Upgrading the treble driver on a Leslie 145 speaker (or 122)

[@seansweeney3532]

I'm a Hammond tech here in St Louis. These are handy kits! There are also many other nice sounding drivers that will last forever in a 145 etc. There are many JBL drivers that will do nicely. The most famous is the 375 or 2480. Those however, are quite rare... but I've found a few over the years. The smaller version is the 275... also great. And scores of drivers in that range with phenolic or titanium drivers. A titanium or aluminum driver, will ad a little high end to your tone. EMINENCE now makes a decent one, and there's a ferrofluid cooled driver that comes in the new Leslie's which sounds nice too!

[@hammondvoodoo9555]

By the way: I used to have an Atlas PD60A treble driver as well in my Leslie 147 but got rid of it recently. Something didn't sound quite right when I was doing an A/B comparison with another Leslie that still had the good old Jensen V21 in it. I used a Neve EQ to find out about it and also looked up the frequency response diagram. The PD60A is less (!) trebly than the V21 at 5-6 kHz but is very midrangy with a peak volume at 1.2 kHz. So what people consider an improved treble response is in fact a louder midrange. But the response at 5-6 kHz is very important for the Scanner chorus vibrato (especially the beautiful C3-setting). With the PD60A the C3-setting sounded worse than with the original V21 driver. As long as you don't use the chorus too much, you can keep the driver because it will make the Leslie significantly louder due to that midrange punch. The Atlas PD5VH, which is my current treble driver, is way better and almost identical to the V21, although it still sounds a tiny bit mellower - which is not bad at all. Also, the Weber 15A200 woofer is a very nice improvement over any original Jensen woofer. I also got all those speakers from Tonewheel General Hospital, they're really great.

[@nickfoleyuk]

Hammond Voodoo Good point. I have re setup the eq on the Xk5 to compensate. One tends to think it’s more trebly as it’s louder but at you say it’s not at the top. I think the v21 tops out at around 8k so it’s close.

[@hammondvoodoo9555]

@@nickfoleyuk 8 kHz is way too high. There is nothing going on above 6 kHz already with the V21. I'd say that there's a significant volume drop at around 4.3-4.5 kHz. But you still got enough treble response at 5.5-6 kHz in order to have that wonderful chorus sound and just enough keyclick. The Atlas PD60A starts to break up at 3.7 kHz. Due to its aggressive midrange there's still quite a good response at 4-5 kHz but above it's getting weaker pretty quickly. The PD5VH goes to 4.1 kHz, therefore it still got something going on at 5.5 kHz where the PD60A is way weaker - hence the better chorus sound. As opposed to the PD60A, the PD5VH has a flat midrange response which makes it the more balanced treble driver - and that's what everybody wants to have.

[@barragan_music]

Glad I found your channel! Picking up a C3 tomorrow!.. looking through your videos and I like what I see! Looking forward to more content. Thanks

[@jordanburrill7182]

Ha ha! You have a lot of fun ahead of you! Unless it was sitting quietly in Auntie's den, it will require work that will seem almost occult-like. Lots and lots of capacitors to change out! Fiddley little drawbar wires to check and resolder. And contact cleaning and lubing! Oh, your going to have fun! Enjoy! If it's been 'roaded' then I'll be praying for you! But, seriously, Enjoy the process!

[@Earlvis]

Great information, Thank you! I have a B3 with 145 Leslie and need to overhaul both. The Leslie will be much easier, the Hammond-not so much.

[@jordanburrill7182]

Yup! Leslies are almost fun to work on. Hammonds, not so much. 😅

[@B3burner]

A purple light! Ahh… Jon Lord would have been proud.

[@bh9798]

PD 60 is going to be very bright, a PD 5 would have need just a Lillie more mellow!!!

