Creambacks in a 74 twin reverb?

[Jared macneill]

So about a year and a half ago I bought my first “real” fender .

My first impression was wow but over time I found out that I wasn’t really bonding with this beautiful old fender.

It felt really thin and shrill and I’m told “ that’s not a fender”

Me being a novice figure it’s tube related but no it was the stupid vintage 30s!

After a year tossing between cream backs , gwh “red cones” and “cannabis rex” I’ve ultimately chose cream backs.

That wasn’t the end of the search because I learned there was two kinds of cream backs !
H magnet
M magnets.

I knew I liked the green and blue backs that you find in vox and learned that they had the m magnets so I went with the 65 watt model.

I waited for an eternity for a member from another forum to help me with the installation and it was so worth it .

Btw it was only a two week wait .

At first strum after the speaker changed I was in shock ! It was so bold! Huge sounding and warm and still has some sparkle to it.

I actually had to turn the mids down and treble up ! There was that much of a difference in the mids and highend .

Even on the chair at volume 3 you can feel the low end of the old fender.

Buddy is ocd and notice a few things were messed up with the speaker harness so it got tossed and we made a new one with stuff he took with him.

 

[Jared macneill]

 

[shihan]

You made a good choice of speakers for that amp. They are the most important link in the tone chain.
Sounds lIke you’re set now; enjoy!

 

[Jared macneill]

You made a good choice of speakers for that amp. They are the most important link in the tone chain.
Sounds lIke you’re set now; enjoy!

Yeah , some people think they make a twin too dark but I can still get treble out of it

 

[Walter Broes]

If you were going to go with creambacks...you missed the third variation...the Neo creambacks! You could have made that twin a little bit easier to lift with a pair of those!

 

[Jared macneill]

If you were going to go with creambacks...you missed the third variation...the Neo creambacks! You could have made that twin a little bit easier to lift with a pair of those!

I haven’t actually played a set of neos but yeah this thing is a pig

 

[Walter Broes]

A twin is never going to be light - boat anchor transformers - but a little lighter is something, right? Haha!

 

[Jared macneill]

A twin is never going to be light - boat anchor transformers - but a little lighter is something, right? Haha!

I might play it for a bit . The games need to update

 

[jp]

If you were going to go with creambacks...you missed the third variation...the Neo creambacks! You could have made that twin a little bit easier to lift with a pair of those!

So true. I gigged a '74 Twin with JBL E-120s that weighed close to 45 lbs alone (22 lb/each). What a beast to haul around, but when I flicked the switch, it always seemed worth it.

At least I wasn't a bass player back then with the full-on SVT setup. Whew!

 

[Teleguy61]

I have a 65 Twin, that I used with 2 JBL D120s.
As @jp said, it weighed a ton, but I was ( a lot ) younger and it sounded wonderful.

My solo starts around 1:35--


Also--

 

[Rocky]

I haven’t actually played a set of neos but yeah this thing is a pig

The neos are pretty meh, IMHO. They dumbed down the magnet enough that it has 'less of everything.'

I haven't tried the 65 creambacks, but I'm not a big fan of the "M" greenbacks either, so I'm not going to bother.

The 75 "H" creambacks, on the other hand are spectacular. I've got one in a 6G3 (brown deluxe) clone, and another in a 1x12 open back cabinet, paired with a 5F6A bassman/marshall hybrid head.

 

[Jared macneill]

I h

The neos are pretty meh, IMHO. They dumbed down the magnet enough that it has 'less of everything.'

I haven't tried the 65 creambacks, but I'm not a big fan of the "M" greenbacks either, so I'm not going to bother.

The 75 "H" creambacks, on the other hand are spectacular. I've got one in a 6G3 (brown deluxe) clone, and another in a 1x12 open back cabinet, paired with a 5F6A bassman/marshall hybrid head.

ave sensory issues with certain frequencies.

Do you find the H to be bright?

 

[Rocky]

I h

ave sensory issues with certain frequencies.

Do you find the H to be bright?

I suppose they could be, in the wrong application. They're fine in an open back cabinet with the more mid-centric amps i'm using them in.

 

[Guildedagain]

I'm personally not of the opinion that you should put Celestions in a Fender amp.

But the endless fascination to compete with Marshall. I had the unfortunate experience of having "work done" to a Blackface Bassman, even though I told the tech repeatedly I don't need this amp to have Marshall tone, I had to take it back, have things undone. eventually sold it.

Speaker choices these days as simply bewildering, it's shocking so much music was played and recorded on just a few speakers throughout the 60's and 70's, a small handful of Celestions, Jensens, JBL, Altec.

The original G12-30H Creamback might be the exception where it is ok for a Fender Twin, they are bassier and much less compressed than the Greenback 25 watters of the time period.

This was actually the speaker of choice for Hendrix, Page, they don't blow up.

They came in 2 versions, 55hz and 75Hz, the guitar version is much more common.

I find that original Celestions are great sounding and incredibly tough speakers. I've never had a Celestion speaker failure.

My 1st choice would be Webers for any American made amp, high quality, easily available, lots of used speakers out there.

