Eileen's Tacky Glue is great for repairing speakers. It stays flexible and dries clear. You can get it at any craft store for $6. I have used it to repair and refoam hi fi speakers for the last 25 years.
Well the waveforms are different, and I used a looper pedal, so there is some difference but whether it's really audible or not is up for everyone to decide themselves
The compression that TH-cam uses makes it hard to hear subtle differences and frequency responses. Especially if you are listening to the video with your cell phone speaker.
I'm listening via a set of studio monitors connected to a presonus interface. However, I'm nearly 70 years old and have some unknown degree of hearing loss due to age, service in the Navy, and hanging out in front of loud amps/speaker cabs back in the day!
I have a couple old 5-watt gretsch amps with jensen speakers, and several reissue jensens of various sizes and magnets...the vintage ones sound worlds better, the difference is profound
My tech and I did an experiment on a custom super reverb head where we swapped caps in the signal path. Mine amp lacked the presence/clarity compared to his original '64 super. We swapped ceramic disc caps back in and recompared. There was a noticeable effect of the "blanket being lifted".
Epoxy. Carefully. I would think a linear taper will push your "on" setting even further into the sweep, give it a try and see. For future reference for "player" grade amp revitalizations Rolas are wonderful and very often cheap. Heppners are incredible but very rare at 10".
@@YeatzeeGuitar Try but like Mike said it will likely seem weird after 0 to 2. I think J tapers were the best solution F. could come up with to get the controls to behave reasonably well somewhere between linear and log without ordering a custom taper from CTS. Imagine trying to get ahold of correct custom taper pots now, or even within the first 10 years of life for these. J tapers was common enough at the time that it would have fit into F's ease of repairability thing.
I'd say that it's unfortunate that more guitarists don't understand that the speaker choice is as important as the amp, but I guess few would be willing to adjust from the sounds and responses that they are used to.These can be night and day , fundamental differences.Very often I've found that " ultimal" is acheived by using two different types; you don't know what you're missing, or what's possible, until you start experimenting with speakers.
Jensen C10N is by far my favorite 10" speaker. It truly does sound different and better to my ears than ANY other speaker I have tried, and I have tried a LOT. Closest to it that I can find in a new speaker is the Jupiter 10LC, though it looks like they have come out with an M10C since I did my comps a year ago. I will have to try that to see the difference. I love the Jupiters in both my 64 Super Reverb and 64 Princeton (non-reverb). I replaced all 4 in the Super when I purchased it to save the originals and one had to have a recone, so while I waited I had Jupiters to play. Inexpensive and sound great. However, I do think I am going to put the originals back in, since I don't plan to drive the Super hard anyway and THEY sound really, really good at 60 years old. I have other amps for big overdrive tones. The Princeton had a replacement Jensen P10 in it that sounded decent and was well broken in, but it was a modern Italian Jensen AlNiCo and I wanted a C10N tone, so in went a Jupiter 10LC (after demoing several other speakers from Weber, Jensen, WGS, and Eminence). None were bad, some were better than others, but the Jupiter just sounds the best of the bunch, IMO. With plenty of vintage amps to compare it against, I'd be happy buying more Jupiter speakers in the future. I have no experience with their 12" or 15" speakers so far. Their 8" Champ speaker also sounds very good to my ears and is a huge tonal upgrade from the original Jensen in my 73 Vibro Champ.
You'll want an adhesive that's fairly rigid without being brittle, to secure the loose dust cap. You want the dust cap and cone to move together as one unit. Duco Cement would be a good choice. Don't overdo it. If you glob it on and it gets into the voice coil gap, obviously no bueno.
I like what you played to test it with so many people just bang punk rock chords when they’re testing something makes no sense. He played a pretty chord that was slowly so you could hear it.
