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Post by langford on Jul 4, 2021 21:16:12 GMT -5
In your experience, which piece plays the greater role in shaping the tone of amp—the circuit or the speaker? For example, say you have an amp with good mid-range in addition to good high and lows. If you're aiming for a more scooped sound, how far can you get with a speaker change? Or, how much will a high-efficiency modern speaker the vintage sound of a vintage amp. Curious to know.
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Jul 5, 2021 9:18:16 GMT -5
The circuit is the factor that can have the greatest impact on the tone of the amp because you can affect the EQ curve all the way to either extreme (dark or bright).
Changing a speaker is an easy way to revoice an amp, but in general, guitar speakers are fairly neutral (voiced for the guitar) and affect the tone in a more narrow manner. A speaker won't drastically change how an amp sounds.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Jul 5, 2021 9:57:34 GMT -5
Yeah, the circuit will have the larger effect compared to the speaker, but I think if you compare it to typical expectations these days, the speaker has more effect. I've been noticing in a lot of older recordings that the crisp/crunchy sound you hear on a lot of old tracks is just an old speaker that is very hard to duplicate. It is most noticeable to me in anything Tweed era - vintage tweed has one sound, modern tweed has another. That said, I haven't really spent a lot of time with Webers or speakers that claim to be really good at duplicating the old stuff, so maybe I'm wrong on that.
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Post by langford on Jul 5, 2021 10:18:05 GMT -5
Thanks, gents. I got to thinking about this question after doing a little experiment: I plugged a vintage-y Weber speaker (can't recall the exact model right now) into a Mesa Express with the stock speaker (Celestion V30, I think) unplugged. The Weber was much more bass-y than the Celestion, which has a very even frequency response when being driven by the Mesa. I sort-of think the Weber might have been more scooped, but that may have been psychology as there was some much more bass to contrast with the highs.
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Post by Leftee on Jul 5, 2021 11:11:06 GMT -5
Agreed with the above.
I’ll add - the earlier in the signal chain the more important things are. You cannot put back what isn’t there.
Edited to add, the Mesa probably has quite a wide range in its tone controls. So you have that too.
But in a nutshell, if the guitar produces relatively scooped tones, there not a way to put them back.
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Post by Leftee on Jul 5, 2021 19:35:46 GMT -5
Well, I guess you could EQ the boogers out of it with a pedal.
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gdw3
Halfnote
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Posts: 81
Formerly Known As: Gordon
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Post by gdw3 on Jul 6, 2021 20:05:10 GMT -5
The circuit gives it its character. I have a Traynor combo amp, and it has a very distinctive overdriven sound. Almost a fuzz at higher gain. I replaced all the tubes and the speaker, all of which improved on it. But it still has that original thing.
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pdf64
Wholenote
Posts: 556
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Post by pdf64 on Jul 7, 2021 3:05:39 GMT -5
I dunno, the speaker filters and imparts its tonal stamp on what actually gets heard, if a speaker has tonal characteristics that irritate, there’s no amount of twiddling, tweaking and modding that can get around it.
Guitar speakers are best seen as being active resonators, their feq response has extreme peaks and troughs, they generate harmonics which may not have been present in the signal being fed to them.
The amp exacerbates that because its high output impedance gives free reign for the speaker to do its thing (amps in all other applications are designed for the lowest feasible output impedance, so as to better control the load). A speaker tizz or boom is still going to be there even after the circuit filters away too much of the offending frequencies.
My thinking is that the tone of any rig is 1/3 the guitar, 1/3 the circuit and 1/3 the speaker-cab.
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twangmeister
Wholenote
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Formerly Known As: Twangmeister
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Post by twangmeister on Jul 16, 2021 23:48:56 GMT -5
Some years ago I found that speaker selection can really affect the voicing of an amp. I rebaffled a pair of modeling amps, one which received a Celestion Vintage 10 and the other a Jensen-like Weber. The Celestion loaded amp did well with British amp models but it didn't sound so good with Fender models. As you can imagine the Weber enhanced the Fender models but didn't do well with Marshalls or Vox models.
That is why the stock speakers in modeling amps are rather colorless.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Jul 17, 2021 14:18:52 GMT -5
Thanks, gents. I got to thinking about this question after doing a little experiment: I plugged a vintage-y Weber speaker (can't recall the exact model right now) into a Mesa Express with the stock speaker (Celestion V30, I think) unplugged. The Weber was much more bass-y than the Celestion, which has a very even frequency response when being driven by the Mesa. I sort-of think the Weber might have been more scooped, but that may have been psychology as there was some much more bass to contrast with the highs. What was the Weber installed into the baffle? I ask because you mention the stock speaker was unplugged, not removed. Raw speakers with no baffle are often very tinny. |
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Post by langford on Jul 19, 2021 13:12:08 GMT -5
What was the Weber installed into the baffle? I ask because you mention the stock speaker was unplugged, not removed. Raw speakers with no baffle are often very tinny. That's right, I didn't remove the stock speaker from the amp. I just unplugged it from the amp output. The Weber lives in its own cab (made by Avatar, if that means anything). I can't remember the name and there's no labelling on the speaker itself, but it's one of their vintage 12-inch models with an Alnico magnet. The speaker in the Mesa is a Celestion G12 Vintage 30. |
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DrKev
Wholenote
It's just a guitar, it's not rocket science.
Posts: 416
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Post by DrKev on Aug 1, 2021 12:49:17 GMT -5
In my experience a speaker can DRASTICALLY alter your tone, to the point that if listening blind people will swear you have a different amplifier and guitar. BUT unless you record or can otherwise A-B compare the two speakers you won't appreciate the difference that much. Our brain just hears "guitar". Listening to two different amplifiers with the same speaker, they will sound more similar than you would expect.
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