Replacement speaker for Pro Junior

surfguy13

I have a '93 pro junior that has had no more than a few hours use.  It has its original speaker which is fairly harsh although that could be due it it needing to be broken in?

I want to stick an alnico 10" in it and wondered if anyone had had success with a specific brand/model of speaker?  My gut instinct is to go for a Weber but would consider Jensens too as have installed a P12Q in an old Ampeg am recently and it sounds amazing.

octatonic

I've put Celestion 10" Gold in small Fender combos- a Princeton though, not the Pro Junior.
It is a great sound if you like the Alnico thing, which is crunchy and chiming in the top end.
They are expensive though and IIRC a 40w speaker.

My current Princeton style amp has a G10 Vintage in it at the moment and that is a great speaker for not a lot of money.
Great bluesy sounding speaker.

The 10" Greenback is great too.

surfguy13

octatonic said:

I've put Celestion 10" Gold in small Fender combos- a Princeton though, not the Pro Junior.
It is a great sound if you like the Alnico thing, which is crunchy and chiming in the top end.
They are expensive though and IIRC a 40w speaker.

My current Princeton style amp has a G10 Vintage in it at the moment and that is a great speaker for not a lot of money.
Great bluesy sounding speaker.

The 10" Greenback is great too.

Thanks @octatonic. ; Yeah, I looked at the Celestion Gold but they really are amazingly expensive for a 10" speaker.  If it's a 40 watt speaker that may not be ideal for the Pro Junior I guess.

The G10 Vintage look really excellent.  I want to try an alnico if I can find one at a reasonable price but if not then at £60'ish they're a great deal! 

Someone also mentioned that swapping out one of the 12AX7s for a 12AT7 for a slightly less harsh/aggressive sound.  I might try that first.

Fretwired

A popular replacement used to be a Weber 10A125 - I had a Pro Junior years ago and thought of upgrading but I sold it instead.

Jalapeno

There's always a 10" Ragin' Cajun ...

simonk

Ragin' Cajun! 100%, it's absolutely the best speaker for Pro Jr's.

surfguy13

Thanks @Jalapeno, the Ragin Cajun looks like a great speaker and like the G10 Vintage it's really well priced but I still think alnico is the right way to go with this amp.  With a tele through it on the bridge pickup it's like razor blades and just a bit too cutting....I think an alnico would soften this and give it another dimension.

I think the Weber 10A125 looks like it might be the best choice @Fretwired although they are stupidly difficult to source in the UK.  I just checked them out on the Weber page and listened to the clips and I have to say it sounds very sweet with a tele.  Also, it's the one Ted Weber recommends for a Pro Junior. It's not an amp I want to spend a fortune on and some of the alnico 10" speakers are selling for £150 notes which seems a bit excessive.

ICBM

I would try to break in the original speaker first - if I remember rightly, on the original early 90s models it's an Eminence blue frame alnico. Does it look like this?

http://angela.com/images/products/detail/Fender10AlnicoSpeakerOne.jpg

They can sound very stiff and harsh when not broken in, and nearly 25 years with almost no use will mean very much that.

Give it a couple of hours at full tilt and see if it makes a difference - if it doesn't then more won't and you need to look for a new one.

surfguy13

Thanks @ICBM......you could very well be right that a speaker of that age with virtually zero use is going to be stiff.  I'll try giving it a few hours at full tilt and see if that makes a difference.  However, sadly it's not an alnico, it's a ceramic Fender (USA) Special Design speaker and these have never worked for me at all.  Even the 60s models which I've had in several 60s Fender amps I've had to replace with Webers.  I removed the ceramic Jensen in my '63 Ampeg and replaced it with a modern alnico P12Q and was blown away.  You hear so much about how crap the modern Jensens are but I think it would be hard to better the sound from that P12Q.

ICBM

I like the modern Jensens too, although I know many don't!

On the other hand I'm the nutter who thinks the Drive channel on the Hotrods is pretty good .

A Hotrod (especially one of the tweed Special Editions) with a Jensen P12N really is a great-sounding amp!

benmurray85

simonk said:

Ragin' Cajun! 100%, it's absolutely the best speaker for Pro Jr's.

Seconded

bandmaster188

I've got a cab I made loaded with 4 Jensen  p10rs. It sounds immense with fender type amps.
they took a little bit of breaking in, but once they've loosened up, I think they are hard to beat for vintage fendery sounds.

surfguy13

bandmaster188 said:

I've got a cab I made loaded with 4 Jensen  p10rs. It sounds immense with fender type amps.
they took a little bit of breaking in, but once they've loosened up, I think they are hard to beat for vintage fendery sounds.

That's really interesting to know as the P10R is so easy to get hold of and won't break the bank! 

ICBM said:

I like the modern Jensens too, although I know many don't!

On the other hand I'm the nutter who thinks the Drive channel on the Hotrods is pretty good .

A Hotrod (especially one of the tweed Special Editions) with a Jensen P12N really is a great-sounding amp!

Yup, agree 100%.  I was looking for a P12N for the Ampeg and couldn't find one used or new at a sensible price.  The Ns are just amazing speakers.  Once I'd bought the P12Q I saw several ads for used P12Ns.....always the way!  Mind you, the Q is superb and I'm genuinely delighted with it.

Good to know someone else out there is a fan of the modern Jensens!!