Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

Any experts on guitar speakers around here?

I'm about to upgrade the stock speakers in my lil' 60 watt Hartke Piggyback, but I'm really kind of torn between four Jensen 8" C8R's at 100 watts, or two Eminence 10" Ramrods at 150 watts.

I need to stay at 4 ohms and either combination will work, but I'm wondering about their frequency range and how that might affect my tone. The Jensens' frequency range is 80Hz-8KHz and the Eminence's range is 80Hz-5kHz.

Any thoughts............?

My guitar doesn't have speakers.

I think the first question here is - can your audience hear the diff between 5kHz & 8kHz. Mine certainly can. I know that I can.

Second question - do you really need those highs? Only you can answer that, based on the tones you use. For guitar I don't think it'll make that much difference, in the long run, due to the natural range & tones of the instrument.

I'd base my decision on price, instead...& ease of lugging around...& road-worthyness...& which ones are prettier...

I think I would go for the Jensens for the wider freq range.

Ive got a variety of cabs. I have Jensens in one, not sure if they are what you are talking about, but they sound muddy to me. I have an old Laney Cab that Im fond of, it has H&H Speakers, this is a very crisp tight sounding speaker to my ears. My main amp is a Mesa Rec into a Mesa 4x12 with V-30s, does a good job. My little Mesa combo has a Black Shadow 10 inch. Ths cover songs on my player here were all done with the little Mesa with the 10 inch Black Shadow. The original stuff is a variety of different amps and modelers that I use.

For me once i get thru equing my amp, I seem to wind up with basically the same tone no matter what I use.

I dont know what you used on your demos. But some of them sound a little muddy to me, maybe a bit more highs and presence would bring them to life.

Good Luck in you tone quest!

Thanks for the input guys....

I'll probably just go with the Jensens since they were my first choice until I started looking around and had other ideas popping in my head. I'm pretty sure they'll be a noticable upgrade from the stock speakers and I won't have to modify my existing cabinet (or build a new one). Hopefully the cab will sound little brighter and offer some more clarity, which is exactly what I'm after.

I'll let you know how it works out.

this takes some background so stay w/ me. I am definitely a tone freak. I try all kinds of stuff,so a weird find for speakers, I have a set of Pioneer hpm 100`s that i have used w/my home system for years. love them. Anyway, drivin to a freinds house one day I saw a set put out for loose trash and naturally picked them up w/ the intention of redoing the speakers and adding them to the others. While doing research i found out that the main 12 inch drivers were built like tanks and thata why they last so long eeven w/ serious abuse. i also found put these things go for as much as three grand used. anyway, I added them into my guitar amp aet up and they are unreal. just one of those things. By the way, I play classic rock and blue4s too.

Well, I finally got around to putting those Jensen speakers in my cabinet and they've made quite a difference in my amp's tone. The original speakers were OK, but the replacements are a definite upgrade, especially at higher volumes. I can really crank it up now and the tone just seems to get better, whereas before there was noticable distorting and loss of clarity. All in all, it was a pretty easy upgrade and worth my time.

Thats cool 67 glad you got something that is working for you

O forgot the song but its debateable what song had the first fuzz on it. I think it was Rocket 88 or something like that where they had a torn speaker and it fuzzed up. Back in the 40s and 50s they added headroom to amps to make them cleaner at higher volume.

The story is told that Bill Haley (and the Comets) poked holes in his amp speaker with an ice pick and laid it face down on the stage and cranked it all the way up to get his distortion. Anybody out there heard this before and know if there's any truth to it?

Yeah, I heard that story too and there's probably some truth to it as it would definitely fuzz up an amps sound. I'm just glad that nowadays we have plenty of other options available.