Auditioning and choosing speakers

[bob p]

You'd mute the amp. I'd mute the amp. Gnobuddy would mute the amp. But when a teenage kid and his buddies go into a brick and mortar store to jam on 20 different speakers, they're not going to mute the amp. They're going to short it's transformer windings.

I think Gnobuddy was trying to think of a kid-proof solution.

[nickb]

You'd mute the amp. I'd mute the amp. Gnobuddy would mute the amp. But when a teenage kid and his buddies go into a brick and mortar store to jam on 20 different speakers, they're not going to mute the amp. They're going to short it's transformer windings.

I think Gnobuddy was trying to think of a kid-proof solution.

You misunderstood what I was getting at. The muting is integral to the design of the switch.

PS: I thought it was obvious, but on reflection I could have been clearer. I guess that's why I was never a technical author.

[bob p]

As of demoing spakers, at least Eminence has a display panel orn shallow cabinet, say 4f by 6ft or so, with some 8 speakers mounted and a switching selector.

I think emincence came out with that speaker demo unit when the introduced the RedCoat and Patriot line of speakers. They had to do something like that, because they had introduced a bewildering number of speakers all at once and nobody had a clue how to tell them apart using only the ad copy. The demo box was a good idea, but 8 speakers isn't enough when the number of speakers they sell is many times that number.

I like Rivera's video -- he tried to be consistent by recording a guitar signal and re-amping the recorded signal so that the player doesn't have a feedback loop to guide his playing and thereby change the results.

As good as that Rivera video may be, it doesn't tell me all that much. Sure, it gives me a rough idea of frequency response differences at a fixed signal level, but how big of a signal level is that? They didn't say. I'd suspect that they're driving the speaker cabinet with a relatively small level signal. At small signal levels you hear the frequency response differences. But at large signal levels, you can hear some speakers fail by introducing nasty distortion artifacts while others just keep on going. Try pushing a setd of Jensen 12" speakers to their rated limits and they're going to get nasty, while the EV and the JBL will take it in stride. Celestions also get pretty nasty when you feed them real power. One of the things that the Rivera video doesn't even address -- which is a real concern for me -- is large signal speaker distortion. Some speakers are a lot worse than others and the video demo method doesn't really give me a feel for that, because nobody gives adequate demos under all conditions. Like Mark said, Youtube is a bit of a fool's errand. The videos are entertaining but I don't put any faith in them. It's too easy to skew the results using playing style and recording methods to minimize differences or unrealistically accentuate them.

As it turns out I own at least a dozen of the speakers demo'd in that video, in a dozen different cabs. I can honestly say that when you drive any of them with power, the differences between them are much more significant than the video would lead you to believe.

It's funny that you mention how people fuss over things that don't really matter, while paying less attention to speakers. IMO speakers are the biggest effector of amp tone. So I just keep several cabs loaded with several flavors of speakers and pick whatever is right for the occasion. And if there's an amp + speaker combination that is close but doesn't sound quite right, most of the time I can get it into the zone by tweaking the amp. It's a real bear to tweak speaker cabinets. It's both time consuming and expensive, and speakers take up a lot of space. IMO there's a lot to be said for having a few open backed cabs, a 4x12 loaded with Greenbacks, a 2x12 loaded with V30, and a set of EVMs in their T-S ported boxes. Once those bases are covered there's really no need to ever consider speaker shopping... until it's time to update the bass cabinet collection...

honestly speaking, i have enough gear to outfit a Pink Floyd tour. My gear is designed to cover the necessary bases as far as tones are concerned, and it doesn't really change over time. I haven't made any real changes in 15-20 years. I don't understand why people constantly trade in and out of amps and speakers while searching for that "Holy Grail" tone. I guess I'm one of those guys who thinks that Holy Grail tone doesn't really exist, and that it's kind of pointless trying to find it. On a more practical level, I think that there are several "classic" classes of tones, each of which is in sort of a different tonal ballpark, and each of which can be made to work in it's proper context. Need a Marshall 4x12 sound? Any Marshall 4x12 will get you close. But I get the impression that a lot of gear hounds are spending more time than they should in cork-sniffing different speakers for their 4x12, trying to recognize minute differences between them. Is it worth it? I'd say no -- for me I'd be better off spending that time rehearsing than worrying too much about gear. As they say, the real tone is in your fingers. My problem is that no matter what amp and cabinet combination I may try, when I dial it in to get a sound that I like, it always sounds like me.