You know the big blue molded caps do you think those make a difference? They just seem like from looking at them they might have that little magic touch that makes those old fenders sound great
@@godbyone Lots of people believe those blue moldeds are critical for blackface fender tone. I've never compared them in or out, but plan to in a future video :)
My personal opinion is ... There are builders nowadays that make speakers as good OR BETTER than anything anybody (except JBL) was making in the late '50s, '60s, or '70s. My favorite is Weber; but they are all good. Just choose your lane and jump in it!!
@@Tonetwisters Hmmm I've tested a ton of speakers and I've yet to find modern speakers that sound like any of my vintage speakers. I honestly believe they're half the magic of vintage amps
Try rtv silicone gasket sealer, from the auto parts store, permatex brand iirc. I had some tears in my '72 vt40 speakers, I fixed them with rtv sealer in '85, and the repair still holds. It stays flexible, and is lightweight. - try on some test paper first.
Jeez…what kinda weirdo scours eBay listings of giant NOS cap lots for one specific value… Yeah, Alpha audio taper pots do function better 0 to 2, but they don’t look or feel right after that. I have like 30 of them, wish I would have left a couple with you.
@@YeatzeeGuitar I’m fairly certain that old nylon shaft CTS that was in there is linear. So, not much would change. I just like the look and feel of the new CTS pots, it’s a shame they don’t work well 0 to 1. I’ve tried to modify them to work better. Widening the stop on one side works, but it’s hard to get perfect because they’re all just a little different.
Great sound coming from your amp. After playing it everyday for a while you might notice that "Every single component in that amp design can make a difference when swapped , even the solder and the pots"!?!? In the end you will find yourself putting the old parts back that sounded good in the 1st place..no better way to spend your time.
Honestly, I think the whole "youtube compression" thing is outdated info at best. I've compared the exported file vs the youtube upload before and I notice no difference. If you upload at 4k like I do, you get the max bitrate for audio that youtube allows, which is in my experience enough to get any detail that's there. I do understand wanting my perspective, but it always sways opinion so I leave it out of the main video. Happy to engage in the comments though! I used a looper pedal so everything is exactly the same. The waveforms of the two recordings are a bit different so there's objectively some difference... is it enough to clearly hear? Eh, to my ears the bass is tighter / clearer. That was my only real takeaway.
Question...I have a '65 virbrolux and it has C10-NS speakers. They do look different to the C10-N, mainly a smaller magnet and basket design. Why do you think these are more desireable than the vibrolux stock ones? Less cone breakup at higher volumes? BTW, I also have a '68 Super Reverb :)...paired with my '68 tele it's heaven.
The design changed on the C10n later, this is the later version with the different basket. I'm not sure what the difference is with the c10ns magnet wise, I wasn't aware of that 🤔
Nice score on the caps! Hey just curious what are you biasing your tubes to in your super reverb dissipation wise? I have a 67 SR and I have read some guys go down as far as 50% 15 watts per tube! I have always biased my output tubes in all of my amps just under 70%.
50-60% is pretty common ime with vintage fenders. This amp was biased to about 50% in the video. 70% is a little hot for me with fenders honestly, I typically aim for 60%.
One thing people don’t realize is how fragile vintage speakers are. I’ve blown a few speakers in two 1968 Marshall cabs and because of that lost a lot of money. Yeah they sounded great when they were good, but once blown, even if you recone, they lose all their value. Now I just run new or newer speakers. YMMV but the cost isn’t worth it to me anymore
Start with tubes, locate which tube socket(s) are the culprit but turning the amp on and pulling preamp tubes one by one. Note, it'll pop loudly, but it's safe. That's where I'd start. As mentioned it probably a bad tube or a dirty socket
Don't spray contact cleaner into the sockets! You can apply a small drop from a toothpick but even that's too much, you want to protect the wiring from being washed down. Your tube pins could be tarnished, an easy way to brighten up the outer surface is with a 140 grit fret eraser. Personally I keep on with 400/600 grit paper to get the entire pin but I am usually working with very old tubes. After burnishing apply some contact cleaner to the pins with a q-tip, keep it from the glass! Insert the tube a few times in the socket and reapply a little more to the pins a couple more times & repeat.
