You Vote: BOG EL34 vs. 6550

[jcs]

earliest celestions were alnico, you want ceramic celestion style for later hendrix..

i've talked with jim at scumback a bit in the past, he is very happy with his 65 and 100 watt versions.

for my purposes with over a dozen of amp, i need higher power handling speakers as there are many 1x12s in my stable so i am tempted to go with the 100 watt scumbacks just in case they find their way into a 1x12 or 2x12..

i've had mojotones in the past,most were eminence made..

btw, the weber sig 12b is a great cheaper speaker that is british voiced..

[Billy Batz]

Man Weber raised his prices a LOT. Theyre more than scumback now. I think they used to be 100-110 and now they're almost 200. *edit* I was looking at the alnico versions and not ceramic. Were the originals ceramic or alnico?

Your looking at the AlNiCo. AlNiCos have always been expensive. Celestion AlNiCos are the same. Around $200. Its the Cobalt. Its gotten extremely expensive and thats why AlNiCos are so expensive but thats been the case for quite a while. As was sais your interested in Ceramic.

I was listening to the sound clips on the scumback website and I tended to prefer the H75 to the H55. I dont know why, the H75 just sounded less glassy and bigger. Is 75hz less or more bass response than the 55hz?

Why is the 55hz the one everyone thinks is BOG?

Because its really deep. The 55hz has the bigger low end response. That doesnt mean it will sound muddier. Its tough to explain these things. Only experience can clearly show the difference. When you tweak an amp to have more low end it can sound muddy and farty but with speakers it mostly sounds deeper. I dont know why people assume he used bass cabs. Thats where youd find the 55hz. The bass cab thing is something you hear separate from the Super Bass rumor. I think H55s sound great but I wouldnt al together be surprised if he was using M's most of the time. They get fuzzy a lot faster tho.

[basile865]

yeah I want to avoid fuzzy at all costs. Really theres plenty of hendrix tones that I dig, but don't want personally. I mean I love just about all of his work, but the only tone I want personally was the BOG/ Who knows thing.

I notice, between weber, mojo tone, and scumback (all 30 watt g12H models) the mojo's have a 1.5" voice coil where the scumback and weber have a 1.75. Mojo also doesnt say 55 or 75 hz. How would the size of the voice coil effect tone?

Dan do you feel that the scumbacks were an obvious step above your webers?

[jcs]

there are many variables in a speaker;

voice coil size and material
cone style-thickness and material
spider material and stiffness
magnet strength.

then you have speakers like weber sig that are slightly looser tolerances (like eminence and jensen reissues).

most of the other webers all have very tight tolerances like real chicago jensens,thats why they are so sensitive plus if you use real kraft paper voice coils the response is lightning quick but wont handle power like other voice coils (kapton-fiberglass etc.)

i hear certain webers have a bit looser tolerances like celestion and cts copies than say old jensen and jbl copies..

[basile865]

Man it is so funny the things regarding tone.

I actually love my tone at lower volumes. Its just when I crank it up its not as controlled as I enjoy.

I just spent like 20 minutes laying down in front of my amp, feet towards the cab and just playing with dynamics and enjoying chords. If you have not done this before and get a chance, zone out and listen to nothing but silence for half hour or so then go play laying down in front of your amp. Jumped channels, treble volume is on 2, normal volume is on 4, presence is 4, bass is 4, mid is 7, and treble is 3. Plug directly in and experiment with tone knob and volume knob. It is beautiful. Just try to open up your ears to every little sound. Its like medicine with all those vibrations. Haha some of you are like........ok........... this guys a little weird haha. Im just saying you gotta try that if you havent. Thats what tubes sound like. All that natural compression going on and the pump and fullness of it all. Its like a hot cup of soup on a cold day. I Love it.

Thats what I'm trying to have remain focused as that volume creeps up. Once I get up there it turns into a buzzy mess. I think a B cab with some 55hz speakers might help, that and a nice drake OT.

By the way dan, I lowered my neck pickup to be dead flush with the pick guard and it does help. The search isnt over by a long shot but it does help with my setup.

[basile865]

Just talked to mojo and they said their g12h 30 watters are 75hz. So I guess that puts them out of the game. What about weber's 1230-55? I know you know first hand dan.

