External Tweeter

[Tom Campbell]

Does anyone recall the thread where an external "tweeter" speaker was plugged into the amps out-jack and required no cross-over electronics. The external "tweeter" just sat on top of the amp. I read this thread a few days ago and (like a fool) didn't save it!
Thanks for anyone's sharp memory!!!

[Chuck McGill]

Tom
I didn't see the post your talking about but
it must be a piezo tweet or horn of some kind.Any music store or radio shack can help
you with this.

[Ken Fox]

Should work on any amp that has a parallel jack for speaker out. The impedance of the piezo is so high that it presents virtually no load to the amp. Don't try it on a 135 watt Twin, the external speaker jack is a switching jack that places the internal and external speakers in series with each other!

[Tom Campbell]

Thank you for your replys. Your information basically answers my question. I have a bass amplifier that I sometimes use for lead guitar, but by nature, the amp cuts off the highs. The bass amp has a bright switch, but it still sounds a little murky...so I am looking for an easy fix.

[John Russell]

Tom, that may be difficult to do without adding a separate pre-amp, voiced for steel guitar. With that you could patch into the power amp and bypass the bass amp's pre-amp.

You still may have a problem using a bass speaker for the range of sound you're trying to amplify for steel. I think most bass speakers are shaped and voiced for bass. I have a piezo tweeter in my steel cabinet. It plugs into the same terminals as the EV15 I use. No crossover is necessary. ----JR

[Donny Hinson]

A simple stomp-box EQ will go a long way towards tweeking to get the tone you want. Forget the tweeter...it's range is too high to help where you really need it (in the upper mid-range).

[Jerry Gleason]

I did exactly that with my Gallien-Kruger 200MB bass amp and it worked great for steel. The GK 200MB is a small 100w bass amp in a sealed metal cabinet with a 12" speaker. It's very small, (fits in a large backpack), weighs 24 lbs, and is unbelievably loud and clean. But, since it's essentially a heavy-duty acoustic suspension woofer, it tops out at about 4Khz (It's a bass amp, remember?).

Anyway, I bought a cheap piezo horn, and made a bracket to fasten it to the handle on top. It plugs into the external speaker jack, (no crossover needed), and really increases the versatility of the amp for applications other than bass. The balance is just about right between the two drivers, but piezo tweeters can be brittle and will amplify hiss very well, so I stuffed some foam into the horn to take some of the edge off of the high end.

I doubt if this approach would work as well with a majority of instrument amps, because of noise or general tonal balance, but it's perfect for the GK, and even sounds like a two-way hi-fi speaker when you play program material through it. The horn seems to be able to take all the power the amp can give it without complaint.

The trick to using such a small amp on a gig is to get it up high, about ear level where everyone can hear it. For that, I threaded a 1/4-20 hole in the bottom of the metal cabinet, and I attach it to a heavy duty Bogen camera tripod.

Works for me...

[John Russell]

I tried out a GK bass amp for my steel rig using my EV-15 box and my Boss GE-7 equalizer. Just didn't deliver the tone for me. When I bought the TubeWorks 9002 preamp, I brought my GK micro (guitar) amp out of retirement and have enjoyed great tone. It's critical how things are hooked up. I'm bypassing the GK's pre-amp and running the GE-7, plus the analog delay in front of the TubeWorks preamp, then I run a digital reverb between the preamp and the GK, into the EV-15 and it sounds fantastic. ---JR

[Keith Murrow]

..<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Keith Murrow on 26 October 2004 at 04:33 PM.]</p></FONT>