What speakers are you using with your Heartbreaker???

[Monsta-Tone]

My combo came with Vintage 30's.
I thought it sounded pretty good, but I noticed that my ears were ringing after just a few minutes of playing it.
I plugged the speakers from my Twin Reverb into the HB and holy freaking cow!!!!!!!!!


The Twin has 2 Weber California speakers. They just sound so warm and articulate when compared to the V-30's.
I feel really sorry for the Twin! The Cali's are definitely going in the HB!!!!!! :lol:

 

[babow2]

hey Andy,
Congrats on picking up another HB. You have been talking about it for some time. Gawd, a 2x12 combo... I hope you have a strong back. i can validate your point from a slightly different perspective. I play my HB head through (1) an Avatar closed back 2x12 with V30's and (2) a Mesa openback 4x10 with two AlNiCo's and two Webers. The 4x10's are much warmer, richer, mellower, rounding the "edges" of the Lust channel.

Conversely, my Fender Concert head (modded to be a Mark) is full and thick sounding and the V30 2x12 adds a bit of edge and brightness needed to cut through the mix.

So, what mods did you do on YOUR HB?

 

[thunda1216]

I have a couple of cabs that I use with my Heartbreaker - the first is a crate 2x12 closed back cab loaded with Eminence Governors. Nice cleans and great distortion tones at lower volumes - at high volumes, it really screams!

My fav cab is an old old Peavey 4x12 cab with Eminence V12's. These are higher wattage rated speakers that you have to push hard for breakup (cab rated at 480 watts!) but they have great clean sound and the distortion is all heartbreaker. I don't use it as much these days as it's not getting any lighter and I'm not getting any younger!

I did play it through a 4x10 cab once that was loaded with Jensen Mod 50's. I really liked the tone, it seemed to brighten up the Lust channel , mice tight bass response, and had just a hint of the old greenback woody tone. It was a large cab though, and again a lot to tote around!

ty

 

[Monsta-Tone]

Hey thanks guys!!!!!

So far, I've done all of the mods I did to yours except the Bias pot. Haven't had time yet.
I ran out of E34L's for the time being, so it has Winged 'C' 6L6's in it for now.

I have a quad of JJ KT-66's, but those will most likely go in my DC-10 head. The bases are way too big for the tube retainers to fit and being a combo, the HB will eventually rattle them out of the sockets! :lol:


I'm going to do the Solo Boost, and probably Triode/Pentode this weekend. I don't have a use for a 60/100 switch, I like the Triode setting better.

I'm also working on a footswitchable FX loop bypass. I'll let you know how that turns out.
It would make TC effects much more useable, but I'm not sure what it will do for the tone just yet.

Ahhh, the life of a mad scientist is good!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: Now I just need to figure out where I parked my castle! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Monsta-Tone]

I have a couple of cabs that I use with my Heartbreaker - the first is a crate 2x12 closed back cab loaded with Eminence Governors. Nice cleans and great distortion tones at lower volumes - at high volumes, it really screams!

My fav cab is an old old Peavey 4x12 cab with Eminence V12's. These are higher wattage rated speakers that you have to push hard for breakup (cab rated at 480 watts!) but they have great clean sound and the distortion is all heartbreaker. I don't use it as much these days as it's not getting any lighter and I'm not getting any younger!

I did play it through a 4x10 cab once that was loaded with Jensen Mod 50's. I really liked the tone, it seemed to brighten up the Lust channel , mice tight bass response, and had just a hint of the old greenback woody tone. It was a large cab though, and again a lot to tote around!

ty

Hey Ty,
The Governers, are they the Red Coat speakers?
Eminence has a bunch of different names for their stuff and I'm not that familiar with them.


I just built a 4x10 combo amp for a friend. I used just the plain Jane Signature series speakers. 2 ceramic and 2 alnico. The speakers sound incredible!

I've been kicking around the idea of building a 4x10 20 watt combo for myself, but never find the time. I must have 20 chassis laying around just waiting to be finished!

 

[thunda1216]

Yes, the Governors are from the Redcoat line. Huge magnets, rated 75 watts each. Nice breakup on the lust channel set to high gain, but clean up very nicely in the low gain mode.

The V12's (british made cone) take a lot more to break up (120 watts each), but have a really great low end

ty

 

[MrBear]

My HB combo has two 12" Black Shadow speakers, and I think that at some point these must have been the stock speakers. They're not bad, but seem to suffer from some weird modulation that I can only assume results from the speakers getting old. Has anyone tried using Vintage 30's in their HB? How did it sound?

 

[Monsta-Tone]

That is strange! My 1st HB combo had the Black Shadows (that is what came stock) and it never had a problem with odd noises.

I love those speakers for all around cleans and means, but in that amp, it seemed like the tone was always beautiful without the band and always muddy and lost with it.


The HB I have now came with V-30's. The guy I got it from (oddly enough, he's the guy I sold my 1st one to) really loved them.

I gave them a whirl. They only lasted 10 minutes.
The Love channel on low gain just sounded weak and thin.
The Lust channel absolutely sizzled though!

I tried my Weber California speakers that were (WERE) in my Twin. They sound incredible on both channels!
I liked the sound so much that I ripped them from the Twin and sold it! :lol:

I also tried it with my THD cab that has a Mojotone BV-30V (Vintage 30 clone) and a BV-30H (Heritage 30 clone).
Both channels seemed to really like this combination as well. The 30H has a bit more lows and much less mids, so they even themselves out. The only problem was that the Love channel broke up a little too easily at higher volumes.
You might like the Mojo's. They buy the parts from the original Celestion supplier and have them assembled in the US. They sound better than their Celestion counterparts to me and are a bit cheaper. I've had the pair in my THD for about 6 years now and they have never failed to impress me.

 

[MrBear]

I don't mean to hijack the thread or anything here, but has anyone every tried swapping out the HB chassis from the 2x12 combo cab to a head/rack? I'm thinking that using a closed 2x12 or 4x12 might yield some interesting results, maybe a bit more focused low end or tighter high end? Maybe the same speakers that we hate in an open back setting will sound better when closed up...

 

[Monsta-Tone]

The HB will fit in the following head cabs:
DC-10
Nomad 100
F-100

The chassis are the same size. I used to switch back and forth between my HB head and my DC-10 combo.

 

[Tweeked]

I 've got greenbacks,V30's,75's and the stock Black Shadows.
All sound great for different reasons.I figured I wanted to try all the different speakers with
the different tubes,60/100,tweed power etc.I have a few 2x12's and a few 4x12
along with the 2x12 HB combo cab.After testing all these speaker/cab variations I left the Mesa speakers in the combo and use those the most.Mesa knows what they are doing,if any other speaker sounded best i'm sure they would have found it.All the other speakers sound great too but I found the stock speakers work best.

my .02

 

[Monsta-Tone]

That's how I was with my Lonestar Classic. I tried every speaker I could find in my shop and went back to the Black Shadow MC-90.


My HB came with Vintage 30's though and I didn't really care for them.
Since I didn't have a pair of black shadows, I tried the Californias. I have to say, I don't think that the C-90's would sound all that much better, if any.