Twin with Black Widow

Joel Lee Weinstein · From: Wimberley, Texas, USA

Years ago I used to play a silver faced Twin with 12" JBLs. In the mid 90s I switched to a Session 400 Limited (with a BW), which I still have and use on stage (except for one venue with an extremely small stage (at which I used a NV 112).

I'm thinking about switching back to a Twin (a silver face one), but I don't want to do anything until I give it a try.

Here's what I'd like to try: I borrowed a Twin reissue from a friend (I know this isn't the same as a silver face, but it's the only one I can borrow right now). What I want to do is connected the Twin to the BW to see how it sounds with that Speaker. The 12" speakers in the Twin together have a load of 4 ohms and so does the single BW, so the resistance would not change. BUT

And now I say what everyone is thinking: The reissue puts out 85 watts of power, but the BW is rated at 210 watts. My question is whether the using the Twin with the BW will result in a underpowered speaker, or any other potential problems. Remember this is just a test. If it works out I would end up using a silver face Twin that puts out 100 watts of power (more than the reissue but still less than the rating of the BW).

Any thoughts anyone?

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Potential problems? None. The result of 'underpowering' a speaker is described on the Weber site as 'warmer' which means....I'm not sure. I've done it often.
There are no technical issues with doing what you propose.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Yup, Jon is correct. Having a speaker that is mildly over-rated for an amp is no problem - in fact, for clean pedal steel, it's probably a good idea. The converse - having speaker(s) that are under-rated for the amp - can be a problem if you push it too hard. I don't think there is any remote problem running a BW on 85 Watts - those are tube Watts anyway, and one can often push a tube amp over the rating without it sounding like fingernails on a chalkboard.

There can be performance issues from running a high-power but low-efficiency speaker with a very underpowered amp. But I believe BW's are pretty efficient. I sometimes run my 6-watt Fender Vibro-Champ into either a Thiele-Small cab with a 12" EVM-12L speaker, or a Peavey 115E cab with a 15", 4-ohm BW - sounds great for a small folkie gig. Or even better - try this with an old Princeton.

Now some people (especially guitar players) like the speaker pushed hard enough that the cone goes into higher-order or nonlinear vibrational modes. That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid with clean pedal steel.

Phil Halton · From: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA

I have such a beast--a 79 SF twin (135 watt) with a single BW1502-4DT speaker (I think I got that speaker nomenclature right). I put it straight into the shop to have it gone through. Haven't seen it since (about 2 month), otherwise I'd tell you how I like it.

Got it from Bobbe Seymour--It's the one he used on some of his YouTube videos.

This reminds me to light a fire under the amp tech's $$$--Almost forgot I owned the thing.

Charlie Powell · From: Kingsport, Tennessee, USA

I have a Twin Re-issue custom 15, (same electronics, different cabinet). I currently have the stock Emminence Speaker stored and have a 1501-4 shallow basket Black Widow installed in it. I personally like the sound. It is warmer that the stock speaker.
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Charlie Powell

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