Speaker size

[koula901]

Okay, this may sound like a pretty lame question, but do you all find you get warmer tones and better bass response with your 15" speakers? I've been a 12" speaker girl myself, but I think that in the future, I'm going to switch it up to 15" speakers. When I check out Fralin pickups, he uses a custom amp with a 15 inch speaker and the sound of what I think would normally be thin-sounding pickups sound fat and round.

[PunkKitty]

I'm partial to 15" speakers. They produce really nice bottom end that gives a nice round sound. For a while I played my guitars through a bass amp for that reason.

[SouthpawGuy]

15" speakers are cool but heavvvvvvy.

[mars_hall]

A lot will depend on whether the cabinet is closed or not, its structure, and the frequency response of the speaker, so you can't necessarily make a blanket statement that size answers all.

 

Look at bass cabinets with 10" speakers to understand what all is being said.

[bolero]

I had a 15" speaker and it was a piece of crap IMO.....it was a Weber Chicago....I couldn't sell that thing fast enough...although I gave it a year to break in

[Billgelder]

Jazz guys do it all the time. The Fender Vibroverb with 15" (reissued in a hand wired version some years back) is considered a holy grail by some. The Ampeg Gemini II was another very nice 15" equipped guitar amp. It might not be par for the course for most guitar players (excluding pedal steel), but certainly isn't considered unorthodox by any means.

Bass speakers are usually voiced differently than guitar speakers, the latter of which are more rolled below 80Hz (nothing below that on a standard scale, standard tuned guitar) and typically have a presence spike in the 2khz to 4khz range that's usually not present on a bass speaker. Bass speakers also tend to have larger voice coils and magnets and handle much higher power than guitar speakers so they can be hard to push for a rockin' guitar sound and they can, in comparison to guitar speakers, sound muted and "dull," not cutting if you're looking for a traditional guitar sound.

[slider313]

I think the "fat and round sound" you are hearing is a combination of the circuit in the VVT Lindy Fralin amp and how it works with the 15" speaker. Those amps are cathode bias, for about 30 watts from a pair of 6L6GC's. That will make the amp compress more as it's turned up, giving it a fatter tone. Adding a 15" speaker to the mix will give it that "rounder" tone you hear from it's a larger cone surface. It's a winning combination as anyone who's played a well tuned up Fender tweed Pro will tell you.

[koula901]

I think the "fat and round sound" you are hearing is a combination of the circuit in the VVT Lindy Fralin amp and how it works with the 15" speaker. Those amps are cathode bias, for about 30 watts from a pair of 6L6GC's. That will make the amp compress more as it's turned up, giving it a fatter tone. Adding a 15" speaker to the mix will give it that "rounder" tone you hear from it's a larger cone surface. It's a winning combination as anyone who's played a well tuned up Fender tweed Pro will tell you.

 

Thanks for the explanation, slider313. That's exactly the amp I'm thinking of.

 

Witness the very first guitar Lindy demonstrates in this vid, with the amp Slider refers to:

 

[pressure]

I played a Kustom 200 with 6 15" Altec Lansing speakers. Sounded good and loud to me.

[barrymclark]

mars_hall is dead on.

[koula901]

I played a Kustom 200 with 6 15" Altec Lansing speakers. Sounded good and loud to me.

 

I'll bet it was!

[mars_hall]

Back in the day, I used to play through a pair of Sunn 100s heads and 4 - 15" JBLs in two cabinets. It had a lot of good clear tones and warmth, but the heads were hard to get to saturate at reasonable levels and didn't match where I was trying to go. This was in the pre-master era. Sold it all and got a Marshall Major (200 W w/ master) from Massimino's in Detroit along with a pair of 4x12s cabinets. Ritchie Blackmore was my hero during those days and didn't yet have the funny hat.

[slider313]

Another thing I noticed; Lindy is plucking with his thumb, not using a pick. That softens the attack and also contributes to the "round" tone.

