Sollophonic
Friend of Leo's
I bought this little combo a couple of months ago as a spare for my other Class A amp, and since then have been running it into a 1 x 12" cabinet for gigs. I then started thinking that maybe for rehearsals taking it as a stand alone amp, folks were saying it benefited from a larger speaker anyway. So I looked into a few threads and took a few measurements and worked out that by doing a few tweaks and shims, I could fit a Celestion 30/Ten in there. The issue with these amps is that they have to run into a 16ohm speaker which narrows down the options as well as the speaker depth.
So I set to work.
First task was to remove the speaker cloth and surround after dismantling the amp. Gosh that speaker cloth is held on by an incredible number of staples, way more than needed. Must have removed at least a hundred of them!
Then I started work on enlarging the baffle space for the bigger speaker. The extra sidepiece that goes next to the 8" was actually easy to remove, it is lightly glued and tacked on and came off by getting a chisel blade under it and prising it off.
I then cut a bigger speaker hole and mounted the new speaker. I originally used screws through from the rear of the speaker, but after this shot was taken, I decided to use bolts and locking nuts in from the front of the baffle for more security.
I replaced the speaker cloth and surround (with about half of the staples!)
Now to shim the front of the amp cabinet to move the front baffle forward so it clears the amp chassis. I used short 9mm mdf blocks and had to use 1 3/4" screws to reach the longer distance through from the inside of the amp cabinet.
Cabinet with shims;-
I also shimmed the amp chassis when I put it back, with some 2mm veneer just to ensure that the speaker coil didn't touch anything. The reason the speaker is put with the logo at ninety degrees is that I wanted the wire tabs to direct the speaker wire away from the tubes/valves and make more use of the short wire that is stock on the Origin.
Finally put all the other panels back, they all fitted well. I personally think it looks nicer with the front speaker grill flush with the front rather than inset on the stock amps.
More importantly it sounds a lot better, looking forward to breaking the speaker in a bit at a gig I'm doing this weekend. Plenty loud enough for what I need it for.
So I set to work.
First task was to remove the speaker cloth and surround after dismantling the amp. Gosh that speaker cloth is held on by an incredible number of staples, way more than needed. Must have removed at least a hundred of them!
Then I started work on enlarging the baffle space for the bigger speaker. The extra sidepiece that goes next to the 8" was actually easy to remove, it is lightly glued and tacked on and came off by getting a chisel blade under it and prising it off.
I then cut a bigger speaker hole and mounted the new speaker. I originally used screws through from the rear of the speaker, but after this shot was taken, I decided to use bolts and locking nuts in from the front of the baffle for more security.
I replaced the speaker cloth and surround (with about half of the staples!)
Now to shim the front of the amp cabinet to move the front baffle forward so it clears the amp chassis. I used short 9mm mdf blocks and had to use 1 3/4" screws to reach the longer distance through from the inside of the amp cabinet.
Cabinet with shims;-
I also shimmed the amp chassis when I put it back, with some 2mm veneer just to ensure that the speaker coil didn't touch anything. The reason the speaker is put with the logo at ninety degrees is that I wanted the wire tabs to direct the speaker wire away from the tubes/valves and make more use of the short wire that is stock on the Origin.
Finally put all the other panels back, they all fitted well. I personally think it looks nicer with the front speaker grill flush with the front rather than inset on the stock amps.
More importantly it sounds a lot better, looking forward to breaking the speaker in a bit at a gig I'm doing this weekend. Plenty loud enough for what I need it for.