[catalin gramada]

when I get something new strange thinks happen as I heard some in the evening and completly different in next morning...

[nickb]

when I get something new strange thinks happen as I heard some in the evening and completly different in next morning...

Don't wory about it. I think that's normal for humans. It's the fundamental differece between ears and measuring devices.

[Gnobuddy]

Just mute the amp while switching.

And what happens when someone mutes the amp, switches to the 4th position (which happens to have no speaker connected), unmutes the amp, and does his best imitation of Pete Townshend's arm-windmilling power chords? Barbecued output transformer and output valves?

Also, four out of four Fender (valve) amps I've owned have had truly marginal RF stability. It's quite possible that one or more of them might burst into high-frequency oscillation if the output is unloaded - whether or not the input is muted. If that happens, once again, poof, amp fricassee.

Muting a valve guitar amp doesn't guarantee it will escape damage if the output is open-circuited. Considering the very considerable cost of many amps, I don't think it's an acceptable risk. Something fool-proof (or, at least, as near to fool-proof as possible) needs to be cooked up.

-Gnobuddy

[Gnobuddy]

when I get something new strange thinks happen as I heard some in the evening and completly different in next morning...

Exactly. As Nickb says, this is exactly why we shouldn't trust our ears too much. They are very easily fooled, just like all our other human senses.

What you're describing happens to me often when I'm trying to tweak a guitar amp design to sound good. It sounds good today, but after a week, I hear things I don't like, and tweak it again. Two weeks (or two days) after that, it sounds wrong again. It can be an endless loop, unless I put a stop to it by comparing with a reference amp that I use as a baseline. Never tweak the reference amp!

It's not just our hearing - do you know what happens when the cook keeps adding salt and tasting the soup to see if it's salty enough? His/her tongue loses its baseline reference, because of all the salt he/she has already tasted, and the soup ends up over-salted.

-Gnobuddy

[Gnobuddy]

when I dial it in to get a sound that I like, it always sounds like me.

I have a number of musician friends who are constantly buying new guitars that they really can't afford, hoping they will sound different and better. But if the musician continues to have the same limitations, his/her guitar will always sound the same...

The most extreme case was a boastful twit who had, he claimed, enough Gibson acoustics to play a different one each week for a year. This guy seemed to know only about three or four chords - every song he played was in the key of G, and 99% were I-IV-V progressions, the remaining 1% being I-vi-IV-V. I almost asked him if he played the same four chords on all his fifty-plus Gibsons, but managed to hold my tongue.

For any musician who already has halfway decent musical equipment, and wants to sound better, IMO the best place to spend money is on guitar lessons. Find a teacher who is much more skilled than you are, learn new stuff from him/her, and your same old guitar and same old amp will magically start to sound better.

Sometimes, of course, we just want to sound different, not better, and then, a change in gear might be the solution. Switch from a Les Paul to a nylon-string classical guitar, and I guarantee you will not sound the same - the super-short sustain will force you to change the way you play, like it or not!

-Gnobuddy

[R ski]

I constructed a two single 12 inch cabinets and two 10 inch cabinets over these last number of years, so having a similar cabinet really makes comparing speakers a breeze when auditioning, simply pull the 1/4 plug and plug into the next one, the characteristic of a speaker can be easily determined.

In the all around category for good old school rock, the Celestion Vintage 30, holds the highest respect, sort of a familiarity good balanced tone, clean or driven hard. Lots of power handling, slam 80 watts, that's what we are talking about ...under $200

Next: Jensen Jet, seen a posting a couple of years ago, sale. Compared to the Celestion, close sounding, a little more scooped sound, fire a Fender amp through, mimicks a Fane to some in a good way.

I was fortunate to have a studio give me a pair of Fanes, 80's Im guessing. The first issue with recessed baffle front mounting, is they had flange ears on four bolt circle, needed to use a router to accommodate. Very big magnets on these beast, they can maybe push a few extra decibels, the upper end gets a little piercing

I had two Eminence series ... Red White Blue and some hemp cone model. From my perspective, both had a similar sound, not as complex as a Celestion, kind of throaty mid, sounded good, but recorded so so

All these speakers were capable of 50 - 70 watt ...so if you have a head with that power, you want to wail, these speakers will do. Even a 10 watt amp would benefit these speakers, but the cabinet still determines the sound

Interesting, I had some old 12 60's small alco magnet speaker, low efficiency, but in terms of low volume sweetness, this speaker simply sounded balanced, it just one of those things that leads you to play your fingers off ... cool ... easy to destroy, really records well.

