Eminence B102

10" "almost full range" speaker with cast frame, paper cone, and paper whgizzer cone. Street price of around $100. This is advertised on the Eminence website as being suitable for many applications.

Very hi-fi sounding. It is suitable for PA, keyboards, organ, acoustic guitar, and of course bass guitar, but not for applications needing extremely deep bass. 5 and 6-string bass players will need a subwoofer driver in conjunction with this speaker. There is a rolloff in the bottom octave of a 4-string bass. It gets all the upper range quite well without a tweeter. It basically has no output in the highest and lowest octave of the human hearing range. Using a tweeter for the highest highs and a subwoofer for the lowest lows in conjunction with this driver will make you a good full range PA cab that you can run bass, vocals, synth, or anything else through after you have developed your tone.

This speaker does not develop a colored tone for you. Eminence makes 15" bass guitar speakers for the vintage crowd, and a companion 10" BP102 for those needing better output in the bottom octave of the bass guitar. The BP102 is better for the bottom heavy crowd, and the B102 is more of a slap and pop oriented driver, or for use in multi-cab setups with a subwoofer cab. You can sing through this speaker and it works just fine for a lot of things besides bass. This is the most hi-fi sounding speaker in the Legend guitar speaker series that I know of. It should work exceptionally well in 2x10 guitar combos where the player wants the cleanest sound possible. It would probably sound killer in a Traynor YCV40 2x10 or YCV80 4x10 combo amp and make it as clean as the cleanest Fender amps ever built. This speaker is not cheap as it is made with a more expensive frame and magnet than most guitar amp speakers out there. This is a speaker for people who get their tone ahead of the speaker and want the speaker to stay relatively clean and not break up at high volume levels. The upper range is much more extended than a heavier polypropylene cone can achieve. The upper end rolls off at about 5kHz, and there really isn't any bass guitar output above that range unless it is artificially boosted with active electronics. The upper end is more natural than cheap horn piezo drivers can achieve. This is the speaker for those guitarists, lead or bass, who think the speaker should NOT be a tone coloration generator like a Celestion guitar speaker is. Those looking for tone candy will be underwhelmed. Those with a good sound already, but just want it amplified, will be pleased. I think a more exotic cone material would have cleaned up the sound even more, but not for this price which most of you will consider too high anyway. You get what you pay for in this speaker, however. I use it in a little 20W 1x10 combo practice amp, and it does well on bass or acoustic guitar. Shakes the furniture if you play heavy metal detuned guitar. I wish the little amp had more power, as the speaker is rated for 100 watts. Buy an empty 2x10 cab from Avatar, or pull the drecky stock speakers out of a cab you already own, and you have a high end cab. Disable any cheap horn tweeters in the cab. You don't need them with this speaker.

Being able to get rid of a cheap horn tweeter in your bass cabs will improve your tone and increase the reliability. This is one hefty speaker. Not likely to ever give trouble if you observe the 100W RMS power rating. Like all paper speakers,it will suffer collapse if overpowered or played hard under high humidity conditions.

Eminence products are reliable. I hear they have good customer support, but no Eminence speaker ever gave me a problem under warranty.

If you shop around, you may find these in the $90 range, but $100 is the usual low price. As I stated, if you want something besides a clean hi-fi sound, do not buy this speaker. A sterile amp that needs a tone generator speaker will really sound cold and sterile. If your rig sounds good through a clean PA system, then this speaker is a good candidate for you. I found a website where some guys had used these drivers to build full range loudspeakers with a single driver for home music listening use. The high efficiency allows it to work with low powered tube amps for plenty of volume in a home environment. 10W of amp power yields about 105dB of sound level. Loud enough for music listening or practice at sane levels. Before you go out and buy some high end 2x10 or 4x10 bass cabs at an outrageous price, consider stuffing some of these in your old cab. It will not be cheap, but you will probably have better drivers than what comes in that high end cab you have you eyes on. Most standard bass cabs use cheap drivers. Just a fact. A good plywood cab is a good plywood cab. The drivers make the most difference. Paying $1000 for $30 worth of plywood and tolex that has been stuffed it with equally cheap drivers will not yield good sound. Buy a good used cab or get one from Avatar Speakers then stuff them with these drivers and you will probably be happy.

This is a 10" speaker aimed mainly at bass guitar that includes a whizzer cone to extend the highs without resorting to a tweeter and crossover that induces phase shift and tonal shift in the upper harmonics. The basket frame is heavy duty cast aluminum, the main cone and whizzer cone are paper, and the magnet is a huge 59 ounce ceramic unit. 8 evenly spaced bolt holes are drilled in the thick frame edge and a heavy duty gasket is included that prevents "basket ringing" that can transmit through the paper cone. The speaker works well in an 8-bolt or 4-bolt mounting arrangement. Eminence touts this speaker as their best all-purpose bass guitar speaker, and it has other uses as well such as electric piano, organ, and synthesizer. I think it might work great on acoustic guitar as well.

