Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: ryanverbena on October 25, 2006, 12:00:45 PM
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hey i have a new vox ac30cc2. I bought the stock one without the celestion blue speakers planning to upgrade when i could afford it. But I have since found a pair of second hand celestion greenbacks for sale for the same price it would cost for one alnico blue speaker. I know that the vox AC30 top boosts had greenbacks and i was wondering if anyone could offer me any insight into whether i should get the greenbacks or save for the alnico blues?
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It'll sound different. As far as I remember, the Greenbacks have a bit more upper mids and lack the richness of the Blues.
I've got a Blue in my Matamp cab and it's a wonderful speaker, but I know where you're coming from - they are expensive.
Having said that, I got a rather good deal on one when I bought my Matamp. I don't know if they can do the same for someone who isn't buying one of their amps, but it might be worth giving Matamp a call. Their price was, by quite a margin, the cheapest I'd seen. Be prepared to be on the phone for a while, though - Jeff can talk the hind legs off several donkeys!
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there's always the eminence red fang... I haven't tried it (nor the blue), but it's based on the blue, and is appreciably cheaper- around £100 as opposed to £150 or more for the blue.
Might be worth a look if the blue is just too steep, and i'd have thought should get you closer than a greenback.
Dunno, though, you'd need to try them.
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I tried the Red Fang when I had a go with Matamp's speaker wall (6 Celestions and 6 Eminence speakers all wired up to the same amp head) and to my surprise it sounded nothing like the Blue.
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The Alnico Blues (bulldogs) cost a fortune but they sound amazing clean. I'm not much of a Greenback fan, but I must say they do overdrive nicely in my Vox AC30... I think they gain up a little better but have no where near the clean definition of a bulldog.
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I tried the Red Fang when I had a go with Matamp's speaker wall (6 Celestions and 6 Eminence speakers all wired up to the same amp head) and to my surprise it sounded nothing like the Blue.
i guess I stand corrected! :lol:
I guess the usual advice applies then- if you like the greenbacks as much as the blues when you try them, go with the greenbacks. But if you think they pale in comparison to the blues, then just bite the bullet and get the blues. if you're anything like me, you'll just end up getting the blues eventually anyway, might as well save yourself the expense of green + blue...
:drink:
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Dave_mc - I didn't mean to get all heavy on you, dude!
In theory, the Red Fangs should sound something like the Blues because they were designed to, but I didn't find that to be true. The amazing thing is the difference between the Celestion and Eminence speakers. All the Celestions sounded similar (but each definitely had its own character) and all the Eminence speakers sounded similar, but the difference between any Celestion and any Eminence was like night and day. Within a minute or two I'd decided I was a Celestion kind of guy.
To be honest, I don't think even Celestion themselves have been able to "clone" the Blue until recently. The thing people always complain about is the low power handling (15W) and yet only now, after 50-odd years have they finally come out with a similar speaker that handles more watts (the Alnico Gold). I'm sure they would have done it earlier if they could.
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^ i didn't think you were going heavy in the slightest, frog- i was laughing at myself, :lol:
:drink:
EDIT: how did the gold sound- close enough to a blue?
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^ i didn't think you were going heavy in the slightest, frog- i was laughing at myself, :lol:
:drink:
EDIT: how did the gold sound- close enough to a blue?
Ah, good! :drink:
I haven't heard the Gold, otherwise I probably would have got one put in my Matamp cab "for possible future expansion purposes". :D
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aye, no problem. problem with the blues is the very low wattage. i'd need about 10 of them to safely handle my engl, lol.
I wish i lived closer to the matamp factory- it'd be awesome to get to try all those speakers in a room- as it is, it'd be cheaper for me to buy some speakers to chance them, than to get to try them at matamp, :(
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After using a Jensen C12N speaker in my old Blonde Fender Deluxe, that I no longer own (some of us have to pay the rent). I recommend it but only if you like vintage tone, now it's a lot different again to the sound of the Celestion Greenbacks, (it's the best greenback speaker by a mile) in fact it had a very agressive growl like mid range tone to it and it's very very warm and dynamic. I called it the 'growler'. Unfortunatley never got to play it with my new Mule and BKP90 pickups, maybe then I would've kept the amp. I do prefer the sound of Greenbacks compred to the Celestion Blue, they are smoother, warmer, not as trebly and work well with humbuckers! The blue's are more suited to bluesy, rich, cutting tones, and the green more for jazz, rock and soul.
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^ did you mean the celestion version of the greenback was the best greenback-style speaker, or that jensen one you were talking about? maybe i'm just tired, but I couldn't tell which you meant.
:drink:
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personally, i think that there's no upgrading on a celestion blue, especially in the context of a vox ac30. personally, i think a much more cost-effective way to imrpove tone is to upgrade a few tone caps - much cheaper and just as noticable. i think people are very drawn to the idea of changing speakers because it's a relatively simple and straightforward operation, and a appreciate that you may not want to poke around inside your vox, it's just some food for thought. i'd rather have blues than greenbacks in my vox any day of the week. (hypothetical)
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I've restored two old AC30s and will say that a pair of Alnico Blues are an integral part of the AC30 tone - they just don't sound 'right' without them.
G12H-30s work alright as do Goodmans Power-range series but not the Greenbacks (G12M).
:twisted:
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this sounds very interesting but i defintely woldnt be able to do this myself without any reference. Is there any information you could give me in specific to AC30 upgrades or maybe any web pages or books that would help? I have really settled on my gibson les paul with black dogs, keeley java boost, and Vox AC30 combination and now i just want to make it the best it can be
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sorry, i misread your first post, i thought you HAD the stock blues and were planning to "upgrade" to greenbacks...
i'm by no means anything of an amp tinkerer, not even close, the closest i've got (so far...) is just doing some prelimenary reading (and even at that, i've forgotten much of it already...). the thing to remember is all the "high voltage! death! warning!" aspect to tinkering with amps.
that aside, i think the ones to have a look at are the capacitors in the tone stacks. different capacitors have different tones: (eg, mallorys are often used in marshall amps, orange drops in fenders,.... as far as i can remember)
there are good sites up on the net about this kind of thing, www.ampmaker.co.uk is a good UK based source for parts, www.18watt.com is more focused on marshall clones but is still a good source of information. i just reformatted the computer so my list of links is gone unfortunately.
there are many people around the web more knowledgeable on this topic than myself, and i can't really give any specific advice. i would just say, read around a bit, and if you're semi-serious about changing a few components, having the amp's schematic will help a lot. at the end of the day, i only made the post above to make you aware of the fact that there are more cost-effective ways to improve your tone (guitar geek cliche phrase alert!) than changing speakers. (which doesn't mean changing speakers wont improve your tone; it will, it's just more expensive).
confused?