Ceriatone Forum

So as I wait for my HRM Bluesmaster to arrive, i am trying to decide what kind of speakers to pair it with. I am having a cabinet built by john @ thecabguy.com which will house 1x15" and 1x12" and will be convertible back. I pretty much have the 15" narrowed down to a weber michigan 15" but of course, i can't decide between alnicos or ceramics. as far as the 12" i am considering the EVM 12L, the weber blue dogs, weber 1265s,  or the weber michigan 12, and again have the same conundrum of choosing between alnicos or ceramics.

that being said, i am not trying to emulate a particular artist's sound, and i want the clean channel to sound as fender clean as possible (hence why i chose the HRM BM). I figure the OD channel will sound like a d style amp regardless and the speaker choices i have narrowed down to are some what "transparent" and should reproduce that sound faithfully. that being said, does anyone have any opinions?

Well I can say one thing... IMO Bluesmaster works better with alnico speakers... I use Celestion Gold and it sounds better than G1265 which I also have.... Bluesmaster has this Fender voice and Fenders work much better with alnicos... well if you ask me that is.
Can't tell you much about weber speakers...most of the speakers I tried are Celestion and some Jensens and Eminence.
Never tried any Webers.... hard to come by here in EU.

I bought two 10" weber alnicos directly from weber in US. Arrived here in 1 week.

IMLE Weber is very easy to deal with and the pices are very fair/low.

I used these speakers in a 4x10 Bassman....not in a dumble.

Regarding speakers for the Bluesmaster, I finally have an amp to use with my 1x12" Theile, in which I have an EV12L or an Eminence Kappa Pro.

This is a great speaker combination for a Bluesmaster.

I also have a 1x12" and a 2x12" loaded with 80s Celestion 12G65s, which are also nice with the Bluesmaster, but not as great as the thiele cab w. EV12L.

I've been diggin an Eminence "Texas Heat" in an oval ported 1x12 for a grab and go cab when I don't want to haul my 100 pound main cab with 2 EvM-12L's in it

 I really like the characteristics of it, fat sounding, sounds great with OD.

I ended up buying two "as new" Eminence "Texas Heat" speakers on EBAY and threw them into a Weber cab to use with my Creme Brulee and JTM-20 and honestly they sound fantastic. Check them out!

Interesting speaker. I would expect it to be a pretty bright speaker, looking at the giant 3K peak:

http://eminence.com/pdf/texasheat.pdf

However, more often than not, a frequency curve tells you nothing about how a speaker sounds and feels in real life.

Great that you've both found 'your' speaker

No-one else likes 10" speakers? I'm using a 4x10" cab with my bluesmaster, and it sounds fantastic. It's nothing special - in fact it's part of my old tubeworks combo amp, and it has some kind of generic speakers that were relabeled as tubework speakers, but they work well. I'm considering making a dedicated 4x10" cab for this amp in fact - perhaps some nice Jensen speakers in there....hmmm.

I'm also drawn to the idea of a 2x12" open back cab with Jensens in there. Back when I was playing semi-professionally in the 70's and 80's, I played a million gigs with a blackface '66 twin, which is still my reference amp memory. And the bluesmaster really nails that sound, even with the 4x10's, although there are some dynamic pops you can only get with 12" speakers.

IMO I have yet to find a Jenson speaker that sounds good with a d-style amp. Everybody has different taste's though I guess.

go with alnico IMO they are worth it. They also allow you to open up the master volume a bit more because they will be slightly less efficient and therefore less loud and "in your face"

I have 4 Jensen P10R's in a closed back cab and I really don't like them much either. And they seem to get worse the louder they get. I am planning on swapping them out for some Emi 10's when I can figure out what I want, the choice is overwhelming to be honest. I reckon Ragin Cajuns could do, but I also want to mix them up so another two of something else, maybe a little darker.

I have P10Q in my Champ and I think it's a better speaker compared to P10R... at least to my ears.
It's somehow warmer, more balanced sounding... I quite like it.

 ;)

Good to hear others opinions on the Jensens. My experience is based on having them in several blackface era fenders, where they sounded pretty darn good. I wonder if any of their more modern alternative speakers would be a better match?

