4 ohm 12" 50-100 watt Guitar speakers

[Mars Amp Repair]

hello folks,
Does anyone know who might supply 4ohm 12" or 15" replacement guitar speakers that are kind of on the cheap?
I've been running into keyboard amps (Centaur for one) and other kind of no-name brand amps with these 4ohm speakers in them with no source for a reasonably pirced (cheaper) speaker like these have.

Any ideas? Thanx, glen

[Enzo]

Two places you ought to have the catalogs from anyway:

Certainly Parts Express. Parts-Express.com sells Speakers, Replacement Speakers, Speaker Building Parts plus HDMI Cables, Home Audio and Video, Pro Audio and Commercial Sound. We offer services for Speaker Reconing, Speaker Refoaming, Speaker Repair. Great selection of Elect PE has a large selection of speakers. Granted many of them are for hifi, but they carry a bunch of MI speakers too. Check out the Dayton house brand. PE also has tons of other speaker related stuff, like cabinet corners and handles, crossovers and crossover parts, jack plates, grilles, etc Get the paper catalog and leaf through it.

And wholesale only is Martin Sound martinsoundpro.com You will have no trouble getting an account. Call them and get a catalog. They carry a lot of Eminence, like the alpha through kappa series plus the guitar stuff. and some other brands you might not think of like Selenium. And those little piezo tweeters we find in "Acoustic" amps, LeSon or something like that? They have those. And a lot of diaphragms.

And don't overlook the tube sellers. Places like CEDist, New Sensor, Magic PArts sell speakers, and you may find what you want at a reasonable price at one of those. Or not...

When I want a real honest to god speaker, I usually look at Martin first. Like when I want something a little heavier for those Mackie SWA1501s.

[jrfrond]

Like Enzo, I use Parts-Express for a lot of replacement speakers. Also MCM. Other great places are CE Distribution, as they carry the whole Jensen line, as well as New Sensor, whose selection is a bit limited, but still useful. Again, agreeing with Enzo on this.

4ohm 12's and 15's are a real pain to track down. Another avenue worth exploring is your manufacturers parts accounts, like Fender and particularly Peavey. Their Black Widow drivers come in different types and impedance ranges, and have proven to be great-sounding and bulletproof under normal and even heavy usage. As a result, we wind up using a lot of Peavey drivers as replacements, as well as the Made-by-Eminence Dayton line for those Mackie subs.

For us, Behringer has been a great source of cheap speakers, but that has changed radically since their business remodeling.

Though you are looking for cheap speakers, many of these amps will sound MUCH better with speaker upgrades, and for a few dollars (or few tens of dollars) more, it is worth trying to convince the customer that they will realize better sound and reliability with something more upscale.

[Jazz P Bass]

I don't know about discounts, but these guys have a nice assortment.
Link:SavingLots.com

[Enzo]

John is right, I forgot completely about the OEMs. Peavey, Fender, etc have some great speakers at reasonable prices, at least as long as you are on their wholesale accounts.

I often think of Fender or Peavey as a quick source of transformers, but speakers also can be had there.

[jrfrond]

John is right, I forgot completely about the OEMs. Peavey, Fender, etc have some great speakers at reasonable prices, at least as long as you are on their wholesale accounts.

I often think of Fender or Peavey as a quick source of transformers, but speakers also can be had there.

I actually know a service shop owner who purchases a TON of parts from Peavey due to their prices, even semiconductors. The manufacturers don't mind at all. Although I remember years ago telling the Mackie service manager that we were repairing Behringer mixers using their parts, and he gave me a dirty look, rolled his eyes, and was a bit miffed. I got even with him by sitting him next to the Behringer service manager at our annual NAMM service dinner. THAT was pretty funny, especially when I announced it and toasted the occasion!

[km6xz]

Yo John....voice from the past. How are you. This is Stan from Studio Maintenance Center. I gave the business(San Rafael and Las Vegas shops) to the employees and moved to St Petersburg Russia 7 years ago. Still loving it. I just got tired of fixing friends pa systems and rigs here so decided that this place needs a real pro audio repair shop. This city, the real cultural capitol of the world, has 7m people, and more conservatory trained musicians than anywhere, yet only one shop. The reason there are no shops is that the 2 main importers of all the pro audio and musician gear refuse to sell parts to anyone, even their own store accounts. After a long meeting with the top brass of one of the 2 Tuesday I was given rights to get parts in exchange for consulting with them on how to re-organize their service. So even before having a location, I have 1/2 the parts requirement taken care of. I've talked to dozens of stores and found little interest in repairs because the general feeling is that items that are not under warranty just need to be replaced when they fail. That might be because this gear have only been readily available for a few years and there is little or no legacy gear or vintage anything except old Lomo condenser mics. A few collectors of old amps somehow have amassed large collections but only by spending a fortune on searching in other countries and bringing them back. Shipping for an old Marshall and duties can total $800.
The ironic thing is that in the land of about 1/2 of the world's vacuum tube production they are not available here. Sveltana, the real one, not New Sensor, is not allowed to sell here because PM in England has exclusive marketing rights yet will not name a Russian distributor.
I've brought over as much test gear as my suit case will hold each trip back to San Francisco so have a pretty complete lab in my apartment, all HP/Agilent, Tektronix, Sound Technology etc. My real business is incoming tourism. started with 4 employees 6 years ago in a field I knew nothing about and have 150 employees in 8 Baltic countries now, but most sales are for people coming here to St Petersburg. Boy I am happy to be out of the mess the US has become, it is a blast every day here.
How is DBM going?

