Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I recently put an Eminence B102 speaker in my Marshall bass practice amp, and it transformed the amp into a real winner. I was wondering if any others out there have had any similar experiences with their bass amps, and what speakers they used to improve the sound. Most small bass practice combos seem to come with cheap speakers that do a poor job of providing good tone. Really good bass speakers tend to be rather pricey compared to most guitar speakers, so I was wondering if others had any experience along these lines. Bass players seem to play around with speaker swaps a bit less often than do guitar players. Maybe price and limited selection has a lot to do with it.

Eminence 10's are great ... I usually play through 2 x 10's and 1 x 18" ...

For the last 20 years I've had the same pair of Electra-Voice EVM 12L's which have been upgraded from 200 watts to 400 watts handling power. I've always played Gallien-Krueger amps through them but that's about to change. These speakers are the tightest, punchiest, crispest speakers I've ever used. They now reside in a custom made Thiele enclosure finnished off like a vintage Ampeg cab.

Dane, I can believe you when you say EV speakers are tight and punchy. They have about the biggest magnet assemblies I have ever seen. But those prices.........you can buy an amp for what an EV speaker costs! Of course, they are meant to keep for decades like you have done. I like the B102 speaker because it is extremely extended, both low and high, and not only goes much lower than the Celestion guitar speaker it replaced, but goes higher as well. Probably not as tight as your EV speakers, but I probably gain some top end that can be used when playing guitar through the amp. And it only cost $90 new. I put it in an AVT20 Valvestate 2000 amp that emulates a tube amp rather well. It sounds good with my 4004L, but my brother played a 650D through it and got some heavy rock type sounds out of it. I think it would be a metalhead's dream practice amp. Works real good through a pedal. I wanted an old overdriven tube bass amp sound in a small combo package, and the AVT20/B102 combination was a stroke of luck.

I had a Peavey folded horn 1x18 cab back in the late 70's, and that thing was so loud that one morning a guy rolled out of bed and took cover under it, thinking an earthquake was hitting Anchorage again. And his bed was standing on a concrete slab. It also once screwed up a wedding down the street. Things had a habit of falling out of cabinets and off walls when I cranked it. It was very loud away from it, but not nearly as loud up close, and the tone sucked. No highs at all. The speaker was an Eminence or CTS, I forget which. I doubt if the magnet was any bigger than what is on that little 10" B102. It was good for disco, and that's probably what the black guy I bought it from used it for. Not my kind of speaker cab at all.

And what will you get now that you are through with your Gallien-Krueger amp?

Some day, I'm looking to put four B102 speakers in a vertical cabinet arrangenment (for better lateral sound dispersion) and power it with a B&K amp that has 300 watts x 2 channels @ 4 ohms. I like an oversized acoustic suspension cabinet for the tightness and lower extension of the sound. Bass reflex cabs sound a bit sloppy to me. Folded horn?.......never again!

And what will I get now that I'm through with my GK? Well I'm keeping it as my practice-at-home amp. However, tomorrow I'm picking up an Ampeg SVP PRO tube pre-amp with 5 military-spec tubes in it. I'll be running it through a Digitech DSP 256 Effects processor which will split the signal into stereo which will be fed into a very rare and hard to find Rickenbacker RA 600 stereo power amp that puts out 300 watts per side into a pair of the previously mentioned speaker cabs at 4 ohms. I would have stuck with GK but they don't yet offer a pre-amp that suited my needs.

Hey Aceonbass...

What then is this "thing" that I saw at the GK website?

http://www.gallien-krueger.com/PRODUCTS/CONCEPT_PRODUCTS/Concept_Products.htm

Could this GK product possibly have suited your needs?

Are there other bass speakers besides the Eminence B102 that have whizzer cones that eliminate the need for piezo horns or tweeters? Crossovers and horns have phase problems, and I believe that simpler is better.

I'm looking for a bass preamp as well. There's no need for a preamp to be large and heavy. It can run off of batteries and be small enough to hang from your belt or be incorporated into an effects pedal. Guitar preamps could have been separated from power amps decades ago. FET preamp circuits that are properly designed can sound just like tube preamp circuits to my ear. I'm just practicing at home right now, and will keep looking. Musical instrument technology seems to lag a lot of other electronic fields. Not enough money to attract major R&D efforts, I guess.

Fostex makes some small fullrange speakers (FE206, etc.) that go down to around 30 Hz, but they are not made to handle a lot of power or have lots of cone excursion. They would probably work very well for acoustic guitar. They might work in a low powered studio or practice bass combo. Most bass speakers are designed for blasting out in a live gig situation. That is not necessarily the best thing for a small practice amp. What sounds good at a stadium sounds like trash in a small room.

Alvaro....Yes that GK pre-amp would have suited my needs but it's only a concept. I e-mailed them and even answered some questions for them but they don't make it yet. They made a midi pre-amp for bass years ago but at less than 100 units produced they are quite rare. I just picked up my Ampeg and it sounds like it will be the ticket, especially with the "tube driver" control.