Re: Speaker Replacement



<Is my speaker blown?>

The official test for a blown speaker is:

1. Is the cone in good shape, or is it falling apart or otherwise damaged?
If so, replace or recone it.

2. Remove the speaker from the enclosure and using several evenly spaced
fingers on the cone close to (but not ON) the center dome, gently move the
cone back and forth.  Does it move cleanly, or does it sound like it might
be rubbing against something?  If it makes any rubbing sound, it's bad and
should be replaced or reconed.

For musical instrument amplification, you generally don't want a "hi-fi"
type speaker.  The cheap old Jensens sounded terrible by hi-fi standards,
but for a musical instrument amplifier, it is actually desireable to "color"
the sound, and the old Jensens did a great job of this.

If the speaker is the older type that uses an alnico magnet (a cylindrically
shaped magnet inside a boxey looking metal frame), I'd definitely recone it
regardless of cost (which probably won't be much.)  If it's a ceramic type
(looks like a flying saucer), I'd check the price of reconing vs a new
speaker.

As far as brands, I wouldn't recommend Radio Shack speakers.  The ones I've
tried were quite bad, especially for the price.  Some reissue amps are using
"vintage style" speakers, and you might want to check on these.  It will
take probably a hundred hours of playing to really break in the new/reconed
speaker, so be patient during that week :-)


 -- mike




This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) and MHonArc 2.6.8.