Amplifier Mistake (Blackstar)

thomasross20

There are two videos in this thread:

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/29577/first-gig-edinburgh#latest

thomasross20

You should try the riot reloaded.
I was skeptical. Was originally going to get a blackstar distortion pedal but although the riot was 3 times the price I immediately bought it. Sounds amazing!

Voxman

thomasross20 said:

There are two videos in this thread:

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/29577/first-gig-edinburgh#latest

Cool!  - Loved it when your hat kept falling off - great dexterity to play and balance your hat at the same time!  Papa don't preach - must have been tricky playing on the ceiling like that!  - clearly, the gig was in Australia!   >:D<

Good stuff Slash! 
 

thomasross20

Haha thanks!
People responded well to the costume. I can get the proper hat for £100 but not sure if that's overkill - will probably end up getting it

ICBM

Important to get your priorities right…

Hat

Amp

Health

thomasross20

Haha, exactamundo! 

thomasross20

Looks like I'll be keeping the blackstar. Chap enquiring about it said Andertons are doing them for £400 now (fair enough, and I've seen better too) and asked me what I could do. I said I'm just. going to keep it so go buy it at Andertons!

Can you believe I bought my PRS torero for £950 or so less than a year ago, put it up at £400 and some guy was still trying to haggle me down, saying it would be a great Christmas present for his son? Crikey, I'd rather keep it as a backup than sell it for less

ICBM

It's definitely not worth selling stuff for some of the prices that are being bandied about at the moment.

If you're lucky, you might find someone with an ID60 who wants a bigger amp and would trade… maybe even with a cash adjustment your way.

It also might be worth seeing if you could get some neodymium speakers for it, which could save you up to about 4-5Kg. You're unlikely to find an 4-ohm ones easily, but they're usually efficient enough that it shouldn't matter. I'll let you know if I come across anything .

thomasross20

That's a good point yeah. I don't actually know what speakers are in it right now.
Man, I do want to shift this torero though, total surplus to requirements. I might even trade it in to help fund a replacement head (I know, not 100% needed).

Would lighter speakers sound worse in the amp??

I found a thread on the blackstar forum saying they are 'blackbird' speakers but there are no specs and that they're "full range" and not "guitar" speakers whatever that means. In yet another thread somebody says it uses celestion neos... I'll have to find out.

ICBM

Take the back panel off and take a pic. It will be obvious if they are Neos.

They're not going to be full range. They would need tweeters to achieve that and be mounted in a more acoustically designed cab. They may possibly be voiced more 'neutral' than standard guitar speakers, but on the other hand Line6 said that about their speakers too and they turned out to be ordinary Celestion G12P-80s and 90s...

Voxman

The Blackstar speakers in the ID60/260 are a budget Celestion speaker made in China, allegedly rated at 70w - however, as Celestion doesn't make a stock 70w speaker, and if it genuinely is 70w then it was specially made for them. They are certainly not full-range speakers although they might be voiced more neutral as ICBM suggested.  I know that the Celestion 'Neodogs' in my Vox Valvetronix were also custom made for Vox by Celestion, and were an 80w version of the 60w Celestion Century Vintage, but voiced slightly more 'neutral'.  I doubt you'll find much more info on them - amp manufacturers and their selected speaker manufacturer are notoriously tight-lipped on special order speakers. 

thomasross20

Thanks for that, how did you know?
So it would be hard to say if neos would weigh less unless I took them out and weighed them (or if you can see by inspection that they are not neos)

Voxman

Just did a bit of research on the net. Neodymium is now relatively scarce and very expensive and I'm virtually certain the ID speakers are non Neo. To put this in perspective a Celestion Century Vintage is £110-120 and I know of no amp manufacturer especially at this price point that fits neos. The ID60 retails at £399 and even at trade cost that's a fifth of retail cost and probably equates to close to half the manufacturing cost of the amp. The mark up at each level between manufacturer and retailer to customer is pretty big. To put this in perspective when my AD120VTX was new, the trade price was less than half of the retail price of £999. The last amp I knew that came with a Neo was a 1 x 12 version of the Vox AC30 that came with the Century Vintage and Vox told me several years back that the scarecity of neodymium and cost made fitting Neos unviable going forward.

ICBM

thomasross20 said:

So it would be hard to say if neos would weigh less unless I took them out and weighed them (or if you can see by inspection that they are not neos)

If you take a pic of them we can make a good guess as to the weight by comparing them to other Celestions. Neos *will* be lighter - even than the notoriously light and tinny-sounding Rocket 50/G12E-50 - the only question is by how much.

As Voxman says, all the custom-order speakers I know of are allegedly 'tweaked' (or more likely just relabelled!) standard models, and the power ratings may be less conservative than the standard Celestion equivalent, ie a "70W" custom order speaker might be a 60W in the normal range.

They *did* make a 70W speaker though - the G12M-70 - which I'm almost certain is either the same or very closely related to the 80W "Seventy/80" (clue is in the name, as well as the sound!) and which is the standard speaker Blackstar already use in their non-premium amp series, and which are supposedly more 'neutral' sounding - they're also the speakers Line6 use in most of their amps - so it wouldn't surprise me at all if the ID speakers are relabelled Seventy/80s.

(The early V30s were also rated at 70W not 60, but it won't be those because they're expensive.)

Voxman

Historically I'm sure that's right but when I looked on the Celestion website I don't think there is a current production stock Celestion speaker that's officially rated by them at 70w.

ICBM

Voxman said:

Historically I'm sure that's right but when I looked on the Celestion website I don't think there is a current production stock Celestion speaker that's officially rated by them at 70w.

I didn't think so either, but… see below .

(Edit)

Ah! Found this:

http://kitarablogi.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/blackstar-id60-tvp-e28093-blackbird-70-speaker.jpg

No, it isn't a Seventy/80 - or at least not the current version with the dished magnet plate.

It's hard to be sure from that pic, but the magnet doesn't look quite wide enough to be standard M. Or could it be…

http://celestion.com/product/142/vtype/

70W, smaller magnet with a flat back.

If so, it weighs 3.3Kg. A Century weighs 1.7Kg, so replacing two of them would save 3.2Kg overall.

Voxman

Good spot..missed that.

thomasross20

So there could really be some weight savings to be made. I never tweak things on guitars/amps - would be scared to lose the good sound out of the thing. But to save some weight.... what a benefit....!

ICBM

thomasross20 said:

So there could really be some weight savings to be made. I never tweak things on guitars/amps - would be scared to lose the good sound out of the thing. But to save some weight.... what a benefit....!

It would definitely be worth trying before spending the money, if at all possible. Don't rush it - you're exactly right about the danger of losing the good sound. The ideal would be if someone you know could find you a second hand Century to try in the amp - that way you can directly compare the sound of the two sides and see if the Century compromises the sound or volume at all.

I'll let you know .

thomasross20

Thanks!
As for removing and re-fitting speakers, is it a solar job or...? I solder at work often but would rather not invalidate any warranty etc.