Most low cost bass practice amps do not impress me. I was looking for versatility of tone; an amp that sounded like a tube amp without the size, weight, expense, heat buildup, and upkeep issues that tubed bass amps incur. The Marshall AVT20 had the best tubelike tone of any hybrid guitar amp on the market, and a rather wide range of tonal capability. The problem was that the 10" Celestion speaker it came with is almost useless for bass guitar. I went shopping for an alternative speaker that would bolt right in without mods and allow good bass guitar tone while still allowing decent guitar tone. The Eminence B102 seemed to be the best option. It's cost was not cheap at $100 discount price with S&H($138 MSRP), as that was half of what I gave for a used Marshall AVT20 Valvestate amp. The extended upper range of the B102 allowed me to dispense with a tweeter, while the speaker also had useful output down to 41 Hz. I had to go to an auto parts store and buy 4 longer 8mm metric bolts because of the extremely thick frame edge, then it bolted right in without further issues. The initial sound was MUCH cleaner than the stock Celestion speaker, and the bass output was awesome with a regular electric guitar while still maintaining the Celestion speaker efficiency. While lacking the brown sound of the stock Celestion speaker, it is a clean sound that works very well when getting tone from pedals. Nothing I can do will overpower the speaker. The tone was useable with bass guitar, but not quite right. There was a very distinct upper bass hump centered around 75 HZ and too much rolloff down at the open E string at 41 Hz. I determined the cabinet was too small for proper operation and it needed some internal damping. I installed a Scan-Speak resistive flow vent in the center of the back panel and added 2/3 pound of Acousta-Stuff nylon damping material to fool the speaker into thinking it was in a much larger cabinet. It worked quite well. I now have good output down to the open E string on my OLP MusicMan copy bass and I still have adequate high frequency response. This speaker will NOT suffice for 5-string bass unless an additional cab with output down to 31 Hz is used with it. For that, go get an Acme Sound Low B2 cab or something similar. I plan on adding an external loudspeaker cabinet at a future date as my AVT20 has external loudspeaker and DI output jacks on the front panel. This is a very clean sounding speaker, almost Hi-Fi in nature. It looks a heck of a lot like a Lowther or Fostex audiophile ceramic magnet speaker that was modified for bass guitar use. Once you go the "one-way way", you may never have any use for those crappy sounding horn tweeters ever again. This speaker sounds a lot more natural and easier on the ears than adding a horn tweeter to a conventional bass guitar speaker with limited upper frequency response. Manufacturers don't use this speaker because it is too expensive and the customer bias for horn tweeters, not because of any sound issues. 4 regular steel framed 10" speakers and a Foster horn costs a heck of a lot less than 4 of these babies. Seasoned bass guitarists buy these to upgrade their cabs, especially slap and funk bass players. My advice is to buy just the empty 2x10 or 4x10 cabinet, or cabs with blown speakers at a dirt cheap price and install these babies then take out that crappy piezo horn tweeter. Try adding Acousta-Stuff damping material and installing a Scan-Speak resistive flow vent (or 2 or 4 of them as the case may be) and plugging the port. This converts to acoustic suspension of sorts, but allows less internal volume than an untreated sealed cabinet. You can also try various thicknesses of damping material in the port hole to make your own custom resistive flow vent and tune your cab to your taste. This is a very efficient 10" bass speaker. I have no problem making windows and furniture buzz from the puny 20 watts the AVT20 puts out. Output is 110 dB at 1 meter

You'll never get a better bass guitar speaker at the price. It's not cheap, but you will smile when you open the box and see this extremely well made speaker. The Celestion speaker looked like cheap junk next to it, which it is by build quality and price. I'm using a 200W speaker in a 20W amp, so there is no way it will ever blow out. No practice combo I know about with a 10" speaker will ever overpower this unit.

I think Eminence puts customer support up front in basic design and build quality. Rarely should this speaker ever give any problems unless a real bozo gets crazy with too much power. The Eminence reputation is excellent as far as customer support goes, but I have never had a need to use it.

The B102 has a stablemate that is also famous. The BP102 will give you deeper bass with less upper frequency extension and less efficiency. If you like a duller sound and have lots of power, it may be a better choice than the B102. It is also less expensive and has a steel basket frame. If you want the best full range bass speaker made that eliminates the need for crossovers and tweeters, and you only need response down to 41 Hz, then give the B102 speaker a try. A 2x10 cab loaded with these paralled with another cab using a low frequency 15" driver should satisfy 5-string and 6-string players as well. Give the speaker several hours of "break in" before forming a final opinion. Just like high grade audiophile speakers, it sounds a lot different after the suspension loosens up and the lows become fuller and more extended. Free your cab from crossovers and tweeters, and your tone will follow. If you don't think small bass speakers can deliver the goods, then go to the Phil Jones Bass website and read his technical articles. In just a few years, a 10" bass speaker may be considered quite large. His are 5", and he explains why smaller is better (you just need a lot more of them). However, 10" is the smallest size that bass cabs are presently cut to as standard production, and the Eminence B102 is the best all-purpose bass speaker at any price that I know of.