[koula901]

Back in the day, I used to play through a pair of Sunn 100s heads and 4 - 15" JBLs in two cabinets. It had a lot of good clear tones and warmth, but the heads were hard to get to saturate at reasonable levels and didn't match where I was trying to go. This was in the pre-master era. Sold it all and got a Marshall Major (200 W w/ master) from Massimino's in Detroit along with a pair of 4x12s cabinets. Ritchie Blackmore was my hero during those days and didn't yet have the funny hat.

 

Which one is you, Mark?

 

 

Another thing I noticed; Lindy is plucking with his thumb, not using a pick. That softens the attack and also contributes to the "round" tone.

 

Indeed he does. I suspect that's the way he plays most of the time, as he seems a little less comfortable with a pick. Even with the pick, he's getting pretty good tones out of that.

[FredZepp]

 

Which one is you, Mark?

 

 

I believe that Mark still has that red Gibby....

[bolero]

Back in the day, I used to play through a pair of Sunn 100s heads and 4 - 15" JBLs in two cabinets. It had a lot of good clear tones and warmth, but the heads were hard to get to saturate at reasonable levels and didn't match where I was trying to go. This was in the pre-master era. Sold it all and got a Marshall Major (200 W w/ master) from Massimino's in Detroit along with a pair of 4x12s cabinets. Ritchie Blackmore was my hero during those days and didn't yet have the funny hat.

 

 

what an awesome pic!!!

 

 

I wonder what song you were playing? do you remember? haha

[mars_hall]

Yep, I still have the 335.

 

You might consider a 1x15 extension cabinet to get you where you need. You can also get good results playing through a second amp set all the way clean, leaving the other for attack/etc. I used to do this with my Boogie Mark III, which gets decent Fenderish sounds on clean.

[barrymclark]

Back in the day, I used to play through a pair of Sunn 100s heads and 4 - 15" JBLs in two cabinets. It had a lot of good clear tones and warmth, but the heads were hard to get to saturate at reasonable levels and didn't match where I was trying to go. This was in the pre-master era. Sold it all and got a Marshall Major (200 W w/ master) from Massimino's in Detroit along with a pair of 4x12s cabinets. Ritchie Blackmore was my hero during those days and didn't yet have the funny hat.

Needs more cowbell.

[slider313]

Needs more cowbell.

 

 

Mississippi Queen?

[Guest HRB853370]

Okay, this may sound like a pretty lame question, but do you all find you get warmer tones and better bass response with your 15" speakers? I've been a 12" speaker girl myself, but I think that in the future, I'm going to switch it up to 15" speakers. When I check out Fralin pickups, he uses a custom amp with a 15 inch speaker and the sound of what I think would normally be thin-sounding pickups sound fat and round.

Size isn't everything despite what they say. I have 2x10 in my Delta Blues and it is tight, warm and punchy! Now in a bass amp, I prefer either 4x10 or 1x15.

[Guest HRB853370]

Back in the day, I used to play through a pair of Sunn 100s heads and 4 - 15" JBLs in two cabinets. It had a lot of good clear tones and warmth, but the heads were hard to get to saturate at reasonable levels and didn't match where I was trying to go. This was in the pre-master era. Sold it all and got a Marshall Major (200 W w/ master) from Massimino's in Detroit along with a pair of 4x12s cabinets. Ritchie Blackmore was my hero during those days and didn't yet have the funny hat.

No way. That's not you. No way!!

[mars_hall]

No way. That's not you. No way!!

On topic and in the words of the late great Rusty Day...

 

[TalismanRich]

That wasn't what I was thinking when I saw that picture...

 

My faith was so much stronger then
I believed in fellow men
And I was so much older then
When I was young

 

[212Mavguy]

I remember when I was all a-gaga after I got my first 15. I enjoyed it a lot. Then a friend of mine ,who was skeptical, said give it a lot of volume, pluck a hard low E and let that string drone, while it drones pluck some notes on the 14th fret on up on one or two of the smaller strings and let them simultaneously sustain as well.. He did not tell me what I was going to hear that was the issue, so not as to cause prejudice on my part.

