Classic Rock & Pop Speaker Shootout (Jensen, Weber, WGS, Celestion, Trinity Tramp)

This video contains a shootout of seven 12" speakers that I was interested in testing out for my Trinity Tramp amplifier. This is a classic rock and pop shootout, so the goal was to find a speaker that would do well across a wide range of sounds from very clean all the way up to overdrive and distortion.
List of Guitar Parts Used:
Sample #1 - Chordal Clean (Original)
Sample #2 - Funky Clean (Original)
Sample #3 - Blues Distortion (ZZ Topp)
Sample #4 - Pop Clean (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)
Sample #5 - Tight Overdrive (The Cars)
Sample #6 - Alt Clean (Original)
Sample #7 - Rootsy Rock (Sheryl Crow)
Sample #8 - Hard Rock (AC/DC)
Table of Contents:
00:00 - Intro
04:55 - Part 1 - Speaker Overviews
- Jensen Jet Blackbird 40
- Jensen Jet Stealth 65
- Jensen Jet Nighthawk 75
- Jensen Tornado Classic 100
- Weber 12A125A (30W)
- WGS Reaper (30W)
- Celestion Vintage 30 (65W)
08:47 - Part 2 - Trinity Tramp
12:19 - Part 3 - Guitars & Music Samples Used
17:00 - Part 4 - Speaker Shootout #1 - Full-Length Raw Clips
Here you can listen to full length clips (45-60 seconds each), unprocessed, for each of the seven speakers tested. The speaker order is randomized for each of the samples.
17:03 - Sample #1 - Chordal Clean - Full-Length Raw Clips
23:39 - Sample #2 - Funky Clean - Full-Length Raw Clips
29:25 - Sample #3 - Blues Distortion - Full-Length Raw Clips
35:31 - Sample #4 - Pop Clean - Full-Length Raw Clips
44:03 - Sample #5 - Tight Overdrive - Full-Length Raw Clips
51:34 - Sample #6 - Alt Clean - Full-Length Raw Clips
58:54 - Sample #7 - Rootsy Rock - Full-Length Raw Clips
01:09:21 - Sample #8 Hard Rock - Full-Length Raw Clips
01:15:58 - Part 5 - Speaker Shootout #2 - Lightning Round - Brief Clips
This is a lightning round, where you can hear short snippets of 2-4 bars from sections of each sample back-to-back, which is useful for making quick comparisons of tone.
01:16:01 - Sample #1 - Chordal Clean - Lightning Round
01:18:28 - Sample #2 - Funky Clean - Lightning Round
01:20:15 - Sample #3 - Blues Distortion - Lightning Round
01:21:33 - Sample #4 - Pop Clean - Lightning Round
01:24:18 - Sample #5 - Tight Overdrive - Lightning Round
01:27:21 - Sample #6 - Alt Clean - Lightning Round
01:28:56 - Sample #7 - Rootsy Rock - Lightning Round
01:32:09 - Sample #8 - Hard Rock - Lightning Round
01:35:15 - Part 6 - Speaker Shootout #3 - Full-Length Processed Clips
Here you can listen to full length clips (45-60 seconds each), this time with some light studio effects added in the mix, for each of the seven speakers tested. The speaker order is randomized for each of the samples in the same sequence as the first shootout. The processed clips help to get a better sense of how these speakers might really sound in your mix, although no EQ was done to the tracks (with the exception of Sample #5, where a little bit of low end was trimmed, and a couple of notch filters were applied to mellow the pick attack).
01:35:47 - Sample #1 - Chordal Clean - Full-Length Processed Clips
01:42:25 - Sample #2 - Funky Clean - Full-Length Processed Clips
01:48:11 - Sample #3 - Blues Distortion - Full-Length Processed Clips
01:54:17 - Sample #4 - Pop Clean - Full-Length Processed Clips
02:02:50 - Sample #5 - Tight Overdrive - Full-Length Processed Clips
02:10:21 - Sample #6 - Alt Clean - Full-Length Processed Clips
02:17:50 - Sample #7 - Rootsy Rock - Full-Length Processed Clips
02:28:28 - Sample #8 - Hard Rock - Full-Length Processed Clips
02:35:06 - Part 7 - Speaker Scorecard & Final Thoughts

[@JensenSpeakersVideos]

Hello Bob, Ignazio Vagnone from Jensen Speakers here. We are seriously impressed. You did an amazing job in setting up this shootout. I spent a very interesting couple of hours listening to all the samples, and letting the similarities and differences sink in. We are firm believers in organizing a shootout with the most "scientific" approach possible, meaning to exclude or minimize all possible variables, in order to isolate the pure contribution of the speaker to the tone. And you did it at a great extent. Finally, of course we're SO pleased how good our speakers come out in the ranking. We're very grateful for the incredible job done here. Kudos!

