Fane 'Pop' 12" 15W speaker

ecc83

Anything known?

Dave.

JezWynd

They used to advertise them in Exchange & Mart back in 70's iirc.

ICBM

So called because they pop if you put 15W into them…



That must be quite an old one - later they did the 'Pop 50' to which the same applies.

These - among other Fanes, Goodmans etc - are why Celestion had the reputation of being the 'good' speakers and everything else the 'crap' speakers back in the old days, when musicians didn't understand why you can't connect a 50W speaker to a 50W amp and crank it. (Unless it's a Celestion.)

They actually sound quite nice, if you can find them in working order. Pretty efficient too, if I remember.

ecc83

ICBM said:

So called because they pop if you put 15W into them…



That must be quite an old one - later they did the 'Pop 50' to which the same applies.

These - among other Fanes, Goodmans etc - are why Celestion had the reputation of being the 'good' speakers and everything else the 'crap' speakers back in the old days, when musicians didn't understand why you can't connect a 50W speaker to a 50W amp and crank it. (Unless it's a Celestion.)

They actually sound quite nice, if you can find them in working order. Pretty efficient too, if I remember.

Hah! Told 'im boss! Told 'im.  I said don't use it on anything hotter than an HT-5 but he might get away with a 10W (into 4R) transistor amp.

Dave.

DJH83004

That takes me back, my first 'proper' rig was a FAL Phase 50 amp and a Fane Pop 50 in a home made cab, sounded dire! but at least the amp was that feeble it didn't blow the speaker !

ICBM

DJH83004 said:

That takes me back, my first 'proper' rig was a FAL Phase 50 amp and a Fane Pop 50 in a home made cab, sounded dire! but at least the amp was that feeble it didn't blow the speaker !

Ah… when the company name 'Futuristic Aids Limited' wasn't an instant sales-killer .

I got given one of those recently - all it needed to get it going was a new mains cable and a clean-up. I was interested to see what it would sound like overdriven, and to my great surprise not only did it sound great - in a 1970s fuzzbox kind of way of course - it didn't blow up! It wasn't at all loud for "50W" though, I reckon it was more like about a 25W amp at best. I forgot to measure it.

I seem to remember that the 'popular wisdom' back in those days was that you should always match the amp rating to the speaker rating, because using a lower-rated amp to drive a higher-rated speaker would 'strain the amp'… I think it was even mentioned in 'The Guitar Book' by Tom Wheeler.

DJH83004

With 2 x 2N3055s in push-pull and a pretty mediocre power supply, 50watts was was a bit of a stretch. I don't think there was much straining going on in either direction    

Bygone_Tones

Most Fanes are nice speakers if they are early enough to have the pulsonic cones (73 and earlier), including the 'pop' range. So long as the magnet isn't really small.

People are too quick to label certain vintage speakers as "sounding crap" when the truth is they are probably using faulty speakers but dont know the correct way to check them. The cone movement has to be absolutely perfect for good tone, and unfortunately most old speakers are not in that condition thesedays. Especially Fanes because the coil gap is very thin on them, so as soon as the cone is slightly off center it will start to sound bad.

ICBM

I've just picked up a Fane 122/10 (which despite the name is a 12" speaker) that was in an old DIY combo a friend bought, quite a nice 'radiogram' style cabinet with a Linear Conchord amp built into the bottom. Given that the amp is 30W and the speaker is rated for 20 - and the amp actually does deliver both that much power and a really full sound - it wasn't too surprising to find it sounded horrendous turned up loud. Although to my surprise it doesn't seem to be blown, and actually sounds very nice when not pushed too hard. Replaced it with a Celestion G12H-30 and all is good… I'll keep the Fane for something less stressful.

ecc83

Don't know how many L Conchords you have seen IC but they  were legion around here for WMC bingo PA!

They also ate EL34s! Even Mullies. Reason was the G2 was run at over 500V and I used to fit a TV 'dropper section' on a bit of 2BA brass studding to drop them to around 400-420 V . I dare say top power was curtailed a little but nobody would notice.

If you are keeping it for guitar and running it hard it might benefit from smaller coupling caps and higher value grid stoppers to the EL34 grids?

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

Don't know how many L Conchords you have seen IC but they  were legion around here for WMC bingo PA!

They also ate EL34s! Even Mullies. Reason was the G2 was run at over 500V and I used to fit a TV 'dropper section' on a bit of 2BA brass studding to drop them to around 400-420 V . I dare say top power was curtailed a little but nobody would notice.

If you are keeping it for guitar and running it hard it might benefit from smaller coupling caps and higher value grid stoppers to the EL34 grids?

If he intends to keep it I'll maybe suggest he has it upgraded - I haven't found them to be unreliable in general though. The brief at this point was just to get it running reasonably well and (most importantly, since it wasn't!) make it safe. Very dodgy mains cable of course… slightly perished rubber and with no retention at the amp other than the solder connections!

Surprisingly the original (I assume) Mullards were still working fine, although they do look a bit tired. He wanted to keep those for some other purpose so I've stuck some JJs in.

crunchman

DJH83004 said:

That takes me back, my first 'proper' rig was a FAL Phase 50 amp and a Fane Pop 50 in a home made cab, sounded dire! but at least the amp was that feeble it didn't blow the speaker !

My first amp was a FAL.  Awful thing.

That amp, combined with the horrible Kay Les Paul copy I had, made me sell them both and spend the money on an acoustic pickup.

ecc83

I  was probably in on the first ones IC and they might have re-jigged the transformer later on for you young 'uns!

Mind you! It was pretty standard practice in these clubs to keep the amp in a cupboard and ventilation was poor. I think they went for the Conchord because you could use a very cheap 'crystal' mic  which was handy for clarity since the speaker was often a Goodmans 12" in a  'box baffle' (often er, 'DONATED' by a local shoe factory!)

Dave.

jpfamps

ecc83 said:

Don't know how many L Conchords you have seen IC but they  were legion around here for WMC bingo PA!

They also ate EL34s! Even Mullies. Reason was the G2 was run at over 500V and I used to fit a TV 'dropper section' on a bit of 2BA brass studding to drop them to around 400-420 V . I dare say top power was curtailed a little but nobody would notice.

If you are keeping it for guitar and running it hard it might benefit from smaller coupling caps and higher value grid stoppers to the EL34 grids?

Dave.

EL34 was not designed to be run Ultra Linear, so not a great design choice in this amp.

ecc83

jpfamps said:

ecc83 said:

Don't know how many L Conchords you have seen IC but they  were legion around here for WMC bingo PA!

They also ate EL34s! Even Mullies. Reason was the G2 was run at over 500V and I used to fit a TV 'dropper section' on a bit of 2BA brass studding to drop them to around 400-420 V . I dare say top power was curtailed a little but nobody would notice.

If you are keeping it for guitar and running it hard it might benefit from smaller coupling caps and higher value grid stoppers to the EL34 grids?

Dave.

EL34 was not designed to be run Ultra Linear, so not a great design choice in this amp.

That's odd since the Mullard 5-20 was something of a classic UL design in its day.

Dave.