Best speaker for Blackface Champ??

[Jaicen]

I'm looking for suggestions as to which speaker I should be using.
So far, the info i've found has often been conflicting and not really helpful.
Basically, I want a speaker that will give me the best tone, but not necessarily the loudest speaker.
With that in mind, i'd be inclined to go for an Alnico speaker, but from what I can gather the magic of Alnico is related to it's ability to be driven into saturation. Obviously, with only 5-7W, I think it's unlikely that the Champ will be able to drive the speaker into distortion, so would I be better off going for A 10" Ceramic Jensen??
Can anyone offer any suggestions?

[Steve Conner]

You could always, shock horror, buy both an alnico and a ceramic 8" and see which you like the tone of more. 8s can't be that expensive.

I have one of these
http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/galle...ry4/cat25.html
with the original Celestion alnico 8" speaker in it. It's basically a Brit version of a Vibro Champ, AFAIK. I don't know exactly what is distorting in it, but when cranked up it sounds like an absolute ball of filth. Remember the Celestion blues are only rated at 15W each.

[Jaicen]

First of all, I was planning to get a 10" speaker rather than an 8. I can't really afford to splash out on more than one speaker right now, so I was looking for suggestions as to which to get.
My first instinct is to go with the blues, but I wanted to see what other people would recommend first.

[Steve Conner]

Well, if you're on a budget, and you're in the US, Celestion might not be the best value for money because of import duty. I think Jensen, Weber and others all make good alnico and ceramic speakers in the US.

I always liked the look of the Tone Tubby hemp coned speakers. They might be too expensive though, or better suited to a higher powered amp, I don't know.

http://www.tonetubby.com/sales.htm

[Jaicen]

Actually i'm in the UK. It seems a lot harder to source parts, and somewhat more expensive on this side of the Atlantic. Money for this project is a little tight, but I do quite fancy a Celestion blue. Those Tone Tubby's are a little out of my reach right now, especially factoring in Import Duty and shipping.

[Steve Conner]

Oh, well in that case, I think you can get a few different kinds of Jensen speakers, both alnico and ceramic, from Watford Valves. I've not seen the Celestion Blues in a 10" yet, I think they've only just come on the market.

It does tend to be a bit harder to get parts for Fender style amps here. TAD in Germany seems to be a good place to get stuff.

[Jester]

speakers

Actually i'm in the UK. It seems a lot harder to source parts, and somewhat more expensive on this side of the Atlantic. Money for this project is a little tight, but I do quite fancy a Celestion blue. Those Tone Tubby's are a little out of my reach right now, especially factoring in Import Duty and shipping.

I've recently built both a kit 5E3, and put together a 5F1 from the best bits I could source - while the deluxe sounds good, the 5F1 knocks its socks off with the Mercury Magnetic Transformers (expensive, but a very big improvement over the Weber o/p transformer I started with). I too have been wondering about speakers - I bought both a Alnico Celestion Blue, and Alnico Tone Tubby (sorry they are both the 12" models, not 10" that you're looking at). I have them both in separate cabs and individually they sound fantastic with excellent clarity and definition. I must confess that most of our band members tend to prefer the Celestion on a blind tests, neither are a bad, and with them both together, wow.... With both these models handling so much more power than I'm pumping at them, I don't think they start to distort, but I don't worry about that, I can get all the tone I need from these amps. Next I'm going to try a Celestion Vintage 30, as they are a bit cheaper which will be important when I'm going to build a quad stack.

[TheTinMan]

Actually, my 5F2-A can drive its Weber 10A100 into distortion and it's great! 10" alnico speaker rated at only 15 watts. (Sorry if Webers are out of the question because of your location.)

Of course it depends on whether or not you want more "clean headroom". A more efficient ceramic speaker should be louder and cleaner, at least in theory.

HTH

Chip

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

I'm looking for suggestions as to which speaker I should be using.
So far, the info i've found has often been conflicting and not really helpful.
Basically, I want a speaker that will give me the best tone, but not necessarily the loudest speaker.
With that in mind, i'd be inclined to go for an Alnico speaker, but from what I can gather the magic of Alnico is related to it's ability to be driven into saturation. Obviously, with only 5-7W, I think it's unlikely that the Champ will be able to drive the speaker into distortion, so would I be better off going for A 10" Ceramic Jensen??
Can anyone offer any suggestions?

Go buy yourself a new Jensen reissue C10Q and lightly soak the black paper cone with acetone or good lacquer thinner (not paraffin) ....(keep away from sparks or heat and don't get the dust cover wet with the solvent) ... then run the speaker with a 6-12vac wall wart until the cone dries out.... then do it again... again a third time.
When fully dry... and you are not too high/drunk from the fumes... stick it in your cabinet and be willing to keep the treble pot down a little bit... use no brightening caps on the amp's volume pot.
If you want a great speaker buy a WeberVST P10RT... 10A100T.

[WMThompson]

Bruce,
This is the voice of inexperience talking, but, what is a wall wart and how
do you run it?
Thanks
WT

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Bruce,
This is the voice of inexperience talking, but, what is a wall wart and how
do you run it?
Thanks
WT

This is the voice of experience talking...
A wall wart is that goofy squarish blob thing you plug into your wall outlet to run some other electronic device like a cordless phone charger, radio, portable tape player, etc etc....
If you can find one that is rated at around 6vac to 12vac at about +500ma, you have yourself a cheap and dirty, high power signal generator at 50Hz to 60Hz.
I used to use an old 6vac@2a filament transformer with clip leads on it to do this to all my new speakers.... a wall wart should work OK for the most part if the current rating is high enough... it can get hot... so monitor it.

You just clip the 6vac-12vac leads onto the speaker leads and plug the wall wart into the wall outlet.
It will drive you out of the room eventually but, with a few cycles of the solvent brushed on it, it will break the speaker in MUCH much faster then playing for hours on end with a low powered amp.
Keep the solvent away from the dust cover and sparks or flame!
The solvent helps breaks down the fibers of the paper cone up at the large diameter of the basket.
You'll hear the treble start rolling off in a few minutes and the bass increase after 10-15 minutes.
It only takes about 20-25 minutes of this moderate abuse to loosen one up for a lower powered amp.
Every Jensen reissue C10Q I've used or installed in any customer's amp/cabinet gets this treatment.

***** added*****

A reissue C10Q with this break in sounds very similar to an old Celestion 10" ceramic found in those very groovy Marshall 4x10 Slant back cabinets of yesteryear.

[WMThompson]

Thanks Bruce,
You are truly a wealth of information!