More about the big ten-inch! (Shoot-out part duex!)

More about the big ten-inch! (Shoot-out part duex!)

Twelve-inch speakers get all the glory, but personally, I love ten-inch transducers.  Many of my favorite amps of all time produce their magical sound through either a quartet or a duet of ten-inch speakers. So, last week we did a little shoot-out of tens in Super Reverbs, trying to see just how close we could get a modern Reproduction Super Reverb Amp to sound like a vintage ’67 model ... and darn if the little WGS Vet Tens didn’t almost do it!  Okay, so this week I’m doing another great speaker shoot-out involving the WGS Veteran 10.  In this shoot-out, I aim to please you, the loyal WGS fan, by addressing several concerns you had with last weeks shoot-out.  This time around, we used a pair of matching Custom Vibrolux Reverb amps, and man was it a serious shoot-out, we got down in the dirt, baby.  Read on for the nitty gritty.

First, I addressed all of the reader comments I received:

1.      Yes, I used good mics and mic prees this time!

2.      I used no reverb, so we could just hear the straight tone of the speakers.

3.      I kept my playing even simpler so the tones could be more easily discerned.

4.      I correctly identified EVERY SPEAKER!

Here is the deal on that last point, when we were listing to the stock Jensen P10R Alnico tens in the re-issue Super Reverb, I held up a speaker as an example.  The speaker I held up was actually an Alnicio Ten made by Eminence; hey, it was an honest mistake, those are the speakers Fender sent as OEM replacements for the Jensen P10R’s (interesting huh), and they do look very similar.  Okay, let's get moving forward ... So, the first shootout we did was between the "stock" Jensen P10Rs and the "OEM" Eminence blue-frame Alnico Tens. I know we’re starting out kind of boring here, but it gets good in the end, trust me!  Quick synopsis: The Jensens sounded a tiny bit sweeter on the top and warmer on the bottom, with a little less ice-pick highs; but they were very similar to one another!  Here is the video:

Next we tested the Stock (made in Italy) re-issue Jensen P-10R’s to those wonderful little WGS Veteran 10’s.  The synopsis: The Vet tens definitely warmed up the tone and removed even more ice-pic.  Here’s the video:

Then, just for the fun of it, we compared the stock re-issue Jensen’s to a pair of vintage CTS Alnico tens from the mid-sixty’s (ie: some damn fine speakers).  The result was even warmer and sweeter than the Vet 10’s.  But hey, that really wasn’t a fair comparison.  So my suggestion is to get the real-deal vintage speakers if you can afford them (and if they are still in good functional condition), otherwise, there ain’t nothing out there that can beat those little Vet 10’s!  Here is the video:

So then my dear chitlins things got plumb crazy!  I decided to really up the ante on this little ten-inch comparison, next we put a pair of WGS’s awesome G10’s in a Vibrolux (one G10A and one G10C).  The results were surprising, even to me, and I kind of knew what to expect; but I’m gonna leave you this week with a cliff-hanger.  To hear the tone of a stock Vibrolux with the two best sounding ten inch speakers man has ever produced ... TUNE IN NEXT WEEK. (hint: it’ll be worth it!)  Oh, and for those of you who requested some high-gainspeaker shoot-outs, your times a commin’!  Next we’ll use Marshall JCM 900’s and pit the usual Celestion suspects aginst our very own WGS models.  It’ll be a smoking good time, and its coming up soon!

-Vaughn-

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