 

We know that musicians NEVER hang on to old and less enlightened ideals and ideas, don't they?

 

Compared to a decent 12 inch speaker there was more of a muddy mess from the 15 I was playing through. The voice coil couldn't keep the cone moving accurately enough to render the low end and maintain the upper notes with clarity, or the cone itself was not capable of it, or a combo of both. I came up with the term cone control to describe this thang.

 

I had heard this kind of thing with certain alnico 15 speakers as well as 12's and not understood what I was hearing. They had sort of a dual voice, the clean would be a sweetly detailed and the dirty would be smooth and full with bottom and mods but lose the top end detail, a throaty howl would issue. Chords lose fine detail, much less crunch than a similar rated ceramic magnet speaker. Some like that kind of dual personality, it's not necessarily bad, rather, it is what it is for that speaker make and size.

 

Then I discovered the things that came from James Bullough Lansing. The 15's I tried passed the drone test with flying colors, and the dirty tones had crunch and detail, moreover, there was a musicality in their issue that the other speakers just plain lacked. Here's my A list of 15's, and I mean A list. I'll spare you the techweenie details of their overbuilt construction. I own all of these speakers and will be hanging on to at least one of each type of them.

 

Altec Lansing 418b

JBL G135

JBL MI-15

 

These are all designed to work with open back cabs as well as closed.

 

The Altec has a 3 inch copper VC, rated for 100 watts, has great upper end detail and keeps great balance between low mid and high frequencies quiet or loud, great with low wattage amps, very soft suspension, very efficient. This speaker's cleans are to my ears unsurpassed by any 15 I've heard. They have a top end that goes way higher than almost any 12 inch guitar speaker. Yet the low end goes on down to bass guitar territory effortlessly. Gorgeous, full, sweet, musical, and accurate. Heavy, around 18 pounds. Dirty chords are very defined and very crunchy, btw. Alnico.

 

The G135 works for lead guitar amazingly well as well as for baritone guitar or bass. It is punchy and girthy, with a very musical voice, it was designed to put out great sounding distorted tones and it does them, as well as the sweet sounding cleans. It has a 200 watt rating yet drives amazingly well from a 6 watt Champ. It's very loud. 104db 1w 1 meter. Most 12's are around 97-100 db in comparison. It is also a fatty in weight, easily in the same range as the Altec. Most female performers and non weight training males would not like the weight. Ceramic.

 

Then there's the sleeper of them all, the JBL MI-15. This has the same kind of frame as the g135 but uses a smaller magnet structure and a 2 1/4" voice coil. This speaker sounds almost exactly like the g135, a tad more compressed, an amazing lead guitar speaker, rated 75 watts. Weighs around 7 pounds and is also loud, 102db 1w 1 meter, sounds amazing with a low wattage blues amp or with a cranked up Marshall. This IMO is the king of the grab and go 15's for a combo amp. Ceramic.

 

All of these speakers do Jazz extremely well, or rock out with a knock out kickbutt punch, or weep the most sinuous sounding violin sustainy blues solo note work with a voice that is what the amp is putting out, they are all designed to not color the sound and to maintain similar tone going from moderate to loud volumes, gtreat cone control has to be there for that to

happen. The g135 will happily do metal and hold up well to 100 watt amp abuse.

 

OMG! can't believe it! this is too good to be true! Yup. They aren't made any more. You have to find them in the woodwork. After 500 plus transactions os a buyer on feeBay, I've learned that speaker transactions can be flaky 1 out of 5 are not what they should be in some way there, but if the right kind of pics are posted and I remember to ask questions in time there usually is no problem, and gotten some screaming deals. You won't find these in music stores, they will be pumping out the new poo and bathing you in marketing hype.

[slider313]

Altec Lansing 418b

JBL G135

JBL MI-15

 

What, no K130! ;-)