[J M Fahey]

I got even with him by sitting him next to the Behringer service manager at our annual NAMM service dinner. THAT was pretty funny, especially when I announced it and toasted the occasion!

John, you meet and exceed the United Nations definition of "crimes against Humanity" he he.

KM6 , I *envy* you ..... St Petersburg !!! ......... WOW!!!

[km6xz]

J.M. I am sure you get more than your share of envy....Buenos Aires is one of the cities on a very short list I was considering when moving out of the US.
I have not regretted getting out one second, it is a perfect match to my personality and interests.....except there is still no quality Mexican restaurant here.
And yes, the reputation of St Petersburg women being beautiful is not an exaggeration. Not all of them, only 50% of those user 35 are very attractive, a figure that would be 1-2% in the US using the same criteria. It is rare to see one not fit, stylish, poised, and perfectly groomed even in the grocery store...and the real shocker...sane and well balanced! I have yet to meet one over 20yo that does not have a college or university degree.
Weather wise, you might have the better of it, after the hottest summer on record, following the highest snowfall in the last 50 years of winters, we suddenly have had 15 days of snow with a single day where it stopped. Not too cold year, -24C has been the coldest, at 5-6 a.m. when I am walking home from the clubs.
When I go back to the US to visit family, within 3 days I am crawling the walls from boredom. People don't do much apparently in the US anymore, certainly not social or cultural activities, and if there are people out they are home by midnight.
The only three things i miss is the wilderness of the mountains and the north coast of California, neither one has hardly any people to ruin it. The third is the very easy access to parts for design projects and dirt cheap used lab gear. Every trip I max out my luggage allotment but carry no clothes, just more test equipment. Last time was a 45lb communications service monitor for RF analysis and service of wireless. This next trip will be another HP/Agilent spectrum analyzer. Getting parts is the main issue in starting a second business here as pro audio repair. Rent is also very high. Labor is reasonable, as are medical and legal services. It will be easy to find graduate engineers but they have no experience as techs or familiar with pro audio so I will have to train completely if I am going to get enough free time to keep up my social and cultural life here which comes first. One girl I have been talking with as a trainee has a masters in electrical engineering, speaks 4 languages, is 24 and a stunner. I found her in a disco....1.75m tall, 55kg, but her day job is working in a fitness center as an aerobics instructor. She wants to learn this stuff.
Have fun in Buenos Aires!

[jrfrond]

Stan, I just saw you on another thread, and KNEW it was you!!! I remember when we left Dusseldorf after the Behringer trip and you were dropped off at the train to Russia when I went to the airport. After our lengthy talk about the beauties and atmosphere of St. Petersburg in that nice restaurant in Germany (I believe we closed out the place that night), I am POSITIVE you made the right move. Hey, how many times did YOU make it to those NAMM dinners as well. In fact, you were probably at the one I described (I think!), when I sat Jason from Mackie and Jim from Behringer next to each other. LOL!!!

dBm is doing fine. We're still here, and Behringer repairs have, for the most part, disappeared into the sunset. Hope all is well with you. Drop me a line, please.

I quote: "One girl I have been talking with as a trainee has a masters in electrical engineering, speaks 4 languages, is 24 and a stunner. I found her in a disco....1.75m tall, 55kg, but her day job is working in a fitness center as an aerobics instructor. She wants to learn this stuff."

My heart REALLY bleeds for you Stan!

[km6xz]

Hi John
Yeah, life is tough with so many really smart, sane slim, fit, stylish "friends" around. I sent a link to some snap shots of the city and my friends. I've gotten into photography a bit, and shoot in events and clubs and have a web site I put up that lets people download their photos, too many to email 400-1000 a weekend.
Since every club knows me and most musicians and listeners have at least a few of my records, I have not had to deal with face control or covers for years. That should give a good kick start to a service business.
What is surprising to me after being away so long from pro or musician audio, and stumbling upon this forum, is how I recognized almost all the brands, models, and problems as if time has stood still in gear. Has it?
Last week I was invited to a private party-fundraiser for Saturday night that I was thinking of passing on since it was a Hollywood type party which bore me to tears, and I have opera tickets that night. The saving grace is that its limited to 200 people. The organizer just called and asked if I would be the official photographer. I don't shoot for anything but fun so don't want the pressure of having to get it since they will be published. The party was limited, a plus and the attendee and the children's charity is sponsored by some interesting people who will be there(Angelina Jolie, Mickey O'Rourke, Al Pacino and others including my favorite ballerina). The organizer liked the photos I did of his GF before I found out she was anyone's GF. She looks a lot like Mrs. Pitt but younger and not so gaunt. I have a couple hours to decide. Related to photography, I designed and built my own 600 w/s studio strobes out of some old Xenon flash tubes I had in storage in the US. They were spares for my plane from 15 years ago. I now use speedlights mostly so loaned the strobes to 3 girls I met in an English pub who were starting a photo studio. After a couple years of hard use they still work fine.
Talk to you later....back to giving advice on busted gear everyone....

[J M Fahey]

Hi k6.
I'd love to have a link to some fresh St Petersburg pictures too.
Thanks.

[km6xz]

Hi J.M. OK, these are shots around town and a separate album of personal friends who gave permission for putting them in a photography community web gallery.
Nikonians Photo Galleries - km6xz Gallery
Life really exists away from a workbench although many people don't have enough time to discover that.
Talk to you later...
Stan