[@JensenSpeakersVideos]

Me again... a couple of additional tech comments, hoping these may be interesting for the audience. 1) Voice Coil diameter: As a general rule, all else being equal, a smaller voice coil will handle less power, and will enhance the treble range. Bigger voice coils will handle more power and will have a smoother tone on the top end. Certain diameters have a very specific tone: 1 3/4" is the classic "british" size. The V30, the Nighthawk and the Tornado Stealth 65 all share this voice coil size. 2) Magnet type: Once again, all else being equal, including the magnet strength (the Flux), how does the material influence the tone? Here you go: Ceramic will be firm on the bass, bolder and straightforward, midrange oriented. AlNiCo will be looser on the bass, slightly more compressed and more chimey in the top end. Neodymium is somewhere in the middle, let's say a tad closer to AlNiCo than to Ceramic in tone and dynamic behavior. You may want to keep these two factors in consideration when evaluating a speaker response with a certain tone... adding more food for thoughts - or diggin' even deeper in the rabbit hole! :)

[@Bob.Silverstein]

Thanks very much for the feedback and the listen -- I must confess, I was hoping you'd have a chance to get a look since I know you're active in the KZbin community. FYI, I also repeated this shootout, with mostly different audio clips (this time completely avoiding any copyright issues) for my Tweed Deluxe 5E3 amp that I built, because I know a lot of people are looking for speaker choices for that particular amp. If you want to hear that video (it's a lot shorter!) that one is here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m3TGiGSgpKukoLs. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, my "winner" for the 5E3 was not the same as it was for the Trinity amp (although, it was once again one of the Jensens). Thank you! Ciao!

[@JensenSpeakersVideos]

​@@Bob.Silverstein Hey Bob, great to e-meet you! I actually watched and liked the 5E3 video and tried twice to add a comment, but for some obscure reasons, the comment does not show up, to the point I thought it was deleted. Not sure why, it never happened before. I'd be glad to be available to the audience of that video as well, in case anyone would have questions or need for details etc. Is there anything you can do to allow me to post a comment to that video as well? What I wanted to say in that comment was also that I am "always" available to talk about speakers and tone, with anybody in the community. So, anybody can reach me on the Jensen Speakers social media channels, I'm the one behind the posts, comments and replies. Very happy of course that once again our speakers came out really nice in that shootout as well :) Actually I'd be glad sharing these videos on our social media. Please PM me on the email listed in our YT info page, or on fb/ig, so that we can get in touch! Thanks once again! Speak soon!

[@JensenSpeakersVideos]

@@Bob.Silverstein Tried again to comment the other shootout, and this time it looks like my comments were saved :) Nice! Thanks!

[@Bob.Silverstein]

@@JensenSpeakersVideos Thanks for trying again - I didn't change anything so it must have been a KZbin glitch. I will message you via email to follow-up as noted above.

[@cahootspastor7855]

First off, thank you for time, effort and great execution of this shoot out! Second, I am a great fan of mixing and matching speakers in 2x12 cabs and thanks to you I found my next combination and I am 100% sure that it will be tremendous. I will put the Nighthawk in the bottom of a vertical 2x12 and the Blackbird 40 in the top. The cab I want for that will be the mesa/boogie rectifier 212 vert - going for those thunder and lightning rock tones. Thanks again for your work and hat tipped to the folks at Jensen keeping Rock'n'Roll alive since... ever :)

[@Bob.Silverstein]

Thank you for the message. That's honestly the best thing I've heard all day :) and I definitely think those speakers are great choices. Another one I like that I bought later is the WGS Invader. I exchanged the reaper for that, and was much happier with the replacement.

[@GiantRock62]

Jensen Jet Nighthawk 75 sounded really good to my ears.

