Smoke1 Messages: 107 Registered: September 2003 Location: Southern Maryland Solomon...
Senior Member
I just received 4 each supposedly 12" CTS speakers from a good berber in San Diego who found them and refoamed them for me.
They have dark brown metal frames, are also newly reconed with paper and have the 4 X 3.5 black anico square style magnets encased in a black plastic cover. Each speaker weights in at a total of 5.5 LBS with part/serial numbers SC80610; 137 7043 listed on the frames. Cones Part Number is 6351258-2R. Is this 8 omhs?
I think I lucked into some sweet ones? But are they vintage or not? How would I realy know for sure?
These are going into my Kustom cabs for testing this weekend for sure?
Smoke1 Plays Kustom Amps & Old Tube Amps Loud in S. Maryland
Hello. They were made in 1970. The number 137 7043 is divided up like this: 137 is the CTS factory code, 70 is the year, and 43 is the week in that year. Hook them up to an ohm meter/multitester to find out what their impedance is. Good luck!
Smoke1 Messages: 107 Registered: September 2003 Location: Southern Maryland Solomon...
Senior Member
When I was in the Navy in San Diego I had a friend/co-worker who always referred to some of us bubbas, brothers, friends, & dudes, etc as berbers. I just started using it again this year!
Smoke1 is a Kustom Berber
Smoke1 Plays Kustom Amps & Old Tube Amps Loud in S. Maryland
Smoke1 Messages: 107 Registered: September 2003 Location: Southern Maryland Solomon...
Senior Member
We also use the Julian date calender that gives each day of the year its own number like Today 22Dec04 is 4357.
Roger that, Go Navy! Har! Har! Har! There me maties!
Now go Read my profile or I'll blast you Loud with me Kustom Twin Towers of Power!
Who's your Berber?
Smoke1 Plays Kustom Amps & Old Tube Amps Loud in S. Maryland
Smoke1 Messages: 107 Registered: September 2003 Location: Southern Maryland Solomon...
Senior Member
Yo, Voided3 And EdFPW,
As you guys recommended wire sizes. I re-wired both K200B/5 4X12 tower cabs last night with 18 gage and solderer on new speaker wire clips and new input plug jacks. I got the plugs and input jacks at Radio Shack & wire & clips at Lowes. I picked up a new RS butane powered portable solder iron ($20) kit and it works great. I also made two 14 gage 10 foot amp to speaker wires to replace my older 16 gage 25 foot cables. My towers only sit 5 feet apart away from each other and the amp head sits on its side inside the left column and my two 2x12 combos sit in between with the 2004 KQuad100 on top of the 75' Sunn. The problem was the 14 gage wire was harder to solder onto the plugs because of the wire thickness. It is bigger and really doesn't look like it should be that big for the plugs but it was doo able? It also seems to be poor quality wire and the casing peels off the wire when stripping the ends and I had to put on a small piece of electrical tape between the 2 wires at the plug soldering points. Does this size wire upgrade really make a significant volume difference or is it just a heat safety problem on the cables on either the 14X10 or the 16X25. It really looked like the plugs were not made to go bigger than the 16 gage? I was up too late to test on high volume. Will turn on high power this evening! Also, is there a safety, signal, volume, or heat difference between using shielded guitar cords instead of using regular speaker wire from amp to speakers? Request Your Thougths?? Anybody else also please?
Smoke1 Plays Kustom Amps & Old Tube Amps Loud in S. Maryland
boogie brother Messages: 11 Registered: June 2004 Location: Myrtle Beach, SC (USA)
Junior Member
You definitely MUST use 2 conductor speaker cable from amp to speaker to keep everything balanced correctly, not that it won't work...it will. But if you stop and consider that the "+" or positive leg is then running down a very small conductor with respect to the "-", negative which is running down the sheild, or the braid inside of the jacket. I know alot of guys who use guitar cords as speaker cables, unknowingly. I can tell the difference after all these years. Also it makes your amp work harder. You wouldn't wire a lamp with a sheilded cord, would you? It's basically the same theory. As far as guage of cable goes...I've seen this covered before. They put 16 guage in alot of pro cabinets, and I've questioned it to EAW techs, and they said it wasn't necessary to use the heavy stuff inside the bin.
C4ster Messages: 686 Registered: June 2001 Location: Mukwonago, WI (Milwaukee...
Senior Member
The main reason for larger wire sizes is to reduce losses in the wires. There are people who will argue to the death that the wire can improve the sound, really, not degrade the sound from your amp. However, as you have seen from the posts, sound is relative to the listener and there is no one reason for the sound you hear. For my money, anything under 25' could be connected with 16 ga wire. The speaker current at 4 ohms is only 5 amps for 100 watts of input. This would reduce the power going to your speaker by approximately 6 watts. But that is a continuous signal of 100 watts not the intermittant properties of sound. I know I start to ramble and I get some crap for doing it but I can't help myself.
Conrad
Smoke1 Messages: 107 Registered: September 2003 Location: Southern Maryland Solomon...
Senior Member
Okay, First high power K200B 5 test on yesterday reveiled to these old ears was that my amp speakers are all of a sudden louder and completely more awsome after my speaker changes and re-wire job. Plugged in the Digetch RP2000 into the head and putting the volume on 3-5 was pure meanness and Way loud. Will try higher volume when I get the girls out of the house. Har! Har! Thanks to all for the Help!!!
Smoke1 Plays Kustom Amps & Old Tube Amps Loud in S. Maryland
stevem Messages: 4733 Registered: June 2004 Location: NY
Senior Member
Becarfull with these pedals, my GNX2 can put out up to line drive voltage level, or 1 to 1.4 volts, or about 6 times the input level these amps need.The output level from your pedal should never give you more volume than a guitar pluged stright in would at what ever volume you have the amp set at.
Smoke1 Messages: 107 Registered: September 2003 Location: Southern Maryland Solomon...
Senior Member
Does that mean when using the RP2000 I should always turn the output volume knob down to be just barely on as a precaution and adjust the amp volume accordingly to keep the signal output lower?
Smoke1 Plays Kustom Amps & Old Tube Amps Loud in S. Maryland
Smoke1 Messages: 107 Registered: September 2003 Location: Southern Maryland Solomon...
Senior Member
I tested the K200 like you said and I plugged in straight with no effects and was able to get a good loud sound at about 11-12 O'clock on the volume with bass and treble on full & reverb at 1000. Then I plugged in the RP2000 and turned the output on so it just gave me just a small signal to go to the amp which I then only needed to set volume on no more than 9 O'clock for more than enough loud power for most all RP2000 settings. I then plugged the Blueshawk (2 humbuckers)into my compressor then into my Fuzz into amp like Ed said to do (I was always putting the fuzz box first before the compressor)and this also worked very well(Loud)on just a 9 o'clock volume setting. I did need to bring down the treble to 3 o'clock position. The 1970 CTS's speakers with the paper cones are excellent & the 69 CTS's with the silver cones are much brighter and compliment each other well. The Madison 16 Ohmer's however are outstanding and they add great highs (but still not like the 69's),mids and bottoms and seem to be louder than any of the CTS's and don't seem to break up. These Madisons might just be one answer for using amp modelers? I will definitely buy more of these later. Now all I need to do is start collecting new parts to update and re-furb the K200. Thanks
Smoke1 Plays Kustom Amps & Old Tube Amps Loud in S. Maryland