One thing you should check is if your volume pot is tightened down. Loose hardware on the volume pot can cause problems with the ground connections on your volume circuit. Also just clean the pot. A little shot of contact cleaner and then twist the pot around several times.
Sadly even non organic things like parts are subjected to decay. Even pure metal parts get damaged over time. Everything has its life time expectancy. In speakers we do have paper and cloth based parts. Isolation lacquer as well. Those are prone to decay. First, when they are just made, speakers sound harsh and brittle. Often top end sounds bad as having bad kind of distortion and it feels like boosted to much. Middle has some almost echo and clearly bad response like one you get from bad cabinet where your reflected sound hits the cone and makes it partially vibrate. Lows are to stiff and speaker can’t reach the lows that it should be able to play. Lows sound forced. This all changes relatively quick looking at the lifespan of the speaker. Some little good burn in and speaker gets his true sound. Not giving the new speaker time to break in caused so many returns and bad reviews. After the initial mechanical break in the speaker settles in. It enters its maturing process. This highly depends on moisture and temperature it is exposed to as well as they way it was used. Location matters a lot. From geo location and weather patterns related to that to micro locations like clean dust free home or dusty and smokey bar with occasional beer flying into the grill of the speaker. Smallest amount of moisture might even make some speakers sound nicer. On the other hand excessive moisture will just ruin any paper cone. Then even if the speaker was not abused and was sounding great for years inevitably spider gets to weak to control the movement of the cone and the voice coil. Cone surrounding does the same. Moisture makes the cone to soft and suddenly speaker ain’t that good any more. People gunning such speaker just burn it even at the power levels that were previously completely safe. That happens because part of the voice coil leaves the magnetic field and burns or control of the movement is so weak that voice coil rub kills the voice coil or even breaks some of the connections. Saying old speakers sound better is true absolutely. And they do until they do not anymore. If you go vintage speaker way just take care of it and do not play it to loud. If you go new speaker way check what you want, invest money in it and give it good break in. Do not judge it sound in first few days. Just enjoy that period when they sound good. Regarding to repairing old speaker. Gluing back the dust cap is one of the easiest repairs. Take it completely off carefully. Clean the both sides, even use fine sand paper to remove the filth. Than just glue it back on. You will hear about what glue to use and this and that. Almost anything can do it. Just keep it clean and centered and do not use to much glue. Even repairing cuts in the cone can be done very efficiently. Now re-conning is a bit tricky thing. If it is done by expert with proper cone assembly, after the break in speaker will sound great again. There are Celestion Greenbacks that were re-conned with the proper Pulsonic re-cone kits that sound amazing. But there are once that are done what must be cheapest kits that sound just sad. When you have vintage speaker in hand carefully check cone stiffness and does the voice coil rub or not. If the both things are right small repairs are just normal thing and are worth to be done. Now mixing speakers is something that all the people are not up to the speed yet. Partially this comes from the major brands offering mostly cabinets with same speakers in it. But in a room with it mixed speaker cabinets most often sound the best. Even more more different speakers are regarding to EQ curve better they supplement each other. One of the best cabinets I have heard was 2x12 with your pedestrian widely available Celestion Creamback H and M in it. It was a open back 2x12 made by local boutique builder. Cabinet size and construction as well as material used matters. Creamback M is all about middle. Those typical Celestion British middle. Creamback H adds top range and bottom. Completely different sounding speakers. Even more they do not even have the same sensitivity so M is always less loud. Still they sound way better than just sum of the parts. Magic happens, similar to what happens combining pickups on the guitar sometimes. So yes feel free to experiment. Changing speakers is not extremely expensive but changes the sound a lot. Now if you are about preservation of the original amplifier stay with what was in it and maybe repair it. Actually that is the most important question to ask. Do you crave for museum worthy originality and tone or you want best sounding longest lasting solution that might lower theoretical value of the amplifier but is going to make it sound better and make it way more reliable? Term players grade is often