To recone or not to recone a vintage speaker

[Stewart Ward]

Snip...
Oh, and to the poster who referenced me as "chum", there are lots of reasons for amps to fart out. However, if you have you connect two speakers to the same amp and one speaker is farty and one isn't you can't really point to the amp.

Well, please read my reply more carefully. Quote: Farting is due to the cone being unable to handle a lot of bass... and in my experience, a problem many US amps suffer with.

By that, I was indicating that the speakers might be farting because the amp was delivering too much LF power which its speaker cone could not handle. If a speaker farts, then it's either due to the reason I gave or the amp is running out of headroom in the power amp at LF.

Or... if both your speakers were of the same design, then one has a weak cone, in some way. Paper cone making is not a precise activity, therefore, some variation should be only expected... especially if those speakers are quite old.

BTW, the 'chum' reference is a British term of endearment, which is meant in the nicest way possible.

Sadly, it's all too often the case that music industry 'common knowledge' is not as reliable as perhaps we should expect. No disrespect to Ted at Weber, but I can't really think he would say this, without some reservations to his remarks... as he would be very aware of the potential overheating voice coil problems.

I don't really want to argue, but I would not like people to think that I would accept 'common knowledge' without first questioning it. It was once common knowledge that the world was flat too! Or you would die if you travelled at speeds greater than 40mph!

I think, for the sakes of others, it would serve no purpose to go any further with this discussion, thank you.

 

[DMace]

Let's all get along here. It's just opinions. And I appreciate all of the them. Not to mention, it's just about guitar amps, after all, not curing cancer. Lighten up.
Stewart, I love the quote from your dad. That is truly classic. Words to live by.

 

[Tim Swartz]

You can measure voice coil gaps, thus not an opinion. Oxford opening the gap in the mid '60s is a fact. JBL opening the gap for the D130F in the early '60s is also a fact (BTW, the F is for Fender, FWIW). Whether you like or dislike them would be an opinion.

 

[DMace]

You can measure voice coil gaps, thus not an opinion. Oxford opening the gap in the mid '60s is a fact. JBL opening the gap for the D130F in the early '60s is also a fact (BTW, the F is for Fender, FWIW). Whether you like or dislike them would be an opinion.

So bottom line is: recone the '65 Oxford if I liked the speaker as it was. That's what I'm going to do. Plus, it's a lot cheaper than a brand new Weber.

 

[Tremo]

Pretty common knowledge. It takes a lot more labor to mount the voice coil in a tight gap, which is bad for production. One classic example among guitar ampdom is when Oxfords opened their gap in the mid '60s (presumably to keep up with growing production demand from Fender). They've suffered a poor reputation ever since. Listen to an early '60s Bassman mated w/ a pair Oxford 12M6s vs a '66 or '67. The early ones sound very similar to the Jensen C12Ns, maybe a bit louder and brighter, the later ones are crap and the name Oxfart was coined. For me it is all about sensitivity. Give me an old P12N, reconed or not... or a '60s Celestion...or an SRO...etc...

+1. Could not agree more. The early 60s gold back Oxfords in the brown Fenders sounded great. The mid 60s Oxfarts woulded lame in comparison. 70s Oxfarts are even worse.

One other thing, if the vintage speaker is alnico, it probably meeds to have the magnet recharged. I have a pair of early 60s Jensen P10Qs with brand new cones and they are unusable, the magnets are almost totally flat.

 

[DMace]

+1. Could not agree more. The early 60s gold back Oxfords in the brown Fenders sounded great. The mid 60s Oxfarts woulded lame in comparison. 70s Oxfarts are even worse.

One other thing, if the vintage speaker is alnico, it probably meeds to have the magnet recharged. I have a pair of early 60s Jensen P10Qs with brand new cones and they are unusable, the magnets are almost totally flat.

It's a blue label Fender, 1965 10" Oxford, so I think that would make it ceramic? I love the sound of thing, so I don't care if it's paper mache and refrigerator magnet, I just want the cheapest, easiest way to get the speaker back to 100%, or realistically close to that.

 

[Tim Swartz]

So bottom line is: recone the '65 Oxford if I liked the speaker as it was. That's what I'm going to do. Plus, it's a lot cheaper than a brand new Weber.

That would be my recomendation. There will be some sonic differences, probably a bit edgier until it gets broken in and probably overall tighter.

Oh, and John, thanks for gettin' my back

 

[SamBooka]

The speaker is a 1965 10" Oxford from a Princeton, that I love the sound of. That is, until it started distorting at certain frequencies. I was looking to send it to Weber for a recone, which, remarkably, is only $55: cheaper than a new Eminence or Weber.

I have an Oxford 10K5R from my brown Super. I never thought of Ted for recones! Thanks for the tip!

 

[6942]

Orange County Speakers, in So. California, does a good job reconing also.

Steve

 

[Chris Leger]

Interesting stuff. I promise to read up on it.

To get me started, are you talking about Oxfords only, or are you saying that old Oxfords have a tighter VC gap than modern speakers, e.g. Eminence, Weber, etc?

I'm back.

Turns out, Tim Swartz is right, up to a point. Oxford is said to have increased their voice coil gaps back in the '60s, as one of a number cost-containment measures implemented in the face of increasing competition for Fender's OEM business.

