The Steel Guitar Forum

In the 112 amp, how much lighter would the
Neodyium speaker be, and how much if any would it affect the tone as apposed lets say to the Blue Marvel. Tom

I don't know about the 112, but I was talking to someone in Dallas who replaced the 15" BW in his Nashville 400 with a Neodyium. He said it cut the weight by six pounds.

When I replaced the 12" Fender speaker in my amp with a Celestion N-D, it saved about 7 pounds. As far as the tone difference, I think a good N-D speaker would be an improvement over the Marvel.

I think I recall Mike Brown saying in another thread that Peavey is working on a Neo 15" Black Widow that will handle 350 watts and weighs in at 7 or 8 lbs that would give a weight reduction of 9 or 10 lbs off a standard 15" black widow. I want two of them as soon as they are available. That would mean 18-20 lbs of weight that I wouldn't be carrying. One of my concerns is the sound from them. A friend of mine has a new Evans with a Deltalite 15" in it and he has the treble all the way down and uses an inline MXR Graphic Eq to roll the highs off further. It appears that there will have to be some work done on the Eq Circuitry in some amps to accomodate the Neo speakers, unless Peavey has that worked out in the response Curve of their Neo Black Widow. I wouldn't be surprised, Peavey is right on top of things and They would be the first to have their Act together.

I believe Mike said he was using one already in His NV 1000. Maybe we can get some response from him and some updated info.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by John Floyd on 24 March 2004 at 09:15 PM.]</p></FONT>

I can't wait for that lighter weight speaker. I wish Peavey would hurry and put it in the 112. Then I would give up my 30 lb crate and get the 36 lb peavey 112....al

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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/

About the impedence of speakers with neodymium magnets:

I believe the Eminence "Delta Lite", 15" is rated at 8 ohms. I'm not sure if that's the same impedence for all neodymium speakers, but it is well known, a speaker with an 8 ohm load will reduce the output RMS wattage when compared to the same amp with a 4 ohm load. This will have an effect on tone and volume at the same settings. Keep that in mind if you swap a 4 ohm BW, EV or JBL with an 8 ohm neodymium speaker.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

<SMALL>"This will have an effect on tone and volume at the same settings."</SMALL>

Hmmmm. Volume yes, not so sure about tone.
Also, IF it is a tube amp and the rated output of the amp is 8 ohms, you get maximum power transfer if the speaker is 8 ohms. Go above or below this and you lose power.

If the outpout is 4 ohms, then of course you are absolutely correct about power. But remember, it takes 10 times the amount of power change for the human ear to detect a doubling (or halving) of power.

So most will perceive little change between 4 and 8.

Solid State amps do not have a rated output impedance, but most audio engineers say don't go below 2 ohms for the total speaker load. Because output transistor current rises exponentially below this and is almost guaranteed to blow them.

carl

Two ohms is living on the edge Carl, a lot of solid state amps won't handle 2 ohms without popping its cork and a lot of other things.
Some will, Some won't. Should always check the manufacturers specs before putting a 2 ohm load on a solid state power amp.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by John Floyd on 25 March 2004 at 07:33 AM.]</p></FONT>

Hey John, speaking of low impedence load handling, I recently bought a McIntosh MC352 power amp. Check these specs. keeping in mind McIntosh always meets and frequently surpasses their advertised specs:

Output:
Stereo: 350 watts/Channel (8/4/2 ohms)
Mono Parallel: 1 x 700 watts (4/2/1 ohms) !!

'Course you'd have to have a big rack and big arms to lug this baby it's 8.89" H x 17.5" W x 22.125"D and weighs a mere 105 lbs.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Hey Glenn,
If that McIntosh get's to be too much weight for ya , you can always drop me a line, and I'll take that heavy son of a gun off your hands !!... Jim

Howdy James!

That's just what I said to the guy who's using it.... It's being used to drive low frequency oscillations in a condensed matter physics research lab. The 1 ohm spec was critical for the application. The power bandwidth for 350 watts is 20Hz to 20,000Hz. Pretty impressive for home stereo gear.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Glenn
When I was with General Electric Company we used a Mac Power amp, We required a 100 volt signal to drive a hydrophone for Sonar testing.
Macintosh was the only power amp we found that would carry the load. Great Equipment and lasts forever. They don't build amps like that anymore. Hang on to that one.

John, McIntosh is still making great amps. See: www.mcintoshlabs.com

They don't make the MC352 any more. I bought it as a show room demonstrator for $3,295. It listed for about $5K. The MC352 has been superceded by the MC402 (800 watts Mono Parallel at 4/2/1 ohms!)

About a year ago they were selling a special "anniversary " model with a 14K gold plated chassis and "14K gold" specs. for a meesily $12K

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Glenn Suchan on 25 March 2004 at 01:40 PM.]</p></FONT>

I never knew what the one we had cost, Uncle Sam bought with The Taxpayers bucks for us to use on his ships, probably paid the entire $5K Plus, knowing how G9overnment purchasing works. Probably more than $5K in Labor costs in researching, ordering, tracking and Doing all the Government property paperwork. That $3295 amp you bought probably cost the Taxpayers up to $10K

Be patient and you'll see ours in the near future.

Ahh, Yes. Beauracracy, don't 'cha just love it?

I wish I could afford McIntosh gear for my home music system.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

I sometimes use an external 12 inch Electrovoice speaker, just for the heck of it I weighed it before putting it in the
encloser, it was exactly 12 lbs. Tom