used wrong describing basic repairs with cheap parts that aren’t really selected for their tone or longevity but price and availability. When I speak of payers grade fixing of the amplifier I speak off making things more bulletproof and even upgraded. Parts selection gets according to those principles. Parts get expensive but worth every cent. There are modern cpas that sound better than many old once and they will not leak the DC to your grids. There are filter caps that will last longer than any old cap already did. Technology did progress. Sadly there are many bad cheap parts as well. So we come to the choice. Both are valid choices and I support them both. If the amplifier is worth restoring I am all for it. I have even restored once that no one wanted to touch. Not that they couldn’t do it but there was no money in it. Restoring costs more than similar amplifier that works. You can’t charge those hours. Still saving old amplifier feels good. On the other side if player is gigging with the amplifier and it was not original for decades and he wants it as bulletproof as possible I feel no regret for doing all stuff needed to make it as reliable as possible and sounding best as possible. I take measures to lower down the noise floor. I might even mod it to better version, like blackface the silverface Fender. I will make proper modern time grounding. All with the owners blessing and often giving him the preview so he can decide what he likes more. It is though important to remember that people have different taste for things. Some people simply like slightly flawed sound. Some like really low Fi sound. That’s all good. You just need to know how to achieve what client wants disregarding to your own taste. For example, personally I find disk caps sounding plinky and introducing unpleasant loss of signal quality. They even sound like they do not even have their capacity value. Silvemica caps I use sound way better to my ears. They have way more details. Using that 120 pF bright cap turns it in pleasure and not a pain. All that said Fender clean of some of those amplifiers is staying as it should only if you keep it original. If someone wants that sound there you go. If someone wants more details you can change stuff to achieve that as well. Personally I build 3 kinds of amplifiers. Most fun for me is building my own schematic based amplifier. I use new high end parts and point to point topology with carefully designed layout. Then I build my versions of classics. I found that many re-issue amplifiers do not sound much as the originals. Parts change but schematic stays the same. Not to forget to mention that those schematics were developed long time ago when mains voltage was lower. Tubes were of different quality. Many amplifiers were designed with cost measures in mind going from omitting the chokes to saving on kicking out grid stoppers. Seriously saving 60 cents on two resistors is just sad. So I use modern day parts and I change values and schematic until I get what is close to a sound of the old amplifier but with supple improvements that you do not notice until you make direct A to B. For example lowering the noise floor. Adding choke, changing filtering, rerouting filament wires, using shielded cables at some runs of the cable, changing layout to separate some parts, using better grade parts or even different type of the parts that are simply less noisy. When you turn your amplifier and play you might even not notice it being quiet before you start playing. The improvement is not intrusive. Only A to B relives that old amplifier is a bit more noisy and might have slightly less details. But the base sound and the nature of the amplifier must stay the same and true to the original amplifier. Third kind are replicas. Using period and schematics correct NOS parts and make as solid build as possible. I do this for friends only and only if they come with parts or donors. Overall I do builds for friends and their friends only. This makes doing it a pleasure and not a work. Takes the stress away.
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Jump to 12:43 for a cheeky comparison of before and after 3 caps are changed with NOS disc caps 🙂
You do a good job. It's clear you care about quality. I wouldn't have guessed you were new to this.
Thanks!
Eileen's Tacky Glue is great for repairing speakers. It stays flexible and dries clear. You can get it at any craft store for $6. I have used it to repair and refoam hi fi speakers for the last 25 years.
My old ears didn't hear any difference when you changed out the caps. Sounded great to me!
Of course you didn't - there was never going to be any. It's all an affectation...
Well the waveforms are different, and I used a looper pedal, so there is some difference but whether it's really audible or not is up for everyone to decide themselves
The compression that TH-cam uses makes it hard to hear subtle differences and frequency responses. Especially if you are listening to the video with your cell phone speaker.