[@Bob.Silverstein]

Yeah! Didn't it? That's the one I ended up assigning as the speaker to this amp. Worked well across the board. Another speaker I didn't have when I did the test was the WGS Invader which may also be a good bet. Well post samples of it in the future.

[@rigosgarage5961]

amazing shootout, thanks so much

[@David-beargrizzly]

Merci beaucoup pour ce comparatif,bravo pour ce montage/travail🙏🎸🎶 for me In love the bb40 ..😏

[@Bob.Silverstein]

de rien! je suis content que cela vous ait été utile :)

[@David-beargrizzly]

@@Bob.Silverstein perfect french bob 🙂👍

[@delprestonroadie6606]

Incredible work, thank you Bob. I’ve been looking for clips comparing the Stealth 65 to the V30…. Need to make a Dr Z Z Best 2x12 cab a bit lighter!

[@Bob.Silverstein]

Thanks for the comment -- glad it was helpful. The Stealth 65 and the Nighthawk performed almost identically except for the Sheryl Crow tone. Even though the Nighthawk did "win" overall for the versatility I was looking for, a Nighthawk won't make your cabinets any lighter! :)

[@Destregaxy]

Briliant :)

[@thorinbane]

Nice work. I wish my Trinity build had worked. I had cold solders :( Really impressed at how much work you put into this. I might recommend the Falcon as well. Love my 10's with my Traynor YBA-1 I was not a fan of WGS. Like you mentioned its very nasally. When it was $89 for the reaper it was a good price, but when its more expensive than a jensen or just shy of vin 30...well save a bit and get a better speakers or even get one of the non neo speakers that are cheaper from jensen. I do like the Legend speakers from Emi as a nice sounded lower cost speaker as well.

[@Bob.Silverstein]

Thanks for listening. I heard the Falcon samples and wasn't sure about it. Glad to hear it's a good one. Right now I need to figure our what to do with 5 extra speakers, so I don't need a sixth one :)

[@thorinbane]

@@Bob.Silverstein LOL Yeah its cool to try different speakers. But a side problem is you end up with a pile of em. Falcon is different in person than some of the tone samples. It has a nice airy top end. Has some woodyness. Hard to describe. From tone chasing, I have 1 A type, 1 V-type 2 G12M65 cream 1 G12H75 cream 1 G12M green 2 EVH(in a cab I built. lovely heritage greens) 2 10 inch falcons. (cab I built) 4 G10M greens 1 Hellatone 25 watt ceramic from Avatar 1 jet lightning(in a cab I built with the hellatone, may swap out both soon) 1 emi swamp thang 1 emi governor (in a red knob fender champ 12) 1 70/80 1 vin30. I got rid of about 10 other speakers including some WGS and some old marslands from my Traynors. Hard to get rid of them because I always question different setups. I built an oversized cab that was a wide but shallow 212, put a single swamp thang and then connected it to a simple Marshall 15 SS amp. For a buddy. Thing sounded awesome. My friends dad said it was way to loud :D A lot of different combos. Always worth trying.

[@Destregaxy]

You should do this from the most popular amps, like fender deluxe, ac 30, or a marshall. :)

[@Bob.Silverstein]

I don't have all those but I could do it with a couple of other amp designs :)

[@hoboroadie4623]

cherry-ah-tone. I think it means like "good", idk, I don't speak Indonesian. I do watch their News Shows.

[@Bob.Silverstein]

i didn't learn until after recording the video that it should be pronounced that way, but you are correct -- i have now heard several other youtubers say it that way :)

[@zAvAvAz]

Thinkest thou hath destroyed the MeTaL?

[@Bob.Silverstein]

Haha! Nope. I am pretty sure Metal is alive and well. But since that's not what I play, I am always looking for speaker shootouts that will be helpful for what I do play -- but I definitely learned that there's way more difference between speakers when playing super-heavy tones, and that it makes sense there would be so many more speaker shootouts for it.

[@bevinmodrak4997]

Not an Eminence fan I guess.

[@Bob.Silverstein]

Actually I don't know! I've never played through one. It was tough to decide which speakers to test so I selected a reasonable set. But for sure there are so many others that could have been considered. Celestion. Eminence. Tone Tubby.

[@hoboroadie4623]

@@Bob.Silverstein so many OTHER thousands to spend on various speakers... Sounds like I jest, but I am conducting experiments with 4X10 and 4X12 cabinets. 🙉