 You should be looking for a speaker that can just amplify your guitar tone and not color it. D-style amps have a tone all on their own. Ev's do a great job of that and they have to be literally dimed to blow them up (well lets just say you can't blow them up IMO). Jensons have poor sound attributes and they color the tone quite a bit.

 Here's a list I would strongly reccomend:

 EV: EvM-12L's

 Celestion: g1265's, K100's, Gold, maybe the G12 Century

 Tone Tubby: Hempcones

 Scholtz: SugarCone

 Fane: Old WEM Crescendo's, AXIOM STUDIO 12L

 JBL: D-120's (12") or K-120's (15")
 
 Eminence: Raj'n Cajon, Texas Heat, etc.

 Warehouse Guitar Speakers: g65's (clone of the celestion g1265's but cheaper)

 Two Rock: W65's (early versions made by eminence,later versions by WGS)

 Altec Lansing: 417's

 Jenson: Tornados's (I guess this is the only one I know of that might be a good candidate. Although I dislike the sound of them, somebody might)

thanks for all the advice and input guys! i'm most def gonna go for the ev 12" now, just gotta decide on the 15" now.

sduck, i dig on 10" speakers, too. i am prolly gonna get a 2x10" cab for the bluesmaster as well. And i know what ya mean by amp memory. my amp memory or "sound in my head" is my original princeton reverb amp, which of course had a 10" jensen in it. it was also modded with a crazy gain circuit that went thru the reverb section, kinda like the diaz mod, and also had a midrange control added. withmy old les paul, that gain circuit and a fuzz face that lil princeton went from a beautiful singing blackface to a dirty, nasty (in a good way) monster. oh how i miss it...

This is a coincidence; I've just had an additional cab made by TheCabGuy for a 15", with a converter ring for a 12". It just arrived today. I've bought a Jensen P15N(alnico) for it.   I find that almost any speaker needs a break-in period before it loosens up; they always sound a bit edgy when new, so I'm not sure an opinion is warranted quite yet. I does seem to have smoothened out a bit after I've been playing through it for a couple of hours this afternoon.
  My other cab has a Celestion Gold that I'm very happy with. At this point the Gold has more low end to it than the Jensen. I'm thinking once it 's broken in this will even out a lot.
I'm really liking the 2 cabinet thing, even with them side by side there's a noticable stereo space effect with the 2 speakers having significantly different sounds.

I just uploaded some speaker comparison clips http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=29.msg14149#msg14149 (http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=29.msg14149#msg14149).

It's a non HRM OTS and it doesn't cover the speakers mentionned here but it might be of interest.

Cheers Fabien

So i've pretty much decided to obtain a 2x12 combo for my HRM Bluesmaster. Looking over all the suggestions i have  narrowed my speaker selections down to
EVM-12L
Celestion G12-65
Weber 1265 Alnico
Weber Blue Dog Alnico 75
Weber Silver Dog Alnico 75

My first thought was 2x EVM-12, but several people have stated that they lack "warmth", also they are known for their extreme low end response, and so far the Bluesmaster is living up to it's reputation of being bassy, so that concerns me as well.

My second thought was putting a Blue Dog and a Silver Dog in to achieve as weber says "Great low end from the Silver Bell, while retaining clarity and definition from the Blue Dog." Again, the concern with the Silver Dog is the low end response.

I also thought about the G12-65's, Blue Dog, or 1265 paired with the EVM-12, but i'm thinking the EV would over power the others and would sound unbalanced to a degree

So i am down to the G12-65's vs the 1265's from weber. I am leaning more towards the Weber, due to the fact I can get the "Pre-Rola" treatment which will yield a more vintage vibe.

So my question is this. Which speaker combination would you guys choose for the Bluesmaster? All opinions welcomed and encouraged

You know what, whichever you choose, give it a month and you'll be thinking 'well I wonder what XXX would sound like coupled with YYY' And what about a 4x10? I'm still pondering what to get to replace P10R's so far I'm thinking Emi RamRods plus something else. Its a costly business but it keeps us out of trouble ;D

very, very true. Anything will be an improvement over my current setup. i think my old Eminence speakers have seen better days. i've had em in the same cab for 20 years and they haven't always been in the best storage conditions over the years. They just sound flat.