I'm listening via a set of studio monitors connected to a presonus interface. However, I'm nearly 70 years old and have some unknown degree of hearing loss due to age, service in the Navy, and hanging out in front of loud amps/speaker cabs back in the day!
I have 4 1964 Jenson C10Q's and they sound amazing. Much more rock n roll than my super reverbs Oxford's
I have a couple old 5-watt gretsch amps with jensen speakers, and several reissue jensens of various sizes and magnets...the vintage ones sound worlds better, the difference is profound
Nice! Not sure if I've ever tried C10Q's. I really like the C10R's in my gretsch, they're cool
My tech and I did an experiment on a custom super reverb head where we swapped caps in the signal path. Mine amp lacked the presence/clarity compared to his original '64 super. We swapped ceramic disc caps back in and recompared. There was a noticeable effect of the "blanket being lifted".
I hear with these 3 caps a very slight clearing up of the lows. A bit tighter I'd describe it, it's subtle.
Epoxy. Carefully.
I would think a linear taper will push your "on" setting even further into the sweep, give it a try and see.
For future reference for "player" grade amp revitalizations Rolas are wonderful and very often cheap. Heppners are incredible but very rare at 10".
Audio taper then?
@@YeatzeeGuitar Try but like Mike said it will likely seem weird after 0 to 2.
I think J tapers were the best solution F. could come up with to get the controls to behave reasonably well somewhere between linear and log without ordering a custom taper from CTS. Imagine trying to get ahold of correct custom taper pots now, or even within the first 10 years of life for these. J tapers was common enough at the time that it would have fit into F's ease of repairability thing.
I'd say that it's unfortunate that more guitarists don't understand that the speaker choice is as important as the amp, but I guess few would be willing to adjust from the sounds and responses that they are used to.These can be night and day , fundamental differences.Very often I've found that " ultimal" is acheived by using two different types; you don't know what you're missing, or what's possible, until you start experimenting with speakers.
Jensen C10N is by far my favorite 10" speaker. It truly does sound different and better to my ears than ANY other speaker I have tried, and I have tried a LOT. Closest to it that I can find in a new speaker is the Jupiter 10LC, though it looks like they have come out with an M10C since I did my comps a year ago. I will have to try that to see the difference. I love the Jupiters in both my 64 Super Reverb and 64 Princeton (non-reverb). I replaced all 4 in the Super when I purchased it to save the originals and one had to have a recone, so while I waited I had Jupiters to play. Inexpensive and sound great. However, I do think I am going to put the originals back in, since I don't plan to drive the Super hard anyway and THEY sound really, really good at 60 years old. I have other amps for big overdrive tones. The Princeton had a replacement Jensen P10 in it that sounded decent and was well broken in, but it was a modern Italian Jensen AlNiCo and I wanted a C10N tone, so in went a Jupiter 10LC (after demoing several other speakers from Weber, Jensen, WGS, and Eminence). None were bad, some were better than others, but the Jupiter just sounds the best of the bunch, IMO. With plenty of vintage amps to compare it against, I'd be happy buying more Jupiter speakers in the future. I have no experience with their 12" or 15" speakers so far. Their 8" Champ speaker also sounds very good to my ears and is a huge tonal upgrade from the original Jensen in my 73 Vibro Champ.
You'll want an adhesive that's fairly rigid without being brittle, to secure the loose dust cap. You want the dust cap and cone to move together as one unit. Duco Cement would be a good choice. Don't overdo it. If you glob it on and it gets into the voice coil gap, obviously no bueno.
I like what you played to test it with so many people just bang punk rock chords when they’re testing something makes no sense. He played a pretty chord that was slowly so you could hear it.
Thanks! I tried to mix it up
You know the big blue molded caps do you think those make a difference? They just seem like from looking at them they might have that little magic touch that makes those old fenders sound great
@@godbyone Lots of people believe those blue moldeds are critical for blackface fender tone. I've never compared them in or out, but plan to in a future video :)
I enjoy your channel. Keep up the great work.
