Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

HIWATT Cabinets and Speakers from the Hylight Electronics era

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lffish133
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Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by lffish133 »

Is there much difference between the Fanes that were used in the Hylight era Hiwatt cabs and the Fanes used in the early Sound City cabs?
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mhuss
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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by mhuss »

I don't think so. I suspect Arbiter and crew kept on using the same speakers after DR moved on.

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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by Dr.HI-TONE »

My answer is "it depends". The earlier the Sound City then the greater the chance that the speaker was very similar if not the same. There is a model that DR had a hand in the design of that I have seen in SC and HIWATT SE4122 cabs. This is the 17,000 gauss, 50 watt, 15 ohm speaker. They are an outstanding speaker

A friend of mine gave me a couple pages out of a Fane Acoustics ledger that shows what appears to be Hylight Electronics marked out and Arbiter written above it. What does that mean????????? It could be from the point where Hylight stopped selling amps to Arbiter, or some have speculated that Arbiter made an effort to get the speakers that DR had a hand in, long after Reeves ended his relationship with Arbiter.

In most cases Mark is right. But there are a few of them out there.
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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by lffish133 »

Thanks for the info, I was having a hard time reading the stats on the stickers from the pics of the 50 watters I've seen. From what I have been able to find It looks like Sound City used mainly 30W and 40W Fanes, both were 15ohms as well. The Flux Density was 10,000 (from what I can tell), and 14,000.
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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by Dr.HI-TONE »

The 30 and 40 watt speakers were not used by HIWATT. The 50 watt I mentioned above is the only example I know of.
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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by Mike B. »

Interesting information. Only last week someone asked me about this very topic and I had to tell him that I'd "check the forum" to see if anyone had posted concerning this issue!

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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by foster »

Anyway,

in the morning I decided to tried the cab in the studio, miked with an sm57, and the tone was good but not too exciting..

so I had the idea to take a look at the wirings and I unmouted just one speaker, the wirings was made of a very thin cable and the solders on the speakers appeared not so great as I expexted to be..

So I decided to rewire the cab with a good speaker cable, the one that I always use to wire all my cabs.

After done it, I came back into the control room and turned on my DR103 and....the tone was AWESOME!!!!

Big, Fat and Punchy!!! Even Clean or Overdriven.. And without the annoying sizzle of all the Celestions!!!

Long live to Fane's Speakers!!

Now I'm a happy guy! Ahahahahahaha!!!!

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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by OldSchoolDave »

foster wrote: Big, Fat and Punchy!!! Even Clean or Overdriven.. And without the annoying sizzle of all the Celestions!!!
Good way to phrase that!

Checking the wiring of a used cab is a lesson I learned awhile back. I my case, it was an "M" cab with 55Hz Celestion blackbacks that just sounded horribly thin. A previous owner had cross wired the thing so the speakers were out-of-phase. Once corrected, it sounded as expected....annoying sizzle and all ;) .

Glad to hear you're happy with the cab now.

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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by foster »

OldSchoolDave wrote:
foster wrote: Big, Fat and Punchy!!! Even Clean or Overdriven.. And without the annoying sizzle of all the Celestions!!!
Good way to phrase that!

Checking the wiring of a used cab is a lesson I learned awhile back. I my case, it was an "M" cab with 55Hz Celestion blackbacks that just sounded horribly thin. A previous owner had cross wired the thing so the speakers were out-of-phase. Once corrected, it sounded as expected....annoying sizzle and all ;) .

Glad to hear you're happy with the cab now.

Dave
Yes Dave, very happy!!

I also have the possibility to buy an old Hiwatt cab with 122142 Fanes...what I would expect from them in terms of tone, and in terms of difference compared to the 122190 Fanes of

my Sound City cab?

Thx

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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by OldSchoolDave »

foster wrote: I also have the possibility to buy an old Hiwatt cab with 122142 Fanes...what I would expect from them in terms of tone, and in terms of difference compared to the 122190 Fanes of my Sound City cab?
Haven't run that combination side-by-side, but I'd expect the 122142 cab to be a touch less "woody" and have noticeably more "rumble".

When you've checked 'em out, let me know how close that guess was ;) .

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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by foster »

OldSchoolDave wrote:
foster wrote: I also have the possibility to buy an old Hiwatt cab with 122142 Fanes...what I would expect from them in terms of tone, and in terms of difference compared to the 122190 Fanes of my Sound City cab?
Haven't run that combination side-by-side, but I'd expect the 122142 cab to be a touch less "woody" and have noticeably more "rumble".

When you've checked 'em out, let me know how close that guess was ;) .

Dave
Hi Dave,

what do you mean for "woody"?

Do you also think they'll have too much bass frequencys for guitar?

The 122190 still are plenty of bass frequencys..

I've read somewhere that the 122142 Fanes were best suited for bass guitar, is it true?

Do you think that should be better to found an 122231 Fanes loaded cab to try instead of the 122142 one?..ore the 122231 are just similiar to the 122190?

Sorry for all the questions, but I begin to be intrigued by those speakers and would find the best match for my DR103..

Thx

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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by Dr.HI-TONE »

an SE4122 with 122142 Fanes aqre excellent for guitar, they are better for bass than an SE4123 with 122231 Fanes.

Either HIWATT cab will be a better match for your DR103 than the SC cab. But everyones ears are different and speakers can be like ice cream. there are lots of good flavors, only you can decide your favorite.
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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by foster »

Dr.HIWATT wrote:an SE4122 with 122142 Fanes aqre excellent for guitar, they are better for bass than an SE4123 with 122231 Fanes.

Either HIWATT cab will be a better match for your DR103 than the SC cab. But everyones ears are different and speakers can be like ice cream. there are lots of good flavors, only you can decide your favorite.
Thx for your reply,

but for guitar, expecially for recording, between an SE4122 and an SE4123, which one should you choose? and why?

Thx

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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by Dr.HI-TONE »

Either, they are both excellent for guitar.
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Re: Hylight Hiwatt Fanes VS Sound City Fanes

Post by OldSchoolDave »

foster wrote: but for guitar, expecially for recording, between an SE4122 and an SE4123, which one should you choose? and why?
As Dr.Hiwatt said, there are no wrong answers :) .

You'll need to try them and determine which is better for YOU.

I've always leaned toward "bassier" speakers (55Hz Celestions, 122142 Fanes, 15" JBL's, etc.) for guitar. But that's just me - and its a preference that's developed over years of playing. Gotta find your own voice!

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