Fane Hiwatt speakers

[TubeGeek]

I have in my shop a late 70's 4x12 hiwatt cab with fane's.  I am coincidentally in the middle of building myself a custom 50 hiwatt inspired amp.  The cabinet came in with it's Matchless Clubman 30 amp which needed repair.  The owner mentioned he would like to sell the cabinet so I asked him to leave it with me to test out and he agreed.  I first discovered that one of the speakers has been replaced with what looks like an Eminence Legend speaker rated for 8 ohms.  The other three speakers are the original 16 ohm fane's.  But I'm not sure if these are the hallowed fane's???

They are steel frames with grey paint or powder-coating, not sure.  They have the purple sticker on the magnet.  Rated at 16Ω.

I plugged into the cab while the owner was with me and it did not work.  The original rear input jack of the cabinet was missing and it had an incorrectly size input jack screwed in with three corners only leaving a hole easy to notice.  A definite lazy job.  The tolex has been spray painted with a band name (Jil).  The tolex is raggy and road worn.  The cabinet is otherwise in good condition, it's hard to destroy a hiwatt cabinet.

I am trying to decide if this is worth the $800 he wants for the cabinet.  I removed one of the speakers and tested it out in one of my detuned 1x12 cabinets with my Hoffman 18 watt stout amp.  It did not sound good to my ears at all.  I was disappointed.  Then I talked with a buddy and he mentioned that they match nicely with a princeton amp...I also figured it may sound better in an open back cabinet.  I tested it in an open back cab with the princeton and yeah it sounded much better.  It was missing some high end but in a very pleasing way.  It had nice low end also and even, non-exaggerated mids.  I could get a nice glassy strat tone easily and nice crunch with the princeton cranked.  Then I moved on to my ac30 style amp.  I really liked this match too, which surprised my buddy.  I could get a very nice "glassy" sparkly tone without any high end annoyances and the breakup was nicely controlled too.  

I have not finished my hiwatt amp quite yet and probably won't have much time for a bit to do so.  

What are your opinions on these speakers?  

I posted some pics of the speaker on my website here: 

http://www.glacieramps.com/Glacier_Amplification/Glacier_Custom_50.html

[TubeGeek]

More info:

Speaker code= 122142- from what I read these are hylight era, early to mid 70's.

1180 stamped on frame- contradicts the above 70's

17,000 gauss...more intended for pa and organ use

50W

16 ohm

Whizzer cones...not sure what this means, good or bad or neither?

I like them but I need help in finding a reasonable value of them!

[Frankenamp]

Some food fer thought:

If the speaker code is on the cone, it could be a recone w/ old stock cone. Later date code on the frame is suspicious. 17K gauss is a pretty powerful gap I would presume good efficiency and no low end (don't matter in a guitar speaker) an impedance curve would be telling. Whizzer cones are one way to get better high dispersion with larger speakers. 12's have all the hi frequency dispersion of your average 5 cell (free w/ coupon) Radio Shack flashlight. The small(er) cone helps spread the highs out a bit. Speaker design is a compromise, big cone = better bass, but once the frequency's wave length equals the cone diameter, dispersion tightens up. Little 1" and smaller cones & domes spread the highs around but can't push enough air to make lower frequencies audible.

I personally wouldn't give much for the cabinet. A caddy is a nice car, but with a couple hundred thousand miles of taxi duty makes it not such a great deal. 3 16 ohms & an 8 tells us that who did the repair was either ill informed, or just threw in what they had on the shelf without a care as to the consequences. That cab was rode hard and put away wet. If it was Noddy Holder's or Tommy Bolin's Maybe. Abused by a no name so & so... unh unh. I seem to remember that Ampcabinets had similar cab in much better shape that was allegedly owned by notariety, but without certification it was only worth a couple hundred. This is probably worth less, Fanes are nice drivers, but not as revered as certain lettered Jensens even though they are probably of better quality. Tell your friend thanks but no thanks- unless he can prove that it was Pete Townshend's. In described condition $100-125 is generous.

[Ritchie200]

FWIW, I played through an old Laney 4x12 cab from the late 60's about 20yrs ago.  I was not impressed with the Fanes at low volume as I thought they sounded kind-of dull.  But when you pushed them - WOW!  I was impressed.  Very butter smooth low end and crisp but not harsh up high.  It wasn't the amp as I tried another on it.  Not a bedroom speaker, but who knows what abuse they had seen and what influence the cabinet had.  Plus those silver covers looked cool through the grill cloth!  I agree with Frankenamp, if it was (especially!!) the Nod's, I would buy it, put it in a corner and look at it!  Otherwise, move on and look for a good one - if you want to match your Hiwatt build.  Keep us up to date with your Hiwatt project!

Jim

[TubeGeek]

Update:

I ended up with two of the Fane's out of the cabinet.  I'm going to use them for my current amp project...a Hiwatt Custom 50 with blend-able normal and brilliant channels.