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Post subject: MIII speaker replacenment observations
Posted: Wed May 04, 2016 7:23 am
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:53 pm
Posts: 972
I was going to reply in a thread about this but i decided to start a new one so more people would see this. I think it's important. Until recently I was pretty convinced the stock celestion was about as good as you're going to do because the amp was voiced around that speaker. I now know i was very wrong about that. I installed a EV12L in the MIII recently, a speaker that was my #1 in every combo i have owned since about 1990. Before that i used all sorts of speakers but was never happy with any till i tried the EV. This wasn't the first time i tried this, but when i first got the MIII i connected it to then EV in my tube amp via a cable I made to connect to the MIII's speaker wires. I wasn't crazy about it but I now know why, but i won't go into that because it'll be too long winded.

Anyways, what sparked me to put the EV in the MIII combo was a jam with friends. I played bars for decades using the EV for at least 1/2 that time but today i no longer gig, tho i do jam with friends or do the rare gig with old bandmates occasionally. But it;s so seldom i never had a chance to really evaluate the amp fully. But the one thing i DID notice the times i have gigged it is the top end was very hard to tame at stage volume, plus the low end was very boomy on certain models especially, and dialing that out left me with a tinny sound. Even if i didn't dial it out the top end was near impossible to tame. This last jam was the turning point because i just could not get a fat full sound to save my life. I have always said the MIII was as good or better then any of the tube amps i gigged regularly for many years but i now realize thats at low volume and at stage volume not so much, at least not with the stock speaker.

Well, in goes the EV and talk about a revelation. One reason i know I didn't like that first time i tried it was that at low volume the celestion is fine, except that the low end even there is boomy on certain models. But it is at volume that i now find the difference is huge. The tone stays almost the same as at lower volumes except for the usual added punch and all that which you get from the speaker working. Anyways, with the celestion i find as you turn up all the bloom and sag in the plain strings turns to a hard attack with no give. Thats gone. With the EV the chewy top end remains unless you dial it out. And thats one of the great changes....bad things about the tone at stage volume with the celestion could NOT be dialed out, but with the EV it can. Before i couldn't dial out the bad at stage volume because it would cause other bad things to happen. Remove the boominess, amp gets tinny. Remove the tinniness, amp gets boomy. There was no in between. With the EV all controls are more usable. And i could never get any body to the sound at stage volume like i could at low volume. The mids disappear at volume with the celestion leaving all hard highs and boomy lows and no body. Now it's got a full sound with plenty of body in the mids to support the highs and lows,m which themselves are worlds better.

Overall it's like a different amp at stage volume. Totally different. At home volume that wasn't necessarily apparent at first, but after a bit it became evident even there. Models i could never come to terms with i now like. Marshalls for example. Hated the marshall models, not i can adjust them to sound like i want because the controls are much more usable. The bassman model which i loved but stopped using a while back i am now using again because the low end was so boomy it was unusable without the greenbox to tighten it up. Even then the boominess remained to some degree. Now it's gone and i have a bank of presets with different models i use where as before i had one main model i used 95% of the time. Now i used about 5 different models and like them all !

I have not been able to put my guitar down with this "new" amp that i have had 2 years now. I wish i would have realized this before. The EV is heavy and i'm not sure the baffle will handle it so i may add 4 more bolts to keep it from tearing out of the particle board baffle. But anyways, i guess being a flat response speaker compared to most guitar speakers, thats probably why it's so much better. Modelers are often played thru flat response systems and the EV's lack of peaks and valleys just works in this scenario. Then again, it worked great for me in tube amps for years.

So if like me you find the mustang a biotch to EQ live and find the top hard and void of good feel as in "give" "bloom" or "sag", you may be a candidate for a speaker like this. I know eminence makes a sort of EV clone for a lot less called the delta or deltas 12A if i recall correctly which supposedly sounds like a EVn with a slightly rolled off low end at a far cheaper price. Around $100 if i recall correctly. Anyways, I honestly can't begin to describe how much better i like the amp now.


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Post subject: Re: MIII speaker replacenment observations
Posted: Wed May 04, 2016 8:46 am
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Rock Star
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Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:37 am
Posts: 4099
Location: New York
oczad .... it's so funny you should post this. Just last night I was noodling around and for the umpteenth time had that feeling that while the Celestion may be a great speaker all around, it just doesn't do what I want it to do in this amp. I could come up with a bunch of words to describe what I don't like about it, but I think you already know what I mean. And it's a bummer, because I considered that speaker to be a big selling point of this amp.

Anyway, thanks for the tip. I would love to hear a little demo if you get the time.

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Post subject: Re: MIII speaker replacenment observations
Posted: Wed May 04, 2016 9:23 am
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Amateur
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Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:13 pm
Posts: 190
Location: Taxachusetts
Glad to hear you found a speaker to work the way you want it to, that EV speaker has a serious Magnet on it. I have the MIV with the Celestion Seventy/80 actually once they broke in they sound very good with the MIV so I have not had the urge to change them.


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Post subject: Re: MIII speaker replacenment observations
Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 5:11 am
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Hobbyist
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Joined: Fri May 07, 2010 12:45 am
Posts: 47
strings10927 wrote:
oczad .... it's so funny you should post this. Just last night I was noodling around and for the umpteenth time had that feeling that while the Celestion may be a great speaker all around, it just doesn't do what I want it to do in this amp. I could come up with a bunch of words to describe what I don't like about it, but I think you already know what I mean. And it's a bummer, because I considered that speaker to be a big selling point of this amp.

Anyway, thanks for the tip. I would love to hear a little demo if you get the time.

I am glad your experiment worked and given back your enthusiasm for the amp. I found mine with Eminence. Those EVs are great speakers, Expensive :shock: but great.


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