Amplifier speakers

Hi Everyone
Been considering building an amp from scratch but know next to nothing about them:(
My father in law gave me a couple of large speaker boxes he made in the early 70's I had no idea what was in them so on taking the back off discovered Magnavox Made in Australia Red cap speakers.
My question is how good are they for use in a tube amp??
And are there any reasonably priced tube amp kits available anywhere?
Cheers Carl

Heres a couple of photos

Doc or one of the others would know more than me but I've toyed with the idea myself and found these. I'd leave those speakers alone and buy a Celestion or Jensen. Depending on the size you want they aren't terribly expensive.

Those look like speakers designed more for HiFi applications rather than Guitar applications, speakers designed for HiFi reproduction tend to have a flatter response compared to speakers designed for Guitar amps, a guitar amp is actually not a high-fidelity amp, even when it's producing a relatively clean sound, there is still some residual distortion present, but more to the point, a guitar amp is deliberately designed with a frequency response which is far from flat, whereas a HiFi amp is designed so that the frequency response is as flat as possible, a Guitar amp's frequency response has a lot of midrange cut and bass/treble boost, if you were to try playing a guitar through a HiFi amp it would sound thin because the raw sound of a guitar contains a lot of midrange but not much bass or treble, so you need that bass and treble-boost for the for the Guitar to sound fuller.


A good Celestion or Jensen speaker would work better.

I suspect that you will probably find them emitting smoke of either the metric or imperial variety depending on age and it's terribly difficult to put back in so I woul leave them where doing the job they were designed for.

Apart from the two brands named above I'll throw Eminence into the mix as well.

Different magnet types and magnet size plus cone type have a massive impact on the final sound.

Decide on who's live sound you would like to try to emulate and then find out what type of amp and speakers they use, studio sound is fairly useless because they will be using various amp sizes and types on different tracks or even on the same track.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrNomis_44

Those look like speakers designed more for HiFi applications rather than Guitar applications, speakers designed for HiFi reproduction tend to have a flatter response compared to speakers designed for Guitar amps, a guitar amp is actually not a high-fidelity amp, even when it's producing a relatively clean sound, there is still some residual distortion present, but more to the point, a guitar amp is deliberately designed with a frequency response which is far from flat, whereas a HiFi amp is designed so that the frequency response is as flat as possible, a Guitar amp's frequency response has a lot of midrange cut and bass/treble boost, if you were to try playing a guitar through a HiFi amp it would sound thin because the raw sound of a guitar contains a lot of midrange but not much bass or treble, so you need that bass and treble-boost for the for the Guitar to sound fuller.


A good Celestion or Jensen speaker would work better.

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Thanks for the heads up, might have to sell em on feebay!

Thanks Dave.

Anyone know of any amp kits??

http://www.valveheaven.com/diy-amp-kits/

@ Dedman Cheers for posting that link to the Lamington Amp website, they look like really cool projects, I might consider getting a Lamington III kit next year.

I toyed with the idea but you have seen my soldering........not up to amp building yet LOL