Which speaker?

notonlybutalso

Ok so i am nearly finished piecing together my new amp. My Carvin v3m head is here courtesy of @rich75 and now thanks to @dindude i have an unloaded 1x12 Montage cab coming.

Last piece i need is the speaker, and i am looking for something pretty powerful to handle anything i throw at it with ease. 8 ohm preferred but 16 might also work. There are loads of 100Watt and up speakers from Celestion, Eminence and Jensen that i can see, can anyone offer any insights into any of them? Any i should particularly avoid??

hywelg

EVM-12L

ICBM

None that I can think of to avoid for tone reasons.

You don’t need as much as a 100W speaker though, especially if it’s a Celestion - the amp is only 50W, so any Celestion rated at 60W or more would be fine. (eg V30.) That probably doesn’t help!

With other makers it may be better to be more cautious...

drwiddly

I have a 16ohm Celestion Classic Lead 80 sitting around doing nothing, if that's of any interest?

notonlybutalso

ICBM said:

None that I can think of to avoid for tone reasons.

You don’t need as much as a 100W speaker though, especially if it’s a Celestion - the amp is only 50W, so any Celestion rated at 60W or more would be fine. (eg V30.) That probably doesn’t help!

With other makers it may be better to be more cautious...

Are Celestion generally underrated in terms of their power handling? I did not know that, good to bear in mind thanks!

And yeah i know i could technically get away with anything from 60 and up but i want the extra headroom so that the speaker doesn't just handle the RMS power smoothly but also all the wild peaks that might come along without getting into much speaker distortion.
Another reason i like the idea of higher rating speakers is that they typically use heavier magnets and can more accurately reproduce lower frequencies without becoming mushy. Oh and another final reason (and now a reason that i am after a 16 ohm instead of 8 ohm) is that they have a more bottom and top heavy sound with less pronounced mids which should offset the boxy character of a 1x12 cabinet quite nicely I am currently leaning towards an Eminence Man O War 16, does anyone have experience with them? or does anyone own one that they dont want any more by chance?

ICBM

notonlybutalso said:

Are Celestion generally underrated in terms of their power handling? I did not know that, good to bear in mind thanks!

Yes - typically rated for an amp of the same power as the speaker. There are a few exceptions, eg the Hot 100 which doesn't seem to be a 'true' 100W speaker, I've seen a couple of blown ones of those when used with amps of under 100W.

Eminence typically are a little less conservative but you'll be OK with a speaker of 50% higher rating than the amp.

Jensen and Fane I would go with double. Older and fragile speakers like Goodmans and Elac I would even be careful at that...

martinw

ICBM said:

notonlybutalso said:

Are Celestion generally underrated in terms of their power handling? I did not know that, good to bear in mind thanks!

Yes - typically rated for an amp of the same power as the speaker. There are a few exceptions, eg the Hot 100 which doesn't seem to be a 'true' 100W speaker, I've seen a couple of blown ones of those when used with amps of under 100W.

Tranny amps?

I've seen them too, but invariably in AVTs. I put it down to square wave distortion.

Conversely, I've caned a few with big valve amps and not managed to kill one.

I do agree though, they don't strike me as a 'true' 100W speaker, I tend to limit them to 50W amps.

ICBM

martinw said:

Tranny amps?

I've seen them too, but invariably in AVTs. I put it down to square wave distortion.

Conversely, I've caned a few with big valve amps and not managed to kill one.

I do agree though, they don't strike me as a 'true' 100W speaker, I tend to limit them to 50W amps.

Yes, I don't think I've seen one blown with a valve amp. I think one was a Fender (Deluxe 112 I think) but I can't remember for certain. Definitely at least one was in an AVT.

martinw

ICBM said:

martinw said:

Tranny amps?

I've seen them too, but invariably in AVTs. I put it down to square wave distortion.

Conversely, I've caned a few with big valve amps and not managed to kill one.

I do agree though, they don't strike me as a 'true' 100W speaker, I tend to limit them to 50W amps.

Yes, I don't think I've seen one blown with a valve amp. I think one was a Fender (Deluxe 112 I think) but I can't remember for certain. Definitely at least one was in an AVT.

Mind you, they're not standard issue on valve combos, whereas they are the kind of thing that gets used in solid state amps. Often in 4 ohm which is possibly asking for trouble.

Also generally I can't think of many guitar speakers (apart from those) I've replaced at all (for being blown), whereas bass and PA speakers were a regular.

For a high output speaker, the new Redback looks interesting.

ICBM

martinw said:

Also generally I can't think of many guitar speakers (apart from those) I've replaced at all (for being blown), whereas bass and PA speakers were a regular.

I've seen quite a lot of Eminences fitted in things like Fender Performer/Roc Pros go, and a couple in Hotrod Deluxes. Mostly rehearsal room amps of course so they get hammered, but a few others too. And the ones in Frontman 212s, but they're clearly just rubbish.

I've also seen a few in valve combos, although a significant fraction were owned by one specific player! How he does it I don't know... he just seems to have a very heavy attack or something. The last were a pair of G12T-75s in a Marshall JCM900 combo - even with a 100W amp you wouldn't expect that.

Likewise, more 15" bass combo speakers and PA tweeters than I can remember though...

rico

drwiddly said:

I have a 16ohm Celestion Classic Lead 80 sitting around doing nothing, if that's of any interest?

Get this!