That's about where it ends, however.

That bit of unquantified information tells us nothing about how Oxford's voice coil gap, whether before or after they may have changed it, compares with any other manufacturer's gap, whether past or present. Further, since the speakers produced by Oxford inter al. were essentially copies of earlier Jensen designs, and since Jensen was pretty far from being the epitome of hi-fi (or anything else) back in the '50s and '60s, none of this tells us much of anything, except that as time went on, Oxford speakers as used in Fender amps became increasingly poorer copies of the Jensen speakers they were originally intended to emulate.

Thus, all we might conclude from any of this is that early Oxfords may be preferable to late Oxfords.

Further, since "voice coil gap" is but one of dozens of parameters in speaker design, it isn't really even very interesting, unless you happen, however improbably, to be faced with making a choice between Oxfords of various vintage. I don't think anyone except Tim, and maybe not even he, would suggest that voice coil gap is the most important consideration in choosing a guitar speaker.

It stretches reasonable belief to suggest that vintage speakers are preferable to new ones, given the many advances made in speaker design over the past 50 years. For every claim that voice coil gap is an important factor (let alone the most important,) I could make a similar claim for Kapton, fiberglass, ferrofluid, aluminum, copper, edge-winding, coil venting, ribs, paper comp, etc, etc, etc, down to the form or alloy of the metal used in the basket stamping/casting.

It is most likely that modern speakers, especially ones that are specifically designed to emulate vintage Jensens, Celestions, JBLs, etc, are "better" copies than those produced in the '60s and '70s by Oxford, CTS and Utah, given the additional time available to reverse-engineering, improved manufacturing methods and materials, and the many advantages enjoyed by today's manufacturers, e.g. the singular focus of a Weber, or greater engineering and procurement resources of an Eminence.

It's not even true in general that older speakers have tighter voice coil gaps than newer speakers.

Still, no reason I can see not to recone that old Oxford.

 

[Tim Swartz]

Do you not care to comment on the JBL issue?

Actually Jensen made some pretty desirable hi-fi stuff in the '50s / '60s.

If you want to talk about voice coil gaps, you really need to talk to a speaker guy... like the ones I listed above.

I could care less about voice coil gap when choosing a speaker. It is all about how my being reacts to the sound being produced... is it balanced or do some frequencies stick out or are some void? Does it reproduce the tiniest nuances in my playing (good or bad). As a guy that has had literally hundreds of speakers reconed over the years all I have to go by is what these speaker guys tell me. I have a pet Jensen P10H (think of an N+ size magnet on a 10) from the early '50s that is amazingly full bodied and sensitive... my speaker guys tells me these speakers are tough to align because of the insanely tight gap. They also tells me that older speakers have tighter gaps and typically require more time to recone. These guys do this for a living, so I guess I'll believe them.

 

[Chris Leger]

Do you not care to comment on the JBL issue?

Actually Jensen made some pretty desirable hi-fi stuff in the '50s / '60s.

If you want to talk about voice coil gaps, you really need to talk to a speaker guy... like the ones I listed above.

I could care less about voice coil gap when choosing a speaker. It is all about how my being reacts to the sound being produced... is it balanced or do some frequencies stick out or are some void? Does it reproduce the tiniest nuances in my playing (good or bad). As a guy that has had literally hundreds of speakers reconed over the years all I have to go by is what these speaker guys tell me. I have a pet Jensen P10H (think of an N+ size magnet on a 10) from the early '50s that is amazingly full bodied and sensitive... my speaker guys tells me these speakers are tough to align because of the insanely tight gap. They also tells me that older speakers have tighter gaps and typically require more time to recone. These guys do this for a living, so I guess I'll believe them.

Blah, blah, blah.

What JBL issue?

Which is it? Is voice coil gap important or not? 27 replies ago you told the OP to recone his speaker because of its exquisitely tight VC gap. Now you don't care.

 

[Tim Swartz]

Hmm, I took a hiatus from here for several months (salmon season); does this thread exemplify the current knowledge base & attitude of the board? Or has this thread just spun out of control?

 

[Stewart Ward]

I'm back.

Turns out, Tim Swartz is right, up to a point. Oxford is said to have increased their voice coil gaps back in the '60s, as one of a number cost-containment measures implemented in the face of increasing competition for Fender's OEM business.

That's about where it ends, however. Big snip....

This thread is over for me really. But on technical grounds, one has to point out that changing the size of the gap could be done at the cost of a rise in voice coil temperature. The coil relies on it's proximity to the pole pieces for cooling.

If indeed they did make a change, then they would probably have had to use upgraded materials for the voice coil and former too. This may not have been recorded/reported. If this is the case, then the speaker's characteristics would have changed and it might not have quite the same tone. I would speculate that any change in cone, glue, coil or former mass would do this. Only the guy who authorised the changes would really know by how much! So, to be pedantic FWIW, latter versions are not really the same speaker, just a near equivalent baring the same model number. Not uncommon in manufacturing, hence: "We reserve the right to alter prices and/or specifications without prior notice" disclaimers.

As for the re-cone, it may be unlikely that the exact original cone and voice coil assembly is still available as a replacement part... perhaps only a near equivalent. In which case, the only benefit is probably one of cost.