Guitar Amp Speakers

Swapping around guitar amp speakers can affect the tone of an amplifier more than changing amps. I recently purchased a mint 64' Fender Vibroverb Clone. The amp was built by an amp tech for the fun of it using new old stock parts. And if you weren't told it was a clone you'd never know.

I'd been looking for a Vibroverb, but any real 64' verb was in the $5,000.00 range, so the clone was my only option. It's an amazing amp it has incredible clean headroom, with a bite and snap that makes my teeth hurt. The amp was built using a no longer manufactured JBL E130-8 speaker, which is as close as the JBL D130F that came in many of the original Vibroverbs.

I thought I had found nirvana as far as amps, it's infinitely better than my 65' Deluxe Reverb, or so I thought. I was messing around last week and ran a cheap crate V5 tube amp through the speaker of the vibroverb. Though not as full as the verb the little crate amp sounded amazing. Much crisper and sharper than any of the speakers I had run with the crate before.

I tried the 65' Deluxe through the Vibroverb speaker, and I could not tell the difference between the Verb and the Deluxe.

I'm not in anyway upset I purchased the Vibroverb. It's a great amp, that I'll probably keep forever. The moral of this story is this, before you run out and buy a new amp for the tone your looking for, try buying different guitar amp speakers first. It's a much cheaper investment and you can always resell them on ebay until you get the sound you like. Just make sure you match the speaker impedance to the amps, and of course the size. Thanks for reading J.B.

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