Weber VST speakers

Ted Weber knows a heck of a lot about speakers. He's honest, smart and seems to be hard working. The Guitar players of the world are lucky to have him.

I've done a lot of testing with Ted Weber's speakers, talked to him several times (or Ted Jr.), and so on. Here's my top line:

All the Alnico's suck. "If it starts with a P, throw it in the sea". That's my easy-to-remember advice. I know they won the GP shootout. They should have, the ones they tested against sucked worse. Jensen can't give away p12R's. This may not be Ted's fault. Old Alnico's sounded good partly because they came in very good sounding amps, and partly because they are old floppy paper. Indeed, alnico does compress fast - but its not a nice compression. When the speaker heats up it compresses more. So: just when you are at the end of a big rockin passage, you want to punctuate the end of it with a big chord or something and then…fart city. Still, There was a cool high end thing in an old tweed you just can't get any other way but to think you can just drop a new alnico speaker in there and get that tone is stone cold wrong and I know 10 guys who will tell you the same thing. "That Alnico Sound" is a lot more than an alnico magnet. Ted himself explains this well on the site. I suspect he'd agree with this. He only makes alnico reissues because people buy 'em. Go to www.webervst.com. It might be the best guitar speaker site on the web.

The c12N - the ceramic Jensen clone is a fine speaker for a deluxe, or other vintage 1x12 amp. Very oxford-ish, without that funny honk many Oxfords had. Not as dull sounding as most old oxfords. The old Oxfords were pretty trashy, really. I sell mine to the nearest sucker who wants vintage speakers. Sometimes I give 'em away. Ok, only once. Ted's c12N's are much sweeter and better defined, and so on - and cheap. A good deal if you have an old deluxe or pro you are fixing up.

The JBL clones are too dark, and don't sing the way they should (California). Just get a JBL if that's the sound you want. Some folks like the 15's to replace a d130f - but I didn't like them very much. This is a matter of taste. However, by request Ted will make them with or without the metal dust cap - which changes the sound quite a bit.

Another mod he suggested once was a great idea. I wanted a 10" that sounded like a 12". He suggested using a 12" weight voice coil in a 10 - and I'll tell you it was close. Didn't cost a penny extra. He just built it into a Silver Pup - the Silver Bell 10" and it was great. Really dripping with tone and definition - and it really sounded a lot more like a 12 inch speaker because the momentum of the voice coil was more like a 12". Why didn't I just buy a 12" speaker, you ask? Because I didn't want to rebaffle my amp ok?

The t12TH, which he makes for Tophat and was designed by Tophat is a bright star in the speaker world. Lush, balanced, well behaved, not too compressy. Its hard to acheive a soft sweet high/mid and a very tight low/mid with the same speaker - the cone is either stiff or not - but the c12th is the right compromise among the many tradeoffs in a speaker design. Note: this speaker was designed by a Brian at Tophat who builds and voices amps for some of the best players in the world.

Another star in the lineup is the Blue Dog. The Ceramic Blue dog C12B is a great melodic chimey speaker that will rock out when the time comes. I've heard them in several amps, from stage, and audience. Great brit sounds. The Alnico version has the same issue other alnicos have - but it’s the best of the bunch if you must have alnico. It does indeed compress like alnico, but if you want compression you might be better off using a compressor - or turning up your amp. Another good thing about Weber speakers is that you can get more or less power handling by spec'ing the magnet size. When doing a vintage clone, they all handle more than their vintage counterparts - and compared to the Celestion equivalents they are reasonably priced. Blue dogs, C12th, c12N. All fine. Tedrank for these ****. A great alternative to the tyranny of Celestion and Eminence.