My personal opinion is ... There are builders nowadays that make speakers as good OR BETTER than anything anybody (except JBL) was making in the late '50s, '60s, or '70s. My favorite is Weber; but they are all good. Just choose your lane and jump in it!!
@@Tonetwisters Hmmm I've tested a ton of speakers and I've yet to find modern speakers that sound like any of my vintage speakers. I honestly believe they're half the magic of vintage amps
Try rtv silicone gasket sealer, from the auto parts store, permatex brand iirc. I had some tears in my '72 vt40 speakers, I fixed them with rtv sealer in '85, and the repair still holds. It stays flexible, and is lightweight. - try on some test paper first.
Interesting! Like the stuff used to hold down caps in in the doghouse etc?
Jeez…what kinda weirdo scours eBay listings of giant NOS cap lots for one specific value…
Yeah, Alpha audio taper pots do function better 0 to 2, but they don’t look or feel right after that. I have like 30 of them, wish I would have left a couple with you.
😂 The best kind! Frustrated with the volume pot, I might toss in the regular linear just to see 🤷♂️
@@YeatzeeGuitar I’m fairly certain that old nylon shaft CTS that was in there is linear. So, not much would change.
I just like the look and feel of the new CTS pots, it’s a shame they don’t work well 0 to 1. I’ve tried to modify them to work better. Widening the stop on one side works, but it’s hard to get perfect because they’re all just a little different.
Way to go, Matt! Sharing the amp love... Good on ya!
Great sound coming from your amp. After playing it everyday for a while you might notice that "Every single component in that amp design can make a difference when swapped , even the solder and the pots"!?!? In the end you will find yourself putting the old parts back that sounded good in the 1st place..no better way to spend your time.
Oh man, I really hope you get that thing rocking. Maybe there’s another TH-cam video that you can reference.
I feel you should always reveal your impressions of any change as well. No one is in your room and can tell as well over a compressed TH-cam video.
Honestly, I think the whole "youtube compression" thing is outdated info at best. I've compared the exported file vs the youtube upload before and I notice no difference. If you upload at 4k like I do, you get the max bitrate for audio that youtube allows, which is in my experience enough to get any detail that's there.
I do understand wanting my perspective, but it always sways opinion so I leave it out of the main video. Happy to engage in the comments though! I used a looper pedal so everything is exactly the same. The waveforms of the two recordings are a bit different so there's objectively some difference... is it enough to clearly hear? Eh, to my ears the bass is tighter / clearer. That was my only real takeaway.
Oh so you did not leave the master volume mod in it?? Sure sounds good at the end.
It's still there!
Question...I have a '65 virbrolux and it has C10-NS speakers. They do look different to the C10-N, mainly a smaller magnet and basket design. Why do you think these are more desireable than the vibrolux stock ones? Less cone breakup at higher volumes? BTW, I also have a '68 Super Reverb :)...paired with my '68 tele it's heaven.
The design changed on the C10n later, this is the later version with the different basket. I'm not sure what the difference is with the c10ns magnet wise, I wasn't aware of that 🤔
Nice score on the caps! Hey just curious what are you biasing your tubes to in your super reverb dissipation wise? I have a 67 SR and I have read some guys go down as far as 50% 15 watts per tube! I have always biased my output tubes in all of my amps just under 70%.
50-60% is pretty common ime with vintage fenders. This amp was biased to about 50% in the video. 70% is a little hot for me with fenders honestly, I typically aim for 60%.
One thing people don’t realize is how fragile vintage speakers are. I’ve blown a few speakers in two 1968 Marshall cabs and because of that lost a lot of money. Yeah they sounded great when they were good, but once blown, even if you recone, they lose all their value. Now I just run new or newer speakers. YMMV but the cost isn’t worth it to me anymore
I'm working on a whole video about this subject!
