I am well aware that the subject of speakers is alll relative and personal taste.

[catnine]

I built a AA764 champ home brew and right now have Weber sig 10 s ceramic , wanted an alnico but they were at the time out of stock. I also am aware there is only so much a AA764 champ can do . I have played the 73 SF I had through two twelves and it certainly made a difference ywet in it's own cab with a weber sig 8s alnico it sounded much better than this build sounds through the ten inch weber. For an 8 inch speaker it had a sort of lose bottom end and the highs were not standing out. Weber describes the sig 8s and sig 10s ceramic or alnico as bright . I have a weber sig 12s alnico in a 6V6 push/pull build whcih has a princeton 6G2 front end and a adj/ fixed bias 5E3 power section yet I would not consider the weber sig 12s alnico bright, not in that amp.

Other than the weber sig 10 s ceramic I have a Jensen C10R . the only difference seems to be the size of the magnet , weber is 20 OZ and a C10R is 10 OZ and I looked at the Jensen and on the cone surround I can't tell but it is either bonded to the cone with a shiny glue or dope , I have not looked at the weber sig 10 s ceramic but do recall the same sort of thing. All I know is in AA764 SF champ I had a weber sig 10s alnico with the chassis in a fender music master bass anp cab and it did not sound bright yet when I did this build I do recall the Jensen C10R sounding less bright than the weber sig 10 s ceramic , weber decribes this model as a bright , woody reedy tone and Jensen describes the C10R as bell like chime. sounding loser with a bit more bottom end and not the bright highs I have now.

I listened to Jensens sound clips yet they all sound the same to me. Weber does not offer specs but they do show the cone and mag side , Jensen offers specs but show only the mag side and not the cone and they don't mention whether the cone is ribbed or smooth.

Has anyone here compared the weber sig 10 s ceramic with a C10R Jensen ?

I have tried a few diffent tweaks to the tone stack and added a small cap across the 100k plate load resister but all they do is cause the amp to change in it's nature. The build is all right off the fender AA764 no trem schematic .

Any suggestions?

[R.G.]

Add a little salt, lemon juice, and a touch of paprika.

8-)

[Chuck H]

How old are the two speakers your comparing? I ask because of the break in period, of course. The difference really can be profound. I don't know how long it takes to break in a speaker with a Champ?!? Longer than anyone wants to wait I'm sure. There are methods for breaking in speakers quickly. A google search should reveal some answers.

Other than that I would just add that I've read all Weber speakers start brighter than there copied models but are said to break in fabulous. I've never owned a Weber speaker but I do have experience with breaking in speakers. I've even heard it where at first a speaker is too bright and at the end of a year it's too dark!!! This kind of difference makes speaker selection really hard.

I'd say try an artificial break in and see if that doesn't change everything.

[catnine]

How old are the two speakers your comparing? I ask because of the break in period, of course. The difference really can be profound. I don't know how long it takes to break in a speaker with a Champ?!? Longer than anyone wants to wait I'm sure. There are methods for breaking in speakers quickly. A google search should reveal some answers.

Other than that I would just add that I've read all Weber speakers start brighter than there copied models but are said to break in fabulous. I've never owned a Weber speaker but I do have experience with breaking in speakers. I've even heard it where at first a speaker is too bright and at the end of a year it's too dark!!! This kind of difference makes speaker selection really hard.

I'd say try an artificial break in and see if that doesn't change everything.

The jensen I got used so I don't know how long it was used . The weber has a good 100 hours on it and seems to be as bright as it was when i got it. Now other weber speakes I've had sounded great right out of the box and continue to sound great .

Here's the thing. When I went out and bought a fender amp I went for a certain amp and it sounded fine new and I really did not over time hear a change , OH it may have been there yet you did not notice it and at that time in the early 60's most players only changed a speaker if it blew out.

Back then there were not all these hundreds of choices either as there are today.

I never owned a new fender champ yet the three that I had one a 76 SF sounded fine to me with the original speaker but that was in 1990 and a 1980 SF champ also sounded fine that was in 1981 . Now the 73 SF the speaker flabbed out smae speaker as all three but older I got that in 2004.

I am thinking if the speaker new does not cut it then the break in won't cut it either. What I should have done was gotten a weber sig 8s alnico for this build and feel now it would have done the job I needded . the sig 10s ceramic is ok but by far with a champ it is not even close to the sig 8s alnico .

All I can do at this point is put the Jensen C10R back in and see how it sounds and if it sounds better than this sig 10s then it's staying in there . A 6 watt champ to me will never break in a 25 watt bright sounding speaker. Perhaps if I played it full on for months on end but I don't play this amp that loud . Now ceramic speakers in 12 inch worked great in other amps I've had but we are talking 40 watts or more . The weber sig 8s ceramic sounded stiff to me too. and with sig 8s alnico well at low levels new it sounded sweet and open and had all of everything I could ask even bottom end was present .

