Alamo Capri speaker question

[Rhodesplyr]

I've just gotten an Alamo Capri ~1966 in for basic repairs and safety mods (this one is the version with no power transformer).

What puzzles me a bit is the 10" Alnico speaker in it. It says "Application Engineered for Alamo Electronics" on a sticker on the back, which would suggest it's original. It's an odd speaker in that has plastic windows on either side of the pole piece through which you can actually see the voice coil, and you can see a LOT of the voice coil. It's a fairly overhung coil, but that's part of what puzzles me. It seems to me that if you have a 2.5W amp, you'd want to have as much of the VC in the gap as possible, not a large percentage of it sitting above and below the gap. So, I started wondering if this speaker had been indifferently reconed, maybe years ago, since some reconers will just stick in something that "works." I've never seen an Alamo amp or the speaker used in it, so I thought I'd post it here to see if anyone could verify whether the speaker looked original or whether it looked reconed. Sorry for the blurriness of the VC photo; it was hard to get my camera to focus on it.

[The Dude]

I've just gotten an Alamo Capri ~1966 in for basic repairs and safety mods (this one is the version with no power transformer).

What puzzles me a bit is the 10" Alnico speaker in it. It says "Application Engineered for Alamo Electronics" on a sticker on the back, which would suggest it's original. It's an odd speaker in that has plastic windows on either side of the pole piece through which you can actually see the voice coil, and you can see a LOT of the voice coil. It's a fairly overhung coil, but that's part of what puzzles me. It seems to me that if you have a 2.5W amp, you'd want to have as much of the VC in the gap as possible, not a large percentage of it sitting above and below the gap. So, I started wondering if this speaker had been indifferently reconed, maybe years ago, since some reconers will just stick in something that "works." I've never seen an Alamo amp or the speaker used in it, so I thought I'd post it here to see if anyone could verify whether the speaker looked original or whether it looked reconed. Sorry for the blurriness of the VC photo; it was hard to get my camera to focus on it.

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The way this speaker is built, by my eyes, the point of maximum magnetism is going to be about mid coil in your pictures- assuming there is near as much coil sticking up on the other side of the gap and since the outer magnet structure doesn't surround the entire pole piece. Of course there are some assumptions here since we can't see what's under the dust cap. But, from what I can see, that would be the best place to locate the coil. Remember the cone moves both in and out.

[Rhodesplyr]

Remember the cone moves both in and out.

Uh . . . yes, I should have said that I recone speakers myself, so I am acquainted with the fact that the cone moves in and out :-)

I also know from my reconing experience that many guitar speakers are only slightly overhung or "evenhung," with the VC the same height as the gap. You tend to find overhung VCs in bass speakers to allow for excursion. With an overhung VC like this, you get a very linear speaker, but you lose a lot of sensitivity because only a small percentage of the coil is in the gap at any given point. The portion of the coil outside the gap is not providing motive force.

[The Dude]

For clarification, I wasn't trying to be a smart a$$.

That said, it's hard to tell from your pics how far the pole piece sticks up into the basket and how much coil rests above it. And, it's certainly not worth tearing apart the speaker to see. I too have been reconing speakers for 20+ years, and from what I can tell from your pics, the coil placement doesn't look anything out of the ordinary (again, without being able to see it "topside").

Edit: Forgot,......what you have to remember in this case also and what makes it a bit "out of the norm" is that the entire pole piece is not surrounded by a magnet structure like most of today's speakers. This puts the (for lack of a better way to describe it) "point of maximum magnetism" closer to the frame rather than down inside of a magnet. Hard to describe, but I hope you get my drift.

[Rhodesplyr]

I understand your point. Mine was simply that this looks like a much taller VC than I'd expect to see in a speaker for this application--a very low-powered amp in an open-backed cabinet. I'm not talking about having an issue with the vertical alignment of the coil in the gap, which appears to be symmetrical in relation to the gap--as much above it as below.