My 1968 Super reverb is crackling and poping. Any idea what I should start looking at first
Dirty tube sockets
Start with tubes, locate which tube socket(s) are the culprit but turning the amp on and pulling preamp tubes one by one. Note, it'll pop loudly, but it's safe. That's where I'd start. As mentioned it probably a bad tube or a dirty socket
Don't spray contact cleaner into the sockets! You can apply a small drop from a toothpick but even that's too much, you want to protect the wiring from being washed down.
Your tube pins could be tarnished, an easy way to brighten up the outer surface is with a 140 grit fret eraser. Personally I keep on with 400/600 grit paper to get the entire pin but I am usually working with very old tubes.
After burnishing apply some contact cleaner to the pins with a q-tip, keep it from the glass! Insert the tube a few times in the socket and reapply a little more to the pins a couple more times & repeat.
One thing you should check is if your volume pot is tightened down. Loose hardware on the volume pot can cause problems with the ground connections on your volume circuit. Also just clean the pot. A little shot of contact cleaner and then twist the pot around several times.
Sadly even non organic things like parts are subjected to decay. Even pure metal parts get damaged over time. Everything has its life time expectancy.
In speakers we do have paper and cloth based parts. Isolation lacquer as well. Those are prone to decay.
First, when they are just made, speakers sound harsh and brittle. Often top end sounds bad as having bad kind of distortion and it feels like boosted to much. Middle has some almost echo and clearly bad response like one you get from bad cabinet where your reflected sound hits the cone and makes it partially vibrate. Lows are to stiff and speaker can’t reach the lows that it should be able to play. Lows sound forced. This all changes relatively quick looking at the lifespan of the speaker. Some little good burn in and speaker gets his true sound.
Not giving the new speaker time to break in caused so many returns and bad reviews.
After the initial mechanical break in the speaker settles in. It enters its maturing process. This highly depends on moisture and temperature it is exposed to as well as they way it was used. Location matters a lot. From geo location and weather patterns related to that to micro locations like clean dust free home or dusty and smokey bar with occasional beer flying into the grill of the speaker.
Smallest amount of moisture might even make some speakers sound nicer. On the other hand excessive moisture will just ruin any paper cone.
Then even if the speaker was not abused and was sounding great for years inevitably spider gets to weak to control the movement of the cone and the voice coil. Cone surrounding does the same. Moisture makes the cone to soft and suddenly speaker ain’t that good any more. People gunning such speaker just burn it even at the power levels that were previously completely safe. That happens because part of the voice coil leaves the magnetic field and burns or control of the movement is so weak that voice coil rub kills the voice coil or even breaks some of the connections.
Saying old speakers sound better is true absolutely. And they do until they do not anymore.
If you go vintage speaker way just take care of it and do not play it to loud.
If you go new speaker way check what you want, invest money in it and give it good break in. Do not judge it sound in first few days.
Just enjoy that period when they sound good.
Regarding to repairing old speaker. Gluing back the dust cap is one of the easiest repairs. Take it completely off carefully. Clean the both sides, even use fine sand paper to remove the filth. Than just glue it back on. You will hear about what glue to use and this and that. Almost anything can do it. Just keep it clean and centered and do not use to much glue.
Even repairing cuts in the cone can be done very efficiently.
Now re-conning is a bit tricky thing. If it is done by expert with proper cone assembly, after the break in speaker will sound great again. There are Celestion Greenbacks that were re-conned with the proper Pulsonic re-cone kits that sound amazing. But there are once that are done what must be cheapest kits that sound just sad.
When you have vintage speaker in hand carefully check cone stiffness and does the voice coil rub or not. If the both things are right small repairs are just normal thing and are worth to be done.
