amp that is half the power rating of the cab. So just get the best 20 watter you can afford, or maybe find some other higher powered speakers.

Fwiw I've got a micro terror here and think it's a great little amp, fine for low volume noodling. ICBM hates them .

Saddlepunk

Just bought an early pre-reverb Blackstar HT5H - I'll need to swap the speaker wiring to series.

I won't bother advertising the MG100 on here!

Thanks guys.