[razelfrax]

I just listened to the Who knows utube clip you posted and I think he stepped on a pedal and simultainiously turned his guitar volume down at .22 it definately got thicker and softer and a little gainier at that point.

[Billy Batz]

By the way dan, I lowered my neck pickup to be dead flush with the pick guard and it does help. The search isnt over by a long shot but it does help with my setup.

I still cant get over your crazy settings. Its muddy to you. Of coarse when your playing with the normal channel a lot louder then the bright and then you have the treble almost off. Give this a try and report back. Tone controls max'd (maybe the treble a bit lower.) Presence off. Plug into the normal channel FIRST, then jump its low input to the bright channels Hi input. Then leave the normal channel on 0 and the bright to taste. That may help you get the bright channel a bit more useable since it will kill off a lot of the high end and lower the input strength. But the bright channel will still have less low end flub and more mid emphasis so hopefully it will help. Having the bright cap would help a lot as well but if your playing in the 4 range theres no point.

[basile865]

lol. alright ill try it right now

[basile865]

Ok, so it took some getting used to. Not as big sounding but heres a couple reasons probably.

I'm used to playing alone lately so its not in the mix. we guitarists EQ diff on our own than in a band setting.

I was jamming along to some music while i had some big padded headphones on and thought hey this sounds kinda BOGish, then i slid off a side of them and there was way too much detail in the highs happening. I think the speakers are really the culprit. I have to EQ differently with my pickups and speakers ya know? But it is stuff to think about.

But honestly, my rig on those settings doesnt sound muddy at all. I think its the speakers high end definition that keeps it a LOT less muddy than on your rig.

I played a germino amp down here once and was amazed how fatter the high treble channel sounded in comparison to mine. and the normal channel alone was definitely muddy. My rigs sortve a different beast I guess.

[basile865]

Man, it just flat out doesn't make any sense whatsoever that Jimi could plug into the high treble input and get his sound. Even without a bright cap at all its too thin, and god imagine with low output single coils, itd be flat out disgusting. It makes no sense!

And this is me saying that with my channels jumped and the normal vol off

[razelfrax]

My experience (pardon the pun) when I recently started to play again has been that there were freqs that I couldnt tune out in my plexi circuit amp with a v30 in it. No amount of circuit tweeking and knob twiddleing could get me the punchy articulate but smooth tone I was after . So I started buying all the wrong speakers to replace the v30. Golds g12h30's, classic lead 80's ,but the biggest mistake I made was that with a tube amp you have to tune it at drummer volume cuz they sound weak till they start to cook. Also for my preference (Jimi and Jimmy) , modern voiced speakers are way to bright and uppermid focused and with my picking hand these speakers sound very harsh. I just bought 2 WGS ET65's (a copy of the cele 65) and sold the g12h30 annis and golds and the tone was soo much smoother and after much reading and talking to Jim at Scumback (I'm afraid I talked his email ear off) I've ordered some h55 65 watters for my other cab. Hope to get them soon. I found that the speakers are the biggest component to getting your TONE .

[basile865]

yeah, I think I'm coming to that conclusion myself. Sucks because its quite expensive! I have had such a hard time finding work after college that I took the only thing I could find - a part time job at a gym makin 8 bucks an hour! So 1200 bucks for a loaded cab would take months of work haha. This is why I do A LOT of research before buying something nowadays.

[Billy Batz]

I found that the speakers are the biggest component to getting your TONE .

I have to agree here. I mean Im starting to feel like a broken record. Almost any single thing you can change on a guitar is subtle. Different tubes, amp value mods, different pickups in the same style, etc.. If one thing has the potential to make a very large difference by itself its that. And if you plan on playing loud with a single cab Id have to back the 60W H55s totally.

[jcs]

tubes alone can make a HUGE difference,start by purchasing one or two of the holy grail tubes that hendrix was likely to be using in his preamp such as amperex bugle boy or mullard 12ax7.

there are other quality tubes but theres no reason to be wasting time with lesser quality components imo.

from here you modify your tone to suit your tastes,,,,next with the best power tubes imo..

after you have these in place you can start to fine tune the circuit with possibly a new ot and the final thing is without a doubt the speakers,DONT skimp here imo..

sell the speakers you have to help fund the new purchase,you wont regret it in the end.

if after all of this you change amps, you still can hold the tubes and speakers for the next amp