A very surprising (to me) and interesting day.

ThorpyFX

So I've spent the day doing R&D... and as part of that process I've spent the day trying speakers out, I have to say though this has been a very interesting experience and actually quite mind blowing so I thought I'd share.

Bottom Line Up front: we are extremely lucky to have so many speaker choices.

the speakers I have tried today are:

Celestion Alnico Cream
Celestion Gold Alnico
Celestion Vintage 30
Celestion A type
Celestion Creamback Neo
Celestion Greenback
Celestion g12-65 heritage
WGS Invader
Fane A60 ascension Alnico
eminence redcoat



these were tried in open back cabs, and close back cabs. I tried American flavour amps and British flavour amps high gain, low gain.... and everything in between. 

The most important thing i found out though was this, more than I ever believed possible a speaker is the most crucial part of your setup. If you think your amp is too bright, too bassy etc try a new speaker it can literally transform it.

secondly, I didn't come across a bad speaker in the list above, everyone seems to hate the V30 however even that speaker has its charm in the right pairing. A real surprise for me was the a-type, I thought it was a really good American voiced speaker. Great for tweed style tones. Anyway in short I thought they were all so very different but all great in their own way too. 

FWIW my favourite pairings turned out to be as follows.

High gain- 2x12 closed back. G12-65 heritage. The perfect rock and metal speaker.

med gain, 2x12 open back celestion creamback neo. Really fantastic sounding and almost vocal in its quality.

low gain-Med gain- open back 1x12 Celestion creamback alnico or gold. Depending on how much high end you want/need. 

Anyway, it was worth doing and if you find your amp wanting, it may be worth doing this to fix any sonic failings it may have.

octatonic

I agree about the G12-65 heritage.
It is awesome.

dindude

I agree about how important they are, I've done speaker changes that have made an unusable amp more than usable and conversely ruined a fine amp. Getting the right match can be magical but it's a bit of a lottery at times. I liken it to stacking drive pedals, lots of basic "rules" get you in the zone but once in a while you find a golden combination - same as amps and speakers.

Bygone_Tones

Interesting post thanks. What were your thoughts on the Fane alnico?

I dont think "everyone hates the V30" is quite accurate they are a popular speaker, and there are actually several different versions of it.

ThorpyFX

Bygone_Tones said:

Interesting post thanks. What were your thoughts on the Fane alnico?

I dont think "everyone hates the V30" is quite accurate they are a popular speaker, and there are actually several different versions of it.

Fair enough, I guess I meant to say.... just like nickleback hatred lots of people seem to jump on the v30 hatred bandwagon. 

The fane is a really fantastic speaker, It's very smooth and gives a totally different feel with gain than say a v30,more liquid I'd say. I do think it's very comparable to the creamback alnico which I guess was the point. 

thecolourbox

Are you venturing into amps and cabs as well as pedals?

CHrisP86

Nice. Will be doing a similar run of testing myself in a few weeks but with a slightly different set of Celestions.

ThorpyFX

thecolourbox said:

Are you venturing into amps and cabs as well as pedals?

This is an interesting observation.....

guitarfishbay

Yep the speaker has a huge impact on tone. Right now I've got 8 Mesa V30s (two 2x12s, and a 4x12). They're by far my favourite. Though if I had space I'd like some M65 Creamback cabs too. Through owning a bunch of (admittedly all Celestion) cabs I found I liked V30s and Greenbacks best.

kjdowd

Good point on the A Type. A great sounding speaker for not ridiculous money.

Lebarque

Glad the A-type is getting some love. I've got one in my Carr Skylark and it sounds great to me. Yeh, I was blown away by the impact of the speaker when I changed a few a couple of years ago. we spend so much time fiddling with caps, pots, pickups, wood types etc, but a speaker change makes such an enormous difference. It's a real eye-opener

Dave_Mc

Yeah speakers make a ton of difference. I don't think a good speaker can make a bad amp good, but a bad speaker can make a good amp seem bad- and if you're unaware of that, that can effectively be near enough the same thing! You definitely shouldn't write off an amp until you've tried it with a good speaker.