[@tommymandel]

Hi Nick, just joined your channel so that I could ask you this: My Leslie treble driver blew up in the 70's and someone replaced it with something with more treble that I really got to like. THAT lasted until maybe 2015, and since then, it's been replaced with the Jensen driver. I'd like to find another 'bright one' - but though i was told at the time it was an Altec, it has no markings on it other than 42 5 - does that ring a bell? I took 2 pictures of the old bright broken one, but I'm not sure how to post them to here or to you privately, as a member. Thanks for any help. PS. the Jensen in there now sounds fine too, but the recordings I made when the other was installed, really have this smooth zing to them!

[@nickfoleyuk]

@@tommymandel Atlas?

[@hammondvoodoo9555]

@ 18:45: I had to laugh at that one. Great sound, nice video, thanks!

[@LegitTheProducerBackup]

Can you tell me where I can get the LED light you have in the upper part of the Leslie? And how do you have it ran to receive power to it?

[@nickfoleyuk]

Hi, I get a light strip off of ebay, and then buy a transformer and wire them together. There is a plug socket inside the Leslie that I connect it too. I think you will be able to see this in one of my vids or on the blog www.hammondforhire.com. Hope this helps

[@LegitTheProducerBackup]

HammondForHire Ok. Thanks so much for the response

[@jordanburrill7182]

Two different color LEDs for the two speeds is actually useful in checking for belt slippage.

[@soundacresstudio]

Is this possible to do with a Leslie 910?

[@nickfoleyuk]

The 910 is a higher output horn anyway. The atlas wouldn’t be an upgrade in terms of volume I think

[@MrWorldclassmusician]

Hey, Just ordered one of these for my 145 as it’s come with the wrong speakers. Where did you get the adapter kit? Tonewheel hospital? Anywhere in the UK supply them?

[@nickfoleyuk]

Hi Tony, I had to go to Tonewheel, there was nowhere else unfortunately. Sounds great though and when you solo you don’t think is this the moment the speaker pops!

[@MrWorldclassmusician]

@@nickfoleyuk my Leslie is a Uk 145. How do you power an LED internally inside the Leslie? I’m overhauling mine right now.

[@nickfoleyuk]

@@MrWorldclassmusician I think I did a video on this on here somewhere. Very primitively is the answer. I use a separate power input going to a plug faceplate behind the crossover and then buy the light and transformer from eBay. A few snips and cuts and bobs your uncle

[@bh9798]

I believe the PD 60 is 100 watts

[@anselmountain6884]

the original sound more life and has a character to it , the Atlas PD60A sounds more dull and has the treble to it

[@nickfoleyuk]

Ansel Mountain It’s a compromise for sure but with the parametric EQ on the XK-5 I was able to get pretty much the same tone from my 145 with more volume and the knowledge that I wasn’t going to blow the driver if I pushed it too hard. In general though I would have to agree that you cannot beat stock - my recording 122 is completely standard!

[@anselmountain6884]

@@nickfoleyuk have you tried the PD-5VH model to compare it with the stock ?

[@nickfoleyuk]

Ansel Mountain no I haven’t. I couldn’t get hold of one. Living in the UK it was quite the adventure sourcing this item. Have you tried it?

[@anselmountain6884]

@@nickfoleyuk not yet but im aiming to get one soon , i heard it once and it sounds amazing despite the 40watt

[@jpdesroc]

Is your old Jensen V21 driver for sale ?? PM me if so. thanks

[@nickfoleyuk]

jean-Pierre Desrochers I’m afraid not sorry

[@organeu]

And 147 ??

[@nickfoleyuk]

Not sore to what you are referring but you can put this speaker in a 147 as well yes

[@organeu]

Why changing the legendary Jensen ?

[@nickfoleyuk]

As per the video really, the Jenson is an under powered speaker and I always worried that if I boosted the input too far I may pop it. That and as the crossover wears more of that bass frequency (under 800hz) could leak to the Jenson and that could be that, at a gig. The Atlas is more powerful than the Amp so should be bullet proof in that regard.