Speakers. The last opportunity to modify your tone. Unlike hi-fi speakers which attempt to create sounds that are true to the musical source fed them, guitar speakers impart their own tone.
Your amp/cabinet pretty much determines three things about what speaker to select; speaker size, impedance and power rating. (See our tech corner article on Speaker Impedance, Power Handling and Wiring). But the tone is up to you! Speaker replacement is probably the easiest mod you can perform.
The C8R is the little gem in the Jensen Vintage series. It delivers a solid compact tone that defies its size. Extremely versatile, it finds application in small home and student amplifiers; but with a microphone in front, it is capable of transferring on tape some of the biggest tones ever. Not by chance, the vintage Fender® Champ® amplifiers produced with the C8R speaker are treasured by many players as a great studio tool.
The Mod 8-20 is a 8" ferrite speaker with 20 watts of power. Straightforward tone with smooth highs and more predominant lows. It responds to overdrive distortion with a mellow fuzz overdrive.
The C12N is one of the most important speakers in Jensen’s history. It is the top 12” speaker of the ‘Blackface Era, used by many American manufacturers in the mid ‘60s for their upper range models when the price of AlNiCo became unsustainable for the manufacturers. Clear highs, solid mids, and powerful basses, it epitomizes the tone of that decade, from the surf, the rock n’ roll, the electric blues and the West Coast inspired music. It was used in Twin, Bassmanä and Bandmasterä style amps, and many others.
Following the heritage of the P12Q, the C12Q is one of the most versatile speakers in the Vintage range. Powerful enough for a cranked Deluxe-style amp yet balanced and warm, it surely is not lacking in bite. It has been used in both single and twin configurations by countless manufacturers including Fender®, Ampeg®, Silvertone® and Supro®, just to name a few.
The Mod 10-50 is a 10" ferrite speaker with 50 watts of power. Warm, straightforward tone and tight bass frequencies. When presented with overdrive distortion, it exhibits a colorful fuzz edge.
One of the archetypical speakers in the range, the P8R has been installed in thousands of Champ and Princeton style amps for decades. Slightly clearer sounding than the C8R, its ceramic cousin, the P8R shines in clean and slightly crunch applications, where the typical chime of the AlNiCo magnets helps the sparkling harmonics to bloom.
The P12Q is a lower power sibling to the P12N, with a smaller voice coil and a vintage steel basket, nicknamed the “hot dog” or “sausage” because of the shape of the openings in its basket frame. Warm and balanced sounding, with a nice bite in the upper midrange, it is a very interesting allrounder, for many different applications from the traditional country and jazz tones to the more aggressive rock and roll and blues application. Typically it was found in ‘holy grail’ amps such as the vintage Tweed Deluxe and other similar models as well as the Ampeg® Jet, Gibson® GA-20 and many more.
Adopted primarily in the Vibrolux® and Vibroverb® amps of the Brownface and Blackface era, the C10Q is a very easy to drive speaker that breaks up nicely with straightforward biting character. It was also very common in many Silvertone® and Valco® amps. It loves the 2x10 configuration and the floating baffles.
The P10R is very important in the history of Jensen speakers. Its shimmering, yet throaty and vibrant tone is one of the signatures of the Tweed era and inspired the start-up of the British tones. It was the first speaker reissued by Jensen, presented to a restricted panel of partners at the 1999 Summer NAMM show. The P10R is the speaker that contributed to the magical tone of the 4x10 Bassman® Tweed amps, the 4x10 Super Tweed Amps and the equally mythical 3x10 Bandmaster® amps.
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