Which redcoat was it, out of interest?

impmann

V30 totally transformed my old Laney LC30 into one of the best sounding modern combos I've heard - the shitty HH Invader speaker went to landfill. A mate still gigs that amp and each time I hear it I get GAS for another.

Speakers are a crucial link in the chain

Teetonetal

Agree. New speakers have helped both my HT40 (WGS invader I think)and Laney Cub 12 (Celestion V). The Celestion V in particular transformed the amp.

RiftAmps

Imagine that you're working in a recording studio, mixing a few tracks.

You've just spent a good hour carefully shaping the lead vocal track, a small EQ adjustment here, a little noise reduction there, some slight compression to smooth out the top end, it sounds beautiful, glorious and outright amazing.

Suddenly, a record label exec decides he wants to put a 7-band Master EQ after all of your other effects and he gets to control the settings. Regardless of what you've done before, that 'master' EQ will have the biggest effect on the sound. You might get lucky and it'll make things sound OK, but it'll probably sound dump.

THIS is exactly what a guitar speaker does. I estimate that the speaker is as much as 25% of your tone. However, we are lucky that we can choose our '7-band EQ' and can try others with relative ease, unlike our poor sound engineer.

Drew_TNBD

Speaker does have a huge impact on the tone. But if your amp is putting out excessive buzzy lows, I don't think a speaker change will fix it.

It basically all comes down to gain staging - too many lows at the start of the chain affects the distortion character, and that's not something a speaker is going to fix because the speaker is at the end of the chain.

Surprised to see you say that everyone hates the V30 - in the rock and metal world the V30 is basically the gold standard.

digitalscream

Surprised to see that you didn't have the V-Type in there - to my mind, it's the best speaker Celestion have ever made. It's like a V30 with the spike tamed a bit, and a nicer low-end response.

guitarfishbay

Drew_TNBD said:

Surprised to see you say that everyone hates the V30 - in the rock and metal world the V30 is basically the gold standard.

Internet* guitarists hate the V30.

Because guitar is in teh mids, and well that means you have to turn the mids dial up on the amp.... and when you do that with a V30 you get, er, too much mids.  But not the kind of mids that can be fixed by turning the mid knob down, no, you need a speaker that can handle mids on 9.

*present company excepted 

ecc83

Glad you had fun Adrian but as one who has spent 1/2 a day many times getting an A/B test done of just a COUPLE of components I have to say, WTGR, that your speaker tests were less than useful to most of us?

There are of course an almost infinite way to skin this moggy but might I suggest a couple of MOs?

1)First choose a well known speaker that virtually everyone has heard/has access to. None better than the V30 (but give precise details of the specific model)

2)Rig an A/B switch to flip between the "standard" and the speaker under test.

3)Choose just two amps. I would suggest a "raw" no feedback design such as the AC30 and a 50 watter with NFB.

MO. Get as good a sound as you can with one amp and the V30. Flip to the test speaker and note the differences. Snap a picky of amp settings. RECORD all the sounds! (SDC mics fixed distance from test and reference speakers)

I would also strongly suggest the use of a sound level meter. It is a well known fact that the "loudest thing" is always the "bestest thing"!

I could get even more pedantic and say speakers should be tested through a high power (100Wish) solid state "hi fi" power amp to eliminate the  effects of valves, transformers and feedback.

Not knocking Ade'! LUUURVE to have the time,energy and ears to do it but I think I would get through only ONE speaker and two amps A DAY!

I have long thought that the guitar amp/speaker/pup game was ripe for a thesis?

Dave.

professorben

Out of interest, what pairing did suit the V30 the best? 

ChuckManual

Out of interest, what's the difference between the Cream and Gold alnicos?