Weber FC vs Weber Thames vs Fane Medusa Reissue 100 Watt

[DucaleHH]

Weber FC vs Weber Thames vs Fane Medusa Reissue

Dear all,

Still I am looking for some speakers for two of my three Vintage Hiwatt SA 212 Combos.

In one of the combos there are still installed the original Vintage purple Fanes and I am still not totally happy with them. Playing clean sounds is fantastic – playing overdriven or distorted sounds is not totally convincing as some presence is missing. I t can be dialled in with treble and presence pot from the amp but as said before: I am not totally happy.

As I live in Germany it is too expensive to order a Reeves cabinet or a DR-F cabinet in the US, so I am forced to look for an alternative.
I don’t want to install anything from Celestion, Electro Voice or Eminence into my old Hiwatts – I am have my doubts that an Eminence Tonker or V12 would make me happy, so I will choose between Weber and the Fane Medusa 100 Watt speaker. My goal is to achieve more openness and presence from the speakers and there for I need to know which of the three mentioned above will deliver that openness when the amp is used for overdriven sounds.

Some users say that the Weber Crescendo clone “FC” will deliver more treble response than the Weber Thames – others say the opposite. To me it is quite clear that the Fane Medusa 100 Watt will deliver less bass and more treble as the Fane Medusa 150 Watt speaker, but I never heart a comparison between Fane Medusa and Weber speakers or between Weber FC and Weber Thames.

Is there anybody here who has some experience and could provide me with some feedback? I would just like to choose between these three speakers.

Thanks a lot in advance,

Best regards from Germany,

Thomas

[Dr.HI-TONE]

I would choose a Tonker Lite above the three you have listed.

First choice: Tonker Lite
Second Choice: Medusa

[OldSchoolDave]

I've got to second Dr.Hiwatt's recommendation for the Tonker Lites. They are deceivingly light (which would be great, considering the weight of an SA212), but pack a punch.

Here was our sample with two Tonker Lites in our HI-TONE (vented back) cabinet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MI_WalH ... RANUKb0ITo

They'll sound a bit different in a true open back combo, but the clip should give you some idea (especially if you compare them to the other demos).

Dave

[DucaleHH]

Yesterday night I got a Fane Medusa 100 watt speaker and I was pretty curious how it will sound in comparison to my vintage Fanes. I removed one of my vintage Fanes from my SA 212 and so I could do a direct comparison.

To make a long story short: I was quite disappointed. The Fane Medusa is not a bad speaker and sounds quite Fanes-ish but it is not as open and transparent sounding as my Vintage Fanes: there is really a huge difference! I was astonished about the cold character of the Medusa and the reduced transparency – actually I had expected the opposite as the 100 Watt Medusa has an extended frequency range (6, 5 kHz instead of 6, 2 kHz of the Medusa 150).

So for now the chapter Fane Medusa is closed – search is going on.

As I was already in the mood to continue speaker-swapping, I also compared a Celestion G12H, G12M and a G 65 Heritage to the remaining vintage Fane – it became obvious pretty soon those Celestion speakers are not the right choice for Gilmour inspired Hiwatt sounds.

So I will sell all my Celestions + the Medusa and will order both a couple of Weber FC's + Weber Thames for one last comparison.


Thomas

[Dr.HI-TONE]

prepare to be disappointed.

[mhuss]

Another factor to consider is break-in. A brand new speaker always sounds stiff and cold compared to one that has had some exercise (this is one reason we break in all the speakers we sell ). Any speaker you buy will sound this way compared to your very well broken in Fanes.

--mark

[DucaleHH]

That might be the case that I am still disappointed then.

At least I am quite sure that the Weber Thames should sound (at least) ok - Björn from gilmourish.com got some pretty convincing sounds out of them. I don't have any idea about the Weber FC. Both speakers are extremely expensive in Germany and it shouldn't be a problem to get them sold for a reasonable price.

Still I am deeply frustrated by the Fane Medusa 100 Watt! Anyway, it would have been too easy to find the ideal speaker right at the beginning of my search, just to order them and all problems are solved.

I might happen that the Emi. Tonkerlite will be the one to choose but I have my doubts - lower midrange seems not to be his strong side, but of course I need to hear them.

[DucaleHH]

The Fane Medusa I got, was two years old and was used in a 2x12 cabinet which was powered by a Hiwatt DR 504 twice a week for about 2-3 hours at rehearsal.

[OldSchoolDave]

I might happen that the Emi. Tonkerlite will be the one to choose but I have my doubts - lower midrange seems not to be his strong side, but of course I need to hear them.

The Tonkerlite seems pretty flat from about 650Hz on down:

http://www.eminence.com/curves/curves.p ... &width=580

As we were told during our talks with Eminence, response below 300Hz or so is very cabinet-dependent.

All things being equal, I'd prefer a relatively flat response speaker and effective tone controls (as found in Hiwatts).

