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):
