Tone Tubby in Dearmond R15T amp?

[Barrettworld]

Hi all.

A few years ago, a family friend found a Dearmond R15T amplifier on the sidewalk during a rainy trash day. He let the amp dry out for a year or so in his garage, then gave it to me! It's in near mint condition, and after a couple hundred dollars in tubes and TLC at the amp doctor, is one of the best sounding amps I've ever heard!

It currently has the original Jensen speaker, but you can hear it starting to go, and I think I should retire it while there's still a little life in it. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good replacement 12" speaker for this monster of an amp? I've heard some wonderful things about tone tubbies, but haven't had a chance to try them first hand. Any thoughts on whether it'd be a good match or not? I've heard they're a bit dark sounding. Tonequest seemed to like the Eminence Wizard in their Clarksdale recreation of this amp... Any experience with that?

FWIW, I like to use this amp with a telecaster, and I usually plug into a Victoria Reverberato, which splits the signal between the Dearmond R15T and a 1964 Vibroverb. I like to keep both amps between two and three, so it's a mostly clean tone. YOu can hear me playing with this rig and a tone I'm happy with on Dimples; it's the last video at the bottom of the page (it was a dark club, sorry the visuals are so lousy but the audio is pretty good). I'll post some pics of the rig when I have a chance.

Thanks for the help!

[redstringuitar]

Tone tubbies are great sounding speakers, they use hemp for the cones,,,but they're also expensive.
I can definitely recommend the cheaper Eminence Cannabis Rex, got one in my Kustom '36 Coupe and it sounds just beautiful, not dark, full and smooth! Has a hemp cone, just like the tt's, but at about a quarter of the price.
I've heard great things about the Emi Wizard, some speaker guru on the web was even touting it as the best sounding Eminence ever...high praise indeed!

[JamonHamon]

Check out Eminence Cannabis Rex but I really like the New Jensen P12q and Celestion Blues G12

[rangercaster]

you really need to post very detailed pics of your amp,front and back, both inside and out, along with a schematic, so we can make an informed decision ...

[jseymour]

Hi, I have a bunch of these DeArmond amps. FWIW here's my 2 cents worth. I have a Martin 112 (same as the DeArmond R 15) that was serviced by Jeff Bakos in Atlanta. (Bakos is the guy who builds the "Clarksdale" amps, and is probably the #1 go-to guy when it comes to DeArmond/Martin amps.) Jeff put in a new "Hellatone" speaker. Sounds wounderful ! I also the same amp with the original Jensen Special Design speaker. Very nice, but the Helatone is definitely better. I also have a DeArmond R 15T that had a Quam speaker put in it at some point that sounds very good also.

If it's important to you that your amp be set up as "right" as possible, you should talk to Bakos. I know it's not cheap to ship stuff back and forth to Atlanta, but he's the guy if you want the amp to sound as good as it can.

Jeff is a real nice guy who always seems happy to talk amps over the phone. I think you can find him listed as "Bakos Amp Works" in Atlanta (ponce de Leon st ???).

Good luck, JS

[sjhusting]

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