[Chuck H]

Are you saying you've owned both the alnico and ceramic version of the same speaker? And that they sounded profoundly different?

[catnine]

Are you saying you've owned both the alnico and ceramic version of the same speaker? And that they sounded profoundly different?

Yes , absolutely different . I even got a weber vintage 8 witha 30 OZ ceramic magnet thinking it would sound better because of the much higher price yet it was not really much different at all than the much cheaper sig 8s ceramic and I had them both in a two ten pine cab I made so I could flip a switch and try one or the other and neither were as warm and toneful as the weber sig 8 s alnico , not even close . Oh the higher priced weber 8 inch with the huge 30 OZ ceramic mag didn't break up as soon as the ceramic sig 8 s but at close to three times the price it was not even close to three times the speaker it was still the same bright sterile sound .. When I got the weber sig 10s alnico they offered it in 4 or 8 ohm so I got the 4 ohm for the champ I have no idea what they sound like now this was back in 2004 or 2005 yet I must say the sig 10s alnico did not have much over the sig 8s alnico , you would think so because of the size and look of the cones comapred the 10 s alnico had a bit mor ebottom end and could handle the bottom at higher levels but not that much higher. Both had the same size alnico mag and voice coil it was the 8 inch cone compared to the 10 inch cone but still they were real close over all. Just to add I had three weber sig 8s alnico speakers and all sounded just as great , there was no difference so they have the process down , I could kick myself for selling the last one but I sold the 73 champ and put the original fender speaker back in because the buyer wanted that one I never thought I would miss the champ so much so before I built this home brew I sold the last sig 8 s alnico. Now for me to spend $40 for a speaker and plus what for shipping is really out of the question in these times so i have to live with what I have .

[Chuck H]

Well, the Weber speakes are popular. You could sell what you don't like to get what you do. It would mean making a new baffle though. Easy for me to say... I still have six or seven speakers I've been meaning to unload

[J M Fahey]

Are you saying you've owned both the alnico and ceramic version of the same speaker? And that they sounded profoundly different?

Not surprising at all.
The Ceramic one may easily have up to twice the magnetic energy as the Alnico one. (it would translate into 20 to 40% higher gap flux density).
Higher flux density, with everything else exactly the same, means higher acceleration (heard as "brighter"/"snappier"), higher damping (heard as "tighter"/"less bass" because of the lowering of the resonance peak), all characteristics usually attributed to ceramics, in fact depending on flux density.
The voice coil does not know or care about magnet material, only actual flux density at the gap.
Alnicos have (relatively speaking) the opposite qualities.
A friend of mine, who makes very high quality and accurate Hi Fi speakers, charges his magnets to full power, and then de-magnetizes them a little as needed as to make all speakers have the exact same characteristics. Incredible, huh?.

[catnine]

Today I removed the Weber sig 10s ceramic and installed the Jensen C10R . I can't say if this means anything but the webers magnet being 20 OZ compared to the Jensen being 10 OZ but the Weber did pull the screw driver to the mag much easier than the jensen and the Jensen has a what looks like a one piece cone and surround yet it looks like Jensen applied light dope to the surround , the weber does not have this shiny coating on the surround. The dust caps are the same shape yet the weber seemed more fiberous if that's the correct term , weber does not state what the dust cap is made of , Jensen says solid paper. Yet the cones looked like they were made of a bit different material too who knows?

I tried out the AA764 with the Jensen C10R today and the amp does sound better. not so tight in the bottom so it brings out the bottom better and the highs are not so bright, I now don't have to back off on the amps treb pot to cut the highs , also I have a pot to add resistance to the NFB loop and this is tied to a DPDT slide switch so I can dial in what I want or flip the switch while playing to the stock value NFB . Before I did not like the less NFB now it sounds good and is usefull. Even the tone controls react better ( do more with less movement).

Perhaps the weber sig 10 s ceramic was just to stiff of a speaker for this amp .

[jrfrond]

To echo what Chuck said, speakers DO sound different after break-in, which is basically a loosening-up of the compliances (surround, spider) suspending the cone and voice coil. If the surround is doped, which stiffens it, this is even more crucial.

I break-in speakers on the bench using a Crown DC300A and a sine-wave generator at 10Hz, running open air for about an hour, adjusting the power for a decent amount of excursion and keeping an eye on magnet temps just in case any overheating starts to take place. What you DON'T want is to overheat the voice coil too much.