vintageHIWATTconvention.com

Here we go...

Weber Thames (50W, 50 oz. magnet, Fane cone treatment) vs. '71 HIWATT Fane 122231 (50W 14,000 flux)

SM-57 centered on dust cap + Sennheiser e906 off-axis, both 1" off grille cloth
A little reverb added in ProTools, no eq or compression.

Amp settings:
Normal = 10
Brilliant = 10
Bass = 7.5
Treble = 2.5
Middle = 3.5
Presence = 5.25
Master Volume = 2

'59 bridge humbucker straight in - no pedals

See if you can "Name That Speaker":
http://home.comcast.net/~going2spain/hi ... aker_X.mp3
http://home.comcast.net/~going2spain/hi ... aker_Y.mp3

Nothing fancy - I spared you guys the Rush references this time.

My guess is Fane is X and Thames is Y..

My computer is just a Dell D510 notebook, so the speakers aren't the greatest.....

Both sound really good!

Headphones, man, headphones! (not iPod earbuds, either)

I'll wait awhile before I spill the beans.

Also, let's hear your comments - what Fane qualities do hear in X/Y that you don't hear in Y/X?

X sounds a little woodier, not quite as bright and crisp as Y.

It makes me think that Y is the newer speaker.

mikhailwatt wrote:Headphones, man, headphones! (not iPod earbuds, either)

Not wanting to be similarly chastised, I plugged in headphones before listening .

That said, I'm going to agree with Clayton's guess (X = Fane / Y = Thames).

The "Y" speaker seemed a bit more scooped in the mids to me. A little less "in your face", so to speak.

Any other guessers out there ?

Dave

Bean spillage time...

X = Fane
Y = Thames

Can't slip anything by you expoits.

Someday the Thames might break in a little better and mellow a bit. I like them both, but I really like the woodiness of the old Fane.

mikhailwatt wrote: X = Fane
Y = Thames

Whew! I was afraid you were going to make fools out of us .

I'd like to hear a comparison again, once the Thames is fully broken in. Are you able to dial in more mid to flatten out the scoop?

Thanks for posting the audio quiz!

Dave

Do we get gold stars for the day?

The Thames sound great and they are fantastic "bang for the Buck"!

OldSchoolDave wrote: I'd like to hear a comparison again, once the Thames is fully broken in. Are you able to dial in more mid to flatten out the scoop?

I could crank the middle, but with the way I've got it set now, turning the middle up past 4 increases the harsher, clanky high-mid "glare" that I had been fighting to tame.

I'm still getting used to this tone stack - at first I always had the middle up around 6-7, treble and presence down to 2-3, but it was still pretty spikey. A couple months ago I started from scratch with everything rolled off, then rolled up the bass and dialed in the middle & treble to suit. I'm really happy with the tone now - it does the "Entre Nous" tone (track 4 from Permanent Waves for the non-Rush fan ) perfectly.

This amp doesn't do mid-scoop in the "metal" sense - and that's fine with me.

Dr.HIWATT wrote:Do we get gold stars for the day?

Sorry, fresh out of gold stars, but you've earned a t-shirt.

mikhailwatt wrote:This amp doesn't do mid-scoop in the "metal" sense - and that's fine with me.

Wrong forum for that anyway !

Give those Thames a good thrashing and let us know if they settle in.

Dave

Thanks for the clips Mike, that was fun! I liked clip X better as well. Although clip Y sounds pretty cool too... it just hasn't had 30+ years break in time yet!

That being said I just compared the Fane clip with some of my recordings of a Reeves 4x12 with VP's and found that they have that same "woodieness" to the tone.

JC103 wrote:That being said I just compared the Fane clip with some of my recordings of a Reeves 4x12 with VP's and found that they have that same "woodieness" to the tone.

Man, now I've got to hear one of those Reeves/VP cabs... my quest for a real Hylight 4x12 hasn't panned out so far.

JC103 wrote:...they have that same "woodieness" to the tone.

Are you saying the tone gives you a 'woody?'

--mark

Haha then that would be "woodyness" ! But your right at times the tone is quite, how should I say this, inspiring.