I robbed the Marshall branded "Blackback" 25 watters from this combo for a 2x12 cab, eventually found a replacement pair of Creambacks, swapped out the boat anchor heavy JMP50 for an 18W chassis, making this the sweetest sounding Marshall 2x12 Combo I've ever heard.


Speakers are from 1976, came as a matched coded pair from NH 10 plus years ago, Priority Mail, 2 days coast to coast, amazing.

 

[HeyMikey]

So about a year and a half ago I bought my first “real” fender .

My first impression was wow but over time I found out that I wasn’t really bonding with this beautiful old fender.

It felt really thin and shrill and I’m told “ that’s not a fender”

Me being a novice figure it’s tube related but no it was the stupid vintage 30s!

After a year tossing between cream backs , gwh “red cones” and “cannabis rex” I’ve ultimately chose cream backs.

That wasn’t the end of the search because I learned there was two kinds of cream backs !
H magnet
M magnets.

I knew I liked the green and blue backs that you find in vox and learned that they had the m magnets so I went with the 65 watt model.

I waited for an eternity for a member from another forum to help me with the installation and it was so worth it .

Btw it was only a two week wait .

At first strum after the speaker changed I was in shock ! It was so bold! Huge sounding and warm and still has some sparkle to it.

I actually had to turn the mids down and treble up ! There was that much of a difference in the mids and highend .

Even on the chair at volume 3 you can feel the low end of the old fender.

Buddy is ocd and notice a few things were messed up with the speaker harness so it got tossed and we made a new one with stuff he took with him.

Glad you like them and it makes your amp sing again. Nice amp by the way! Amazing what a speaker change, new tube or something simple can sometimes do.

I struggled to find what I think would sound best in my Vintage Sound VS112 Deluxe clone. With so many great speakers on the market I don’t think there is a definitive “best”. So many different opinions out there, just like with pickups. I finally settled a Weber 12f150 50 watt that I will be putting in soon vs the darker sounding old Weber British style that the previous owner had put in it. Hopefully it does the trick.

 

[Soul Tramp]

I'm personally not of the opinion that you should put Celestions in a Fender amp.

But the endless fascination to compete with Marshall. I had the unfortunate experience of having "work done" to a Blackface Bassman, even though I told the tech repeatedly I don't need this amp to have Marshall tone, I had to take it back, have things undone. eventually sold it.

Speaker choices these days as simply bewildering, it's shocking so much music was played and recorded on just a few speakers throughout the 60's and 70's, a small handful of Celestions, Jensens, JBL, Altec.

The original G12-30H Creamback might be the exception where it is ok for a Fender Twin, they are bassier and much less compressed than the Greenback 25 watters of the time period.

This was actually the speaker of choice for Hendrix, Page, they don't blow up.

They came in 2 versions, 55hz and 75Hz, the guitar version is much more common.

I find that original Celestions are great sounding and incredibly tough speakers. I've never had a Celestion speaker failure.

My 1st choice would be Webers for any American made amp, high quality, easily available, lots of used speakers out there.

I robbed the Marshall branded "Blackback" 25 watters from this combo for a 2x12 cab, eventually found a replacement pair of Creambacks, swapped out the boat anchor heavy JMP50 for an 18W chassis, making this the sweetest sounding Marshall 2x12 Combo I've ever heard.


Speakers are from 1976, came as a matched coded pair from NH 10 plus years ago, Priority Mail, 2 days coast to coast, amazing.

Speakers are everything! I have to agree about Celestions in a Fender, but it's just a snob thing on my part. Weber 12F150 would be killer in a Twin.

Back in the early 70's I replaced a blown JBL D120 in my old BF Bandmaster with an Eminence something. HUGE mistake, but it was all I could afford as a kid in school.

 

[Jared macneill]

Speakers are everything! I have to agree about Celestions in a Fender, but it's just a snob thing on my part. Weber 12F150 would be killer in a Twin.

Back in the early 70's I replaced a blown JBL D120 in my old BF Bandmaster with an Eminence something. HUGE mistake, but it was all I could afford as a kid in school.

I’d rather jbls but there simply none around and when they do it’s like $1400 a pair in Canada

 

[Soul Tramp]

I’d rather jbls but there simply none around and when they do it’s like $1400 a pair in Canada

A bit off topic here, but.... My favorite speaker for a Fender voiced amp is the old Altec 417-8C alnico. They have much of the quality of the JBL D120 without the downside. Great power handling and fantastically smooth compression when pushed. I have a pair (had Great Plains Audio rebuild them) in an undersized open-back cab (very portable).

 

[Jared macneill]

A bit off topic here, but.... My favorite speaker for a Fender voiced amp is the old Altec 417-8C alnico. They have much of the quality of the JBL D120 without the downside. Great power handling and fantastically smooth compression when pushed. I have a pair (had Great Plains Audio rebuild them) in an undersized open-back cab (very portable).

That’s the fun of having an old twin , they came with so many different speakers choices and later fender do have celestians .

Now this may sound like blasphemy but I love an vox ac30 so the cream backs are like gold since the ac30 comes with blue or green back speakers.

But man can I ever still get some major highends out of it .

 

[mavuser]

not long ago I bought a 1x12 Mesa/Celestion Black Shadow 90 watt speaker with open back cab. that thing sounds like angels, with any amp plugged into it