Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

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mrmofo
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Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by mrmofo »

Hello.

I have an old Boogie Combo from the early 80`s.
The speaker is a 150 watt Black Shadow the internet says was made by Eminence.

I have a Celestion G70 from an early 80`s Marshall.

The Boogie is rated at 60 watts. Scoped at 49 watts clean.

I was thinking about swapping the speakers over. A friend has speculated the Boogie will kill the Celestion.

My reasoning is: the closer the amps watts are to the speaker rating, MUST mean more tone.

I could use the Marshall as a Bass practice amp with the huge wattage Black Shadow.

Amp sounds glorious as is.
There are still some that think the neck PU is moved to accommodate the extra frets which only proves they cannot detect the difference in length of each.

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griff
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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by griff »

You will get more speaker breakup with it being lower watts. But volume you play at and efficiency of the speaker come into play also. Most modern higher gain players don't like speaker breakup so go for higher wattage/efficiency drivers.
Depends what style of music you play I guess. I personally don't like too much speaker breakup.

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by mrmofo »

I thought Speaker break up was desirable?

I remember reading about SRV and Tony Bruno running 60 watt amps into 30 watt speakers, dont know how accurate my memory is, i thought thats how you get that blues crunch?
There are still some that think the neck PU is moved to accommodate the extra frets which only proves they cannot detect the difference in length of each.

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by MogwaiBoy »

Creamback 75 : )

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by mrmofo »

G12T 75

I googled creamback 75.

luckily i didn't get any Biden (alleged) laptop shots.
There are still some that think the neck PU is moved to accommodate the extra frets which only proves they cannot detect the difference in length of each.

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griff
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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by griff »

Horses for courses I guess man. Best way to know is get something low watt, crank it and see if you like it. Making sure it fits within ya amps Wattage output of course

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by godgrinder »

mrmofo wrote: Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:20 pm I remember reading about SRV and Tony Bruno running 60 watt amps into 30 watt speakers, dont know how accurate my memory is, i thought thats how you get that blues crunch?
But he used 200w EV speakers as well.
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griff
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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by griff »

T75's are awesome speakers!

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by Kiwiaxe »

This depends upon which Boogie amp you are talking about, but if I recall correctly my Mark IVa is officially rated 85W but uses a 200W ElectroVoice speaker because the amp can actually produce something like 165W at full tilt. So you might run the risk of killing a speaker - although presumably this risk could be mitigated against by not setting your amp to a volume that could kill passing neighbours.

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by olegmcnoleg »

mrmofo wrote: Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:20 pm

I remember reading about SRV and Tony Bruno running 60 watt amps into 30 watt speakers, dont know how accurate my memory is, i thought thats how you get that blues crunch?
Dunno about speaker crunch, but that’s how you get to develop your re-coning skills :-)

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Jay
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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by Jay »

olegmcnoleg wrote: Fri Oct 30, 2020 4:11 pm
mrmofo wrote: Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:20 pm

I remember reading about SRV and Tony Bruno running 60 watt amps into 30 watt speakers, dont know how accurate my memory is, i thought thats how you get that blues crunch?
Dunno about speaker crunch, but that’s how you get to develop your re-coning skills :-)
There is also the risk of blowing your output transformer and power valves, so good all round fun to be had...
When faced with quality, I recognise it every time.

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by JHorner »

mrmofo wrote: Fri Oct 30, 2020 10:06 am My reasoning is: the closer the amps watts are to the speaker rating, MUST mean more tone.
Yeah nah. disconnect internal speaker. connect quad that will handle 320watt. turn amp to 10. tell me you don't get moar toan.

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by sizzlingbadger »

mrmofo wrote: Fri Oct 30, 2020 10:06 am Hello.

I have an old Boogie Combo from the early 80`s.
The speaker is a 150 watt Black Shadow the internet says was made by Eminence.

I have a Celestion G70 from an early 80`s Marshall.

The Boogie is rated at 60 watts. Scoped at 49 watts clean.

I was thinking about swapping the speakers over. A friend has speculated the Boogie will kill the Celestion.

My reasoning is: the closer the amps watts are to the speaker rating, MUST mean more tone.

I could use the Marshall as a Bass practice amp with the huge wattage Black Shadow.

Amp sounds glorious as is.

Try and see if you like it - thats the only way to know for sure. You won't kill the G70 with a 60W amp.
Tube amp and guitar tones straight from 1958… amazing how believable the sounds were back then, even without the modellers...

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by jubbathehog »

Hi,
I’ve got a Mesa boogie mkiii which is rated at 60watts. Unfortunately I tore the black shadow somehow, (I think by putting something in the back of it) patched it a couple of times but ended up replacing it with a Celestion G12 K100, which is another speaker that has plenty of low end. It sounded pretty similar to the black shadow, maybe even slightly fuller. I’ve also recently tried it with an Eminence Swap Thang, which is rated at 300w. Again plenty of low end, but a bit dirtier than the other two speakers. I really like it. Ive also put it through the a WGS 15 inch speaker In an open back cabinet and that was probably the best of all. It had a lot more top end, so you had to wind the treble way back, but is pretty cool when really cranked. Like JHorner said, through a quad on 10 is a whole nother story. I don’t think speaker break up is something that boogies need to sound good.

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Re: Mesa Speaker swap advice welcome

Post by Dharmajester »

When Mesa first appeared, the standard speaker in their combo's were EV12 L's. As Godgrinder pointed out above these were also popular with SRV as well as many others. They are a physically heavy speaker but well worth the extra cartage effort involved for the sound they produce. Your Boogie will I'm sure love one. As an aside, G70's were not Celestion's finest moment. Plenty of better options in their camp but nothing to touch an EV ( Redback maybe if you're into detuned riffage ). The closest speaker to an EV available in Nz would be an Eminence Delta Pro 12A ( Livesound ). Not tried one myself but highly regarded by some of the TGP EV fans.
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