I just built two 10 inch cabinets, 80% the dimension of the 12 inch cabinets, similar materials
One fitted with a Eminence 10 Ram Rod, like the 12 Eminence, very throaty mid. When pummeled with 80 watts, this bad boy can be felt.

Next, a 10 speaker removed from a Fender Champ XP ... a nice complex sound speaker, no where as loud as the Ram Rod, but low volume simply sounds balanced and pleasing.

Because I serviced guitar amps, I can attest in certain combo amps, the baffle can simply make a good speaker sound flat. Essentially, the baffle and cabinet material will play an important role in voicing your guitar tone.

[nickb]

And what happens when someone mutes the amp, switches to the 4th position (which happens to have no speaker connected), unmutes the amp, and does his best imitation of Pete Townshend's arm-windmilling power chords? Barbecued output transformer and output valves?

Also, four out of four Fender (valve) amps I've owned have had truly marginal RF stability. It's quite possible that one or more of them might burst into high-frequency oscillation if the output is unloaded - whether or not the input is muted. If that happens, once again, poof, amp fricassee.

Muting a valve guitar amp doesn't guarantee it will escape damage if the output is open-circuited. Considering the very considerable cost of many amps, I don't think it's an acceptable risk. Something fool-proof (or, at least, as near to fool-proof as possible) needs to be cooked up.

-Gnobuddy

It sounds you put an imaginary dumb switch in place and then levelled criticism at it. Or course you'll get problems if you put it front of a rampant herd of monkeys on amphetamines.

Like any system, you list the requirements and design the system to meet them. An electronically controlled switch can be designed that meets criteria of open and/or short protection and any else you might reasonably want it to. You just have to put in the time (and money ).

[Enzo]

THis needn't be complicated. Put a 100 ohm resistor across the amp feed. That will be enough to protect the amp, but high enough to not materially affect the speaker.

[Gnobuddy]

It sounds you put an imaginary dumb switch in place and then levelled criticism at it.

Nope, in my original post I pointed out that an electronically controlled switch that senses load impedance is what is needed. It was you who suggested that a dumb (mute) switch at the input would be all that was required!

-Gnobuddy

[bob p]

THis needn't be complicated. Put a 100 ohm resistor across the amp feed. That will be enough to protect the amp, but high enough to not materially affect the speaker.

you beat me to it. i bought a lifetime supply of 5W 270R wire wounds when they were being cleared out at newark a few years ago. wire one across the amp's OT and stop worrying. they'll keep the amp alive long enough to figure out you've made a mistake.

Fender also used shorting jacks on the output in an attempt to prevent monkey on amphetamine type disasters. sure, the OT won't like working into a shorted load, but it hates that less than the open circuit alternative.

[catalin gramada]

Exactly. As Nickb says, this is exactly why we shouldn't trust our ears too much. They are very easily fooled, just like all our other human senses.

What you're describing happens to me often when I'm trying to tweak a guitar amp design to sound good. It sounds good today, but after a week, I hear things I don't like, and tweak it again. Two weeks (or two days) after that, it sounds wrong again. It can be an endless loop, unless I put a stop to it by comparing with a reference amp that I use as a baseline. Never tweak the reference amp!

It's not just our hearing - do you know what happens when the cook keeps adding salt and tasting the soup to see if it's salty enough? His/her tongue loses its baseline reference, because of all the salt he/she has already tasted, and the soup ends up over-salted.

-Gnobuddy

Thats remembered sound checks made with a friend of mine saying an A-B test worth nothing, do A-B-A instead... The problem when you get some is how to not lose the others. Is like a debate between micro and macro events analysis or details vs ensemble if you wish...

[Gnobuddy]

THis needn't be complicated. Put a 100 ohm resistor across the amp feed. That will be enough to protect the amp, but high enough to not materially affect the speaker.

I have to defer to your experience here. I've read stories of the 32-ohm load in the "ultimate attenuator" causing damage to high-powered output stages, so I'm personally not keen on the idea of a 100-ohm resistor being sufficient protection. But I simply don't have enough experience with improperly loaded valve guitar amps to know for sure.

-Gnobuddy