I was having a new pickup installed in one of my guitars and wanted to kill time so I went into the music shops amp room and noticed they had 4 Fender hotrod deluxe 3s there. They were FSR amps so they all had different looks and I wondered what the difference was. Turns out they had different speakers in them.
I plugged a Fender American standard Hss strat into one of the amps with a celestion vin 30 speaker. It had a creamy midrange, the highs were not spikey but they were also not as pronounced. I hit some hard triads trying to push the speaker to the unpleasant piercing treble tone spike but it almost wouldn't do it. The vintage 30 seemed to just roll off the piercing highs on its own. The ash strat with fat 50's seemed to quak almost perfect in position 4 between bridge and middle single fat 50 pickup. It was still chimey in position 2 (single neck single middle) but I noted the full on single neck tone was more midrange and very thick sounding. picking attack was not as pronounced and I had to work the presence to get a strong pick popping the note sound. Over all I loved the tone I got from this speaker amp combo. It was creamy midrange goodness with soft highs and nice punch.
I plugged into another of the same amp but with a Jensen Speaker. Its high midrange tone was thinner but the pick attack was much more noticeable. It had a more pronounced chimey tone but less midrange. wile the highs were sweet they could also get ice picky fast and I found myself turning down the treble and presence controls to try to tapper it back. If I was a tele player looking for that thin cutting tone this would be my amp as it sounded and responded differently with a different speaker. Wow what a different amp with just a different speaker in it.
I next pulled down a Paul Reed Smith double humbucker guitar with 5708's in it. It retails at $6000. I plugged it into the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe 3 with the celestion vin 30 and to my surprise it sounded kinda brittle and dull. I worked the positions and the tone knobs but it just didnt sound all that good. I then plugged it into the same model amp but with the Jensen speaker instead. The guitars clean tone seemed to come alive. The highs suddenly sounded much sweeter and the tone was much better. Some old guy came in who was a Paul Reed Smith player and told me he has had the same results with swapping out the speaker in the same amp but he said the eminance speaker he finally put in made his Paul Reed Smith sound even better. His guitar too had the same 5708's and for some reason it sounded better on clean settings with a higher frequency speaker like a jensen or eminance.
I never knew there would be that much difference in tone and feel just useing different speakers in the same amp.
For Fender ash strats with fat 50's I still think the Celestion vin 30 sounds way better as it has a tweed or bassman type tone to it. But for Les Pauls or Paul Reed Smiths with humbuckers a simple speaker swap into a higher frequency speaker can really sweeten up your clean tone.
On a side note I plugged that Paul Reed Smith guitar into a Marshall DSL with a Celestion 2/12 cab and the distortion was big, fat, and sustained it seemed like for days. Distortion is a whole other animal and so are the speakers you'd use.
:beerchug:
I plugged a Fender American standard Hss strat into one of the amps with a celestion vin 30 speaker. It had a creamy midrange, the highs were not spikey but they were also not as pronounced. I hit some hard triads trying to push the speaker to the unpleasant piercing treble tone spike but it almost wouldn't do it. The vintage 30 seemed to just roll off the piercing highs on its own. The ash strat with fat 50's seemed to quak almost perfect in position 4 between bridge and middle single fat 50 pickup. It was still chimey in position 2 (single neck single middle) but I noted the full on single neck tone was more midrange and very thick sounding. picking attack was not as pronounced and I had to work the presence to get a strong pick popping the note sound. Over all I loved the tone I got from this speaker amp combo. It was creamy midrange goodness with soft highs and nice punch.
I plugged into another of the same amp but with a Jensen Speaker. Its high midrange tone was thinner but the pick attack was much more noticeable. It had a more pronounced chimey tone but less midrange. wile the highs were sweet they could also get ice picky fast and I found myself turning down the treble and presence controls to try to tapper it back. If I was a tele player looking for that thin cutting tone this would be my amp as it sounded and responded differently with a different speaker. Wow what a different amp with just a different speaker in it.
I next pulled down a Paul Reed Smith double humbucker guitar with 5708's in it. It retails at $6000. I plugged it into the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe 3 with the celestion vin 30 and to my surprise it sounded kinda brittle and dull. I worked the positions and the tone knobs but it just didnt sound all that good. I then plugged it into the same model amp but with the Jensen speaker instead. The guitars clean tone seemed to come alive. The highs suddenly sounded much sweeter and the tone was much better. Some old guy came in who was a Paul Reed Smith player and told me he has had the same results with swapping out the speaker in the same amp but he said the eminance speaker he finally put in made his Paul Reed Smith sound even better. His guitar too had the same 5708's and for some reason it sounded better on clean settings with a higher frequency speaker like a jensen or eminance.
I never knew there would be that much difference in tone and feel just useing different speakers in the same amp.
For Fender ash strats with fat 50's I still think the Celestion vin 30 sounds way better as it has a tweed or bassman type tone to it. But for Les Pauls or Paul Reed Smiths with humbuckers a simple speaker swap into a higher frequency speaker can really sweeten up your clean tone.
On a side note I plugged that Paul Reed Smith guitar into a Marshall DSL with a Celestion 2/12 cab and the distortion was big, fat, and sustained it seemed like for days. Distortion is a whole other animal and so are the speakers you'd use.
:beerchug:
