The best loud and clean 15in for fender amps?

Hey all, new the forum :ola . Would greatly appreciate some input, no pun intended.

This probably has been beat to death but any info would be appreciated.

I'm going to build a 1x15 cab and a 2x12 as an extension for my fender amp heads a bf'ed ab763 BMR, and a pre master volume Dual showman reverb. I'm pretty sure I'm going to mod the cabs to be used as open and closed back, ie: an easily removable back panel.

I was considering an eminence commonwealth 15 and eminence commonwealth 12's for the 2x12.
I've read that they were designed after the jbl D-130.

I'm kinda torn :bawl :bonk between a warmer less effcient speaker with nice cone breakup and compression or a loud, clean, bright efficient type speaker which is how I imagine the jbl type speaker would sound.

I want to be able to get a vibroverb 1x15 tone (assuming the vibroverb was openback) with the open back 1x15 using my bmr, and close the back to get a bass heavy dual showman reverb tone.

With the 2x12 I would like to get an open back twin reverb sound with dual showman reverb, and then mix and match them from those starting points.

My aim is versatility which is why I opted for heads instead of combos. :dude

Eminence Big Ben or Weber Cali for the 15.

What amp heads do you have?

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Originally Posted by CJ Neel

Eminence Big Ben or Weber Cali for the 15.

What amp heads do you have?

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A '69 BMR bf'ed to ab763, and '70 dual showman reverb.
I'm selling my '68 bassman w 2x15 matching cab and original speakers, can't keep them all.

You'll be better off with different speakers for the BM and Showman. There are a variety of 12 inchers that would work well in closed back with the BM. But the Showman adds a lot of power and could blow up the speakers that would work well with the BM. I would get an old EV SRO 15 (ceramic) and do a 1x15 tone-ring cab for the Showman. Many, many speakers would work well in a 2x12 for the BM. the tried and true Celestion combo is one Greenback and one G12H30. Two C12N type speakers would also work. Personally, I like ported closed back cabs, even if it's just the simple two 3 & 5/8" circular holes in the baffle. Can't really give you much specific advice on closed backs, I've been playing an open back with vintage P12N for a while. And when I play outdoors/loud I usually use a 2x10 semi open back with my BF Bandmaster. And the speakers in that one are constantly changing.

For the 12 inch, I have a closed cab 2x12 with Celestion Lead 80s/ for my 69 BMR. Clean as the day is long. Its the surf cab.

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Originally Posted by fender_bender

Hey all, new the forum :ola . Would greatly appreciate some input, no pun intended.

This probably has been beat to death but any info would be appreciated.

I'm going to build a 1x15 cab and a 2x12 as an extension for my fender amp heads a bf'ed ab763 BMR, and a pre master volume Dual showman reverb. I'm pretty sure I'm going to mod the cabs to be used as open and closed back, ie: an easily removable back panel.

I was considering an eminence commonwealth 15 and eminence commonwealth 12's for the 2x12.
I've read that they were designed after the jbl D-130.

I'm kinda torn :bawl :bonk between a warmer less effcient speaker with nice cone breakup and compression or a loud, clean, bright efficient type speaker which is how I imagine the jbl type speaker would sound.

I want to be able to get a vibroverb 1x15 tone (assuming the vibroverb was openback) with the open back 1x15 using my bmr, and close the back to get a bass heavy dual showman reverb tone.

With the 2x12 I would like to get an open back twin reverb sound with dual showman reverb, and then mix and match them from those starting points.

My aim is versatility which is why I opted for heads instead of combos. :dude

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The Eminence Commonwealth 15 was indeed fashioned after the JBL D-130, a speaker that I am intimately familiar with. I gave some thought to using the Commonwealth in a recent project but ultimately bought a vintge JBL. The Commonwealth would be an excellent choice for a "clean" speaker with the sole caveat being, they are only available in a 4Ω impedance. On a positive note, they are built pretty beefy with sufficient power handling capability that they can be used as a "single" with a Dual Showman head. You'll find that a "tone ring" cab will sound remarkably versatile, combining the best acoustic properties of both a "bass reflex" and an "infinite baffle" cabinet design. As an aside, the Fender "Showman 15" cab was the most efficient box Fender ever built and met JBL's recommendation of six cubic feet of internal volume for maximum driver efficiency. An EV-SRO 15 in this type of enclosure will perform in a similar fashion though (by the speaker's nature) will not sound quite as bright.

As for your 12-inch "dilemma" for the BMR, you might look into one of those "convertible" Avatar cabs. They're well-built and good value for the $$$. A pair of Eminence Swamp Thangs might be jus' the ticket there.

HTH

On the used market, a Altec 418 is a killer driver, and its alinco like the JBL also.

Welcome aboard!
Find a D-130,never look back.

Sumptins rong heer...I kan undarstan Phantomman!

Heard a guy using an SRO 15 in a MM 65W combo and it sounded absolutely gorgeous for vintage rock n roll stuff - he had a real deal dot neck, a '59 Strat as his back up and knew all the chords - depends what kinda stuff you're doing but if the SRO's in decent enough shape they're fairly easy to drive and you might even like it for the BM - my concern would be if it wasn't in such good shape as a DS has a fair bit of poke - Chris's suggestions are spot on if you don't want to take the risk of buying used stuff that might not be up to the job - especially the Weber (I've heard good things about them - even over here) - I don't know about those particular Celestions with a BM though Gris - that really depends on what sort of sound you want out of it... I use a coupla G12T-100's for a fairly flat response that doesn't break up too early in the Dv 5F6A conversion and have another two in a closed back cab for bigger rooms (the amp runs best at 4ohms and I get a huge, clear clean sound with the channels linked, eq pretty flat, normal channel full up and the bright channel at around 3 oclock) - blackonblack's suggestion of the Lead 80 is pretty much the same thing - they're cheap 'cause they're MIC but they do the job all day long and are pretty clean without that classic 'too middle-y' Celestion tone - but then some guys like that - to me it doesn't sound like a Fender amp any more... you pays yer money - you takes yer choice... :D

thanks. Phantomman how doe the eminence fifteen perform with an overdriven amp, eminence suggests against using it with high gain, not a problem there but I was wondering how it performs with a pedAL and an pverdriven tube amp?

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Originally Posted by fender_bender

thanks. Phantomman how doe the eminence fifteen perform with an overdriven amp, eminence suggests against using it with high gain, not a problem there but I was wondering how it performs with a pedAL and an pverdriven tube amp?

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I never had the opportunity to audition one. A logical conjecture would posit that the driver would perform similar to a "real" JBL D-130F, which in and of itseff is an acquired taste.

Eminence "suggests" a lotta thangs but when I e-mailed one of their engineers inquiring about an 8Ω version of this driver the uh, er......'gentleman' advised me that "there is simply no market for an 8Ω fifteen-inch speaker".

Thus, I "suggested" to this weisenheimer that he was dumber'n a sack fulla roofing nails and that he should take a five-year sabbatical to study the differences between sh*t and Shinola. I have yet to hear his response......

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Originally Posted by phantomman

"there is simply no market for an 8Ω fifteen-inch speaker".

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So, what impedance is popular in 15"? :da

The only guitar amp I can think of that came with a specified 16ohm 15" speaker was the Vibrasonic.

Yeah, IIRC my buddy's Showman head (which popularly employed the JBLs in 2x15 cab) was 4 ohms, meaning the speakers were 8 ohms each...

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Originally Posted by Gris

Yeah, IIRC my buddy's Showman head (which popularly employed the JBLs in 2x15 cab) was 4 ohms, meaning the speakers were 8 ohms each...

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Fender's BF Showman came in two flavors -- one intended to be used with the single 15 "tone-ring" cab, the other meant for the 2x15. Electronically they were identical but one had an O/T with an 8Ω secondary, the other wired for 4Ω. Up until around early '67 the amps were marked the same on the front panel, but beginning in that model year (coincident with the introduction of the vertical "big box" 2-15 enclosure) the 4Ω amp was marked as a "DUAL" SHOWMAN. The 8Ω Showman made it into the SF drip-edge era but was discontinued at the end of the '68 model year, as was the single 15 tone-ring cab.

As an aside, at some point in the late '60s or early '70s JBL began selling F-series instrument speakers marked as "8-16 ohms" on the foilcal. I don't know if the entire line was available though -- I have seen D-130Fs so marked and once owned a pair of the dual-impedance D-120Fs that I installed in a '67 Twin Reverb. I'm not certain what JBL's intent was with these "step-children"......the static impedance of the coils on my D-120s measured around 11Ω each. They worked just fine though. So far as I know these were all sold as raw drivers, never factory-installed in a Fender, Sunn, or Kustom amp. They were of the gray-basket type and otherwise visually identical to JBL's other guitar speakers.

Yeah, makes sense. His was a '66.

An 11 ohm static speaker would be a 16 ohm speaker driven.

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Originally Posted by phantomman

As an aside, at some point in the late '60s or early '70s JBL began selling F-series instrument speakers marked as "8-16 ohms" on the foilcal.

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According to Harvey Gerst, who was pretty high up in the JBL food chain in that period, they made one speaker that was 12 ohms, and put whatever label on it. :biglaugh:

thanks all for replies