Dave

[Dr.HI-TONE]

everyone hears things differently, I am not overly impressed with the gilmourish site.

but to each their own.....

I was terribly disappointed with the Thames. They are much more like Celestions than any Fane.



The FC is not bad, but not great either.

[guitar_tod77]

buy a DRF loaded HITONE 2x12 cab.
yank the speakers.
load the 2x12 with tonkers.
sell the 2x12 cab.
everybody wins

[DucaleHH]

To order and ship a DR-F loaded Hitone cab to Germany is too expensive - so it is not making sense for me.

Last night, once again I played the Fane Medusa speaker ...and once again there is this huge difference in sound in comparison to my vintage Fanes; I really don't like them.

Tonkerlites are at least not cheap in Germany, so still I am not sure what to do.

Does anybody have any experience with those speakers from the UK:

http://www.taydenspeakers.co.uk/tayden-retro-55.html

Unfortunately they don't have published any specs on their site...

From Weber I got the feedback that the Weber Thames speakers are brighter than the Weber FC (Crescendo clone) - in case I go for the Weber FC, I fear to have speaker that is sounding dull. Beside that until now I never found a file where a Weber FC delivered convincing Hiwatt-Gilmour-sounds.

[DucaleHH]

Dear all,

Following your advice I decided to check out the Eminence Tonkerlite speakers. In parallel I ordered a couple of Tayden Retro 55 speakers.
Last night I got time to get them installed and made a couple of sound checks and comparisons.
First of all I must admit that the Tonkerlite is a good speaker – pretty Fane-ish and it has a certain sweetness in the sound which is not very far away from my Vintage Fanes – I really like that.

As I have tested the Tonkerlite in a Hiwatt 212 combo, it became quite obvious that the lower midrange and bass response is a little bit weak – especially in comparison with my Fane Reissue 100 watt speakers. It is not a bad speaker because of this, but it needs to be considered.

As the Fane Reissues are very good related to lower midrange and bass, I put a Tonkerlite and a Fane Reissue in my SA 212 and compared the sound to one of my other SA 212 which still has the vintage purple Fanes installed and that mixture is really a very good alternative in case old vintage Fanes are not available – the Fane Reissue is providing lower midrange and the Tonkerlite provides sweetness and treble response.

After that I took my third SA 212 and installed the Tayden Retro 55 speakers which are especially made for to be a good replacement for all cabinets which had Fane speakers installed.

Before I hit the first chord, I asked myself what kind of treble response and sweetness I would get and/or whether they would also sound a little bit too “covered” – like being placed behind a curtain ( like Fane Reissues).

But when I started to play, I felt I was hit by a gas stroke- so much openness and transparency I haven’t heard before – I was really blown away by that sound.
The speaker is pretty Fane-ish as it is neither harsh sounding nor it doesn’t have any ice pick highs like Celestion V30s. But at the same time it is much more transparent – a touch of of little alnico-feeling – and there is also a good bass response. Lower midrange is not as dominant as in the Fane Reissues, but it is much more noticeable as with the Tonlerlite. When I reduced the presence level about two stages i.e. from 2 o’clock down to 12 o’clock, it sounds very close to a Vintage Fane but staying a little bit more transparent.

During the night I started playing the backing track from, “Raise my rent” from David Gilmour and took the SA212 with the Tayden speakers. I added a muff (RAMS head), Electric Mistress, a Boss CS-2 and T-Rex replica and played nearly for 2 hours. The sound was so close to the original…I used both Stratocaster and Telecaster and I am still really impressed!

To me the search is over – I will leave all my SA212s as they are now. They all sound very good now, but different from each other – so sound wise I have a couple of good alternatives now. I like the one with the original vintage Fanes, I like the combination of Fane Reissue and Tonkerlite and I love the Taydens.

Two things I would like to add: I own both BYOC Large Beaver muffs; the triangle version and the Ram’s head version and never liked the triangle because it was a little bit too muddy and un-tight.

With the Taydens this muff now sounds absolutely amazing and therefore it went back on my pedal board now.
The second remarkable point is, that at lower volumes (i.e. at home) the Taydens are much easier to handle as they are more dynamic and responsible as the others. Especially the Fane Reissues are pretty weak in that sense (and need to be played pretty loud).

If I had to rate the different speakers, it would be like this (treble,midrange,bass,transparency):


Fane Reissue: 2 5 4 2
Purple Vintage Fane: 3 4 3 3
Tayden Retro 55: 4 3 3 5
Eminence Tonkerlite: 3 4 2 4

Cheers

Thomas

[OldSchoolDave]

Thanks for the detailed report, Thomas.

I haven't seen Taydens in the U.S.. I suppose they'd ship across the pond, but that seems a bit risky (as you've experienced from the other side).

At any rate, I'm glad you found something that works for you. Have fun!

Dave

[philmanatee]

The Taydens definitely sound interesting, I hope I can try them someday.