Vox DA 5 Replacement Speaker?

[Sollophonic]

I recently got hold of a little Vox DA5 cheaply (because it was a) Used and b) Pink!) to use as a small practice/workshop amp, and I love the thing. Although some of the high gain settings and some of the effects are a bit cheesy, I love its portability and sound for the money.

What I do for a bit of volume and tone at the moment is line it out into my Valve Jnr, then into a 2 x 10" cabinet. It sounds great through that, and is a good way of getting reverb, tremolo and delay mixed with the VJ tone.

Just wondering though, I seem to remember reading somewhere that folks have changed out the speaker on the DA5 with a better one and have had good results.

Has anyone done this, and what speaker did you use? I guess it is a 5" speaker in the DA5, but is there a Jensen, Weber, Celestion or other better quality speaker that will retro-fit into this little wonder and give it even better tone?

Thanks

 

[Post Toastie]

Why not put a 6.5 inch speaker in it.After all thats what is in there now.

 

[Sollophonic]

Sorry, yes it does have a 6.5" speaker, I measured it across the front cavity rather than open up the back.

I was just wondering if anyone had swapped it out for anything else?

 

[ruger9]

Somebody on another forum said an 8" speaker fits... even an alnico one. I've been considering getting a Weber 8" alnico to put in my DA5...

 

[Robster]

I have a DA5 and put in an 8 inch vox speaker from my Vox pathfinder 15 amp. Amp was no louder, but had more bass, but overall the original one sounded better and was reinstalled in it. Maybe a more efficient Jensen or Weber would be better.

 

[telbert twang]

It´s known that by common approach it is hard/impossible to fit 8" speaker adequately into DA5 cab since the speaker gets overlapped in upper zone, but , how about that! World´s first nicely centered 8“ speaker mod to DA5 (C8R in this case)

Some more ´explanatory graphic material´:

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/medium/Copy_of_IMG_3701.jpg

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/medium/Copy_of_IMG_3703.jpg

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/medium/Copy_of_IMG_3705.jpg

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/medium/Copy_of_IMG_3707.jpg

 

[ruger9]

guys, please tell us more about the differences in tone between the stock speaker & 8"... (I'm surprised to hear the stock speaker sounded better?!?!)

 

[telbert twang]

From my experience : in DA5 the 8" makes it more round sounding, louder as well , and certainly a tad ´bigger´(something similar to 12 vs 10 inch). My DA5 is now less boxy sounding , sounds a bit better when more cranked (comparing to the original 6.5") , C8R is nicely clear and less midsheavy on cleans . I think it needs some more break-in to get more detailed info about the differences .


My personal opinion about tone/soundmodels quality difference between the 2 high fun-factor practice amps , the Roland MC and Vox DA5 still is , that MC is WAY better quality in sound models and also the knobbing simplicity (specially when it has 6.5" speaker inside by now ). MC sound more similar to `real thing´, although it´s sound is smaller than DA5. Plus the MC´s much more decent (not that cheap as DA5, noticed specially inside) finish quality in every aspect, plus, more compact, plus cheaper cells. On the other hand - DA5 is bigger sounding and has some very cool extra features/effects. Both are great all-in-all

 

[Sollophonic]

I think I might do this speaker mod, but also put it on a switching jack socket so that you can run it into a cabinet. Has anyone done this to the DA5?

 

[telbert twang]

in my opinion, the maximum effectiveness of these (pretty serious) toys is achieved either when you take them along in your car´s trunk with beer and bbq material (and a tele of course) and drive some nice place to chill or jam , or are just ´noodling´ on a living room´s coach (wife´s not happy but not mad as well - you´re not too loud ) , enjoying either way the option of no depend on power cable. So for me there is no need for plugging them into bigger cabs - other gear for bigger sound.

I have read somwehere about great results with MC and DA5 into cab. There has been done the external cab socket mods on both of them. Can´t find the link(s) at the moment

 

[ruger9]

I've done the external speaker jack on my DA5 and I can attest it sounds GREAT into a 12" Red Fang cabinet. It sounds like it's bigger brothers, the AD series.

I use my DA5 for 2 things:

1) my travel amp... to take away on vacation with me. I can jam in the backyard, or at the beach, or a cabin in the woods, or wherever. No power required.

2) it's my "bedroom level" amp for playing after the others have gone to bed.

And the headphone jack is great in the DA5 as well, it has a speaker emulation added so it doesn't sound like bees in a pop can in the headphones.

 

[Post Toastie]

Do you guys use the Da-5 as an open back or closed back when playing?

 

[telbert twang]

i use both open (louder but kinda more´untight´) and closed (a bit more ´tight´ , more bass is present) . In addition, i remade the back panel´s one edge into such shape that i can turn it around and use something whatever like ´semiclosed´ (no dramatic ´extra sound option´ achievement though) :

 

[ruger9]

Closed. To get as much low end as I can, because the little thing puts out NONE.

 

[Tonyk]

DA-5 speaker replacement

Thanks to telbert twang for his pictures of the modified DA-5 with an 8" Jensen. Anyone else tried this. And, would it really hamper the new 8" speaker performance if the sound hole covered a portion of it.

 

[Alamo]

I would like to try a DA-5 speaker replacement too.
I have a spare 8" no-name speaker (which sounds pretty good actually) but it's 4 ohms impedance.
the Vox speaker has 8 ohm - so that would be a missmatch.

Q: would that 4 ohm speaker ruin the Da5?

anyone?

 

[Rick J]

Does a Weber 6" go in a DA5?

I've been reading the above posts, and was wondering if any of the Weber Alnico 6 models would fit in a DA5, - there much toted as significant upgrades to a say a Champ or suchlike. The Vox speaker is stated as being 6.5" so in theory the Weber would be too small, - but I wonder if anyone has tried this and found it to be a problem in practice.

Rick J

 

[da5moder]

da5 8 inch eminece alpha

i tried the vox 15.
i tried the jensen from 1973
a peavey 8 royal valve king////.. piece of .s%@t
i tried the beta 8 (to heavy a speaker)and to dark sounding ..
i ripped the top part off he face so no cutting into the bottom.

i have the alpha 8 it sounds smooth . no breakup and blows the cat out of the
room when i look at him ,,,,then it.
with an acoustic baby taylor... go alpha you wont be dissapointed

and does that look bad@@s or what?

 

[Alamo]

I made the 8" speaker replacement and the external speaker-jack-mod today.
the 8" Fender speaker came from my tweed Bronco which got a 10" speaker a couple of days ago.
nice improvement in sound and it gets even better with the external jack when needed.

found this on the web, thought I'd share if anyone wants to do it too.

Disconnect the speaker wires from the speaker and run them to the jack.
Green-tab is your ground from the amp AND run a new wire from the same tab back to the speaker (negative) onboard.
Hot goes to the lug for the longer tip then the inside shorter tip's lug gets a new wire going back to the speaker (positive). It's called a mono normally-closed jack