(Login HipoFutura) Member from IP address 74.75.100.182
The new amp arrived. I'm impressed! the build quality is excellent and the layout is clean. It's just a working chassis. I had them add a mode that bypasses the tone stack when the volume knob is pulled. This gives it the old tweed circuit. I hooked it up to a JBL D120F and it sounds fantastic. I only wish the amp had a master gain so I could overdrive it, but I have a pedal for that.
I'm having trouble finding speakers. I'm going with two JBL D110F. I have one that is blown and will re-cone, but haven't been able to find another. These suckers cost between $180 and $230 to re-cone. Very expensive, I don't get it. I have a pair of Kendrick Golds I can use in the interim.
I'm having a guy build a 2 x 10" combo cabinet that should ship today. Cabinet has tweed tolex and cane grill cloth. Should give it a bit of a vintage look. The cabinet is 21W x 23H X 10D (if i remember correctly). The link below shows the type of cabinet.
I'm not really familiar with that JBL. I only have one guitar amp with JBL speakers a AB763 Twin Reverb with D120's. I think they sound ok for some things and they seem to have a lot of top end which can be cool for a cut through the band stage situation. Robby's used that amp with a couple of pedals on a few gigs with good results. In my opinion I would opt for an inexpensive and lightweight speaker for a little amp.
Dave, The D110F was available in the Superreverb as an option. It is a lightweight high efficiency speaker. They didn't handle high volume well and JBL replaced them with the E110 which could. The Fender Vibro Champ had a single 8" speaker. I figured I can get more volume with the 2 x 10" JBL config. I like the tube distortion sound, but never cared for speaker distortion. With a 6 watt amp this won't be a problem!
Don, I have always been partial to Jensens for small amps.
February 12 2009, 6:54 AM
A pair of P10R or C10R would be great, as would P/C10Q or S. Old is good. Because you will be running two, I would want a lighter cone to enhance speed.
What is the secondary impedance of your output transformer?
Re: Don, I have always been partial to Jensens for small amps.
February 12 2009, 7:27 AM
Tom, never mind. I just did a bit of web research. The "P" is alnico and the "C" is ceramic. The P10R gets horrible reviews on harmony central. Bad quality and bad sound. Don't know what to make of that.
I had an opportunity to do some back to back testing with the new Jensen reissue speakers the ones that come in the new Super Reverb amps and the older Emminence version that used to come in the Bassman RI amps. I had the Super amp in to repair and when I was done I did some testing between it and my Bassman just patching one into the other's speakers. I found that I liked the speakers in the Bassman a LOT better than the newer Jensens which seemed to have a very brittle high end. Could this be just because my Bassman has some playing time on the speakers and certainly more than this nearly new Super Reverb? I don't know.....
Right now I have another Super Reverb that I repairing. This one is an older amp from the early '70's. It has a speaker that has the square metal magnet that looks similar to the ones on the alnico 10's in my Bassman RI yet these are sealed instead of open in that area. The stamped frames of the speakers look different too but I did test them while working on the amp and they seem to sound pretty darn good. Any idea on those?
It could not be that all of the ones I owned were "the good one", but then again the ones I owned were real Jensens, not reissues.
I used to find them in old PA speakers like the ones you find in schools, offices and factories. I usee to get C12Qs from a certain Rickenbacker combo model that I kept finding in SoCal. Those I like in my BFDR. So when it comes to Jensens I prefer finding old good ones versus the reissues. Not easy, I know, but worth the effort. Gotta visit thrift stores, swap meets and ham fests. Meanwhile, you still need something you can live with.
I've never had a whole big stash of those Jensens. I think my '64 Princeton has an Oxford speaker but I do have one that I took out of my old jukebox. It's set up with 2 12's and there was only one speaker in the cabinet so I put in two new, Jensens! What's funny is that they really sound pretty good in that thing but that's a different deal all together than a guitar amp.
Correct me please but are all old Jensens blue framed or do some of them have a silver frame?
Pittmann as in Aspen? Quite a character or so I've heard.
I'd say that in a guitar amp situation that it'll make no real difference either way but I would experiment to see if you can tell any difference. I've read that in hifi applications using tubes that generally speaking if the transformer is selected to have about the right primary impedance that the highest secondary tap will provide the best frequency response at the extremes of the band. I don't know if this is true or not because at my house I have two home built hifi amps and the loads just happened to work out that way, 16 ohms on the amp with a 16 ohm tap, 8 on the one with a 4 and 8 ohm tap, who knows.