Now mixing speakers is something that all the people are not up to the speed yet. Partially this comes from the major brands offering mostly cabinets with same speakers in it. But in a room with it mixed speaker cabinets most often sound the best. Even more more different speakers are regarding to EQ curve better they supplement each other. One of the best cabinets I have heard was 2x12 with your pedestrian widely available Celestion Creamback H and M in it. It was a open back 2x12 made by local boutique builder. Cabinet size and construction as well as material used matters. Creamback M is all about middle. Those typical Celestion British middle. Creamback H adds top range and bottom. Completely different sounding speakers. Even more they do not even have the same sensitivity so M is always less loud. Still they sound way better than just sum of the parts. Magic happens, similar to what happens combining pickups on the guitar sometimes.
So yes feel free to experiment. Changing speakers is not extremely expensive but changes the sound a lot.
Now if you are about preservation of the original amplifier stay with what was in it and maybe repair it.
Actually that is the most important question to ask. Do you crave for museum worthy originality and tone or you want best sounding longest lasting solution that might lower theoretical value of the amplifier but is going to make it sound better and make it way more reliable?
Term players grade is often used wrong describing basic repairs with cheap parts that aren’t really selected for their tone or longevity but price and availability.
When I speak of payers grade fixing of the amplifier I speak off making things more bulletproof and even upgraded. Parts selection gets according to those principles. Parts get expensive but worth every cent.
There are modern cpas that sound better than many old once and they will not leak the DC to your grids. There are filter caps that will last longer than any old cap already did. Technology did progress. Sadly there are many bad cheap parts as well.
So we come to the choice. Both are valid choices and I support them both. If the amplifier is worth restoring I am all for it. I have even restored once that no one wanted to touch. Not that they couldn’t do it but there was no money in it. Restoring costs more than similar amplifier that works. You can’t charge those hours. Still saving old amplifier feels good.
On the other side if player is gigging with the amplifier and it was not original for decades and he wants it as bulletproof as possible I feel no regret for doing all stuff needed to make it as reliable as possible and sounding best as possible. I take measures to lower down the noise floor. I might even mod it to better version, like blackface the silverface Fender. I will make proper modern time grounding. All with the owners blessing and often giving him the preview so he can decide what he likes more.
It is though important to remember that people have different taste for things. Some people simply like slightly flawed sound. Some like really low Fi sound. That’s all good. You just need to know how to achieve what client wants disregarding to your own taste.
For example, personally I find disk caps sounding plinky and introducing unpleasant loss of signal quality. They even sound like they do not even have their capacity value. Silvemica caps I use sound way better to my ears. They have way more details. Using that 120 pF bright cap turns it in pleasure and not a pain. All that said Fender clean of some of those amplifiers is staying as it should only if you keep it original. If someone wants that sound there you go. If someone wants more details you can change stuff to achieve that as well.
Personally I build 3 kinds of amplifiers.
Most fun for me is building my own schematic based amplifier. I use new high end parts and point to point topology with carefully designed layout.
Then I build my versions of classics. I found that many re-issue amplifiers do not sound much as the originals. Parts change but schematic stays the same. Not to forget to mention that those schematics were developed long time ago when mains voltage was lower. Tubes were of different quality. Many amplifiers were designed with cost measures in mind going from omitting the chokes to saving on kicking out grid stoppers. Seriously saving 60 cents on two resistors is just sad. So I use modern day parts and I change values and schematic until I get what is close to a sound of the old amplifier but with supple improvements that you do not notice until you make direct A to B. For example lowering the noise floor. Adding choke, changing filtering, rerouting filament wires, using shielded cables at some runs of the cable, changing layout to separate some parts, using better grade parts or even different type of the parts that are simply less noisy.
When you turn your amplifier and play you might even not notice it being quiet before you start playing. The improvement is not intrusive. Only A to B relives that old amplifier is a bit more noisy and might have slightly less details. But the base sound and the nature of the amplifier must stay the same and true to the original amplifier.
Third kind are replicas. Using period and schematics correct NOS parts and make as solid build as possible. I do this for friends only and only if they come with parts or donors.
Overall I do builds for friends and their friends only. This makes doing it a pleasure and not a work. Takes the stress away.
Lots of great stuff here!