I play with my Rocket almost cranked so it is putting out alot of crunch and I have found that Blues when pushed that hard seem to get congested sounding and have not much bottom end.
Chuck
M Fowler wrote:I use a 212 openback with Vin30/G12H most of the time. Sometimes 412 with English Vin 30 run in stereo mode two amp split.
I have a Dr Z 212 openback with alnico blues 15w but reserve that cab for my Stangray. The Rocket sounds great through this cab as well. Alnico have such a chime.
I've gigged with those blues for over 3 years with that Stangray pounding out everything from blues to rock and no problems and sure never had any congested sound.
For those that don't know the Stangray is like the Rocket but uses an EF86 in V1 position it stays very clean right up on the dial. I use my Rocket for dirty tones and Stangray for clean. But lately I have been dragging a new build to each gig to try out. Lots of fun that way.
I can't run my Express through that cab but any of the 36w and less amps are no problems.
I would like to get another cab with Golds and then switch both cabs to one blue and one gold.
procos wrote:I play with my Rocket almost cranked so it is putting out alot of crunch and I have found that Blues when pushed that hard seem to get congested sounding and have not much bottom end.
Chuck
M Fowler wrote:I use a 212 openback with Vin30/G12H most of the time. Sometimes 412 with English Vin 30 run in stereo mode two amp split.
I have a Dr Z 212 openback with alnico blues 15w but reserve that cab for my Stangray. The Rocket sounds great through this cab as well. Alnico have such a chime.
Mark
Chuck,
I've had a similar experience with the Celestion Alnico Blue and Gold for that matter. I think it's the compression you get with Alnico speakers because when pushed hard the alnico magnet doesn't have sufficient energy when the speaker is pushed near max capacity. Ted Weber described this in a FAQ on his site. I can't remember the technical reasons now, but I do remember it is because of the weaker alnico magnet. Some people love it, some hate it.
Maybe that's why I like the mix of the Alnico gold and the ceramic g12h30. Like I said in an earlier post, it's a really good combination with the Rocket, especially overdriven (seems like it would be a good fit for your application).
I'm thinking of going with one Celestion Heritage G12H and one ASW Alnico. Just wish the ASW didn't cost $349. Might try a Gold instead of the ASW.
Chuck
CapnCrunch wrote:
procos wrote:I play with my Rocket almost cranked so it is putting out alot of crunch and I have found that Blues when pushed that hard seem to get congested sounding and have not much bottom end.
Chuck
M Fowler wrote:I use a 212 openback with Vin30/G12H most of the time. Sometimes 412 with English Vin 30 run in stereo mode two amp split.
I have a Dr Z 212 openback with alnico blues 15w but reserve that cab for my Stangray. The Rocket sounds great through this cab as well. Alnico have such a chime.
Mark
Chuck,
I've had a similar experience with the Celestion Alnico Blue and Gold for that matter. I think it's the compression you get with Alnico speakers because when pushed hard the alnico magnet doesn't have sufficient energy when the speaker is pushed near max capacity. Ted Weber described this in a FAQ on his site. I can't remember the technical reasons now, but I do remember it is because of the weaker alnico magnet. Some people love it, some hate it.
Maybe that's why I like the mix of the Alnico gold and the ceramic g12h30. Like I said in an earlier post, it's a really good combination with the Rocket, especially overdriven (seems like it would be a good fit for your application).
I used to run the Brad Paisely combo, too, both speakers were the 50 watt versions - important. (If you go with the lower wattage versions, they will get brighter.) Anyway, I love/loved that combo but then I changed things up. I now run the Silver Bell with a Celestion EVH.
If you never met a Weber you liked, I understand - you like Celestions. On the other hand, I am someone who likes the old Celestions and hasn't really found a home with their new product. Until now. There is a 'crunch' to this EVH speaker that is simply not in the Weber product. By adding it to my 2/12 box I have found something I have been missing. And yeah, it was kinda odd for me to realize this but its true. There's this kind of 'rock edge' to the guitar tone now that just wasn't there.
Eh, so maybe you should venture into the Weber Alnico camp for a Silver Bell or a Blue Bell 50 watter, and then top it off with the new EVH from Celestion. Its a great combo for either my Rocket or Express clone, IMO. The EVH is a little more efficient than I would like, coming in at 96db, but, hey, what a frikn sound!
Most people stall out when fixing a mistake that they've made. Why?
Here's the explanation Ted gave to a question about the differences between alnico and ceramic magnet speakers:
"The whole 'AlNiCo mojo' is about smooth compression at high average levels, such as what you would have running the amp flat out. AlNiCo (Aluminum-Nickel-Cobalt) is an alloy magnet and all alloy magnets are easier to demagnetize than comparable Ceramic (Strontium Ferrite) magnets. What this means is that as the voice coil starts moving in response to the input signal, it generates a magnetic field of its own that tries to demagnetize the magnet. As its effect lowers the available magnetic field of the AlNiCo magnet, the speaker becomes less efficient, the voice coil moves less, etc. The physics of it is that the small magnets near the surface of the magnet poles (called 'domains') begin to change state, or flip directions. The result is smooth compression, the same kind of operating curve compression that occurs in a tube amplifier. The ceramic magnet, on the other hand, doesn't compress or demagnetize as easily, so the voice coil moves to its mechanical limit and won't go any farther. This is why some players say ceramics sound a little edgey at high average levels as opposed to AlNiCo. However, by properly designing the entire magnetic circuit, Ceramics can be made to behave quite well for desireable guitar amp tone and dynamics. You might compare the two magnetic circuits to solid state amps versus tube amps, where the solid state amp gives it all its got then clips hard, while a tube amp compresses nice and smooth. The extension of this idea, then, is that with the AlNiCo, like the tube amp, you can seem to have a louder average volume since it gets compressed smoothly. By the way, the compressing or demagnetization that occurs with the AlNiCo is not permanent. It springs right back to its design operating point."
Because of the dynamic of the rocket and complexity or dimension of tone it produces. Whatever speaker you go with needs to be broken in completely as to prevent overly bright or harsh sounding reproduction of your playing. I'm guessing that your experiences with scumback and webers let something to be desired because they were still a very new speaker and probably not broken in. If you consider it takes a solid 70hrs to start to break in a speaker and sometimes as many as a 100hrs it's pretty amazing to think just how long that takes in the real world to accomplish. It's no wonder the oldies are goodies.
selloutrr is correct here, but then the Scums are supposed to be pre-broken in so they should sound sound pretty good out of the box. I use a variac over here and its true, there is no way you can replicate the burn-in that it can do by just playing your guitar - so maybe invest in one of these? Its annoying as hell to listen to, but it does move things along.
P.S. See my post: 'Using a Variac: a quiet fix', so nix on the annoying part. I solved my issues with using a Variac.
Most people stall out when fixing a mistake that they've made. Why?
Might try a Gold instead of the ASW.
