Eminence Blue Tick Hound

12" speaker with medium magnet (lighter than other Patriot speakers)

This is an up date to my previous review. I have tried these with a Crate V30 Head an all Class A tube amp and found that they worked great for a wide variety of music. The Class A tube amp really helps bring out the best in the speaker. It's more broken in and the bass is more pronounced, firm and balanced into the mids, highs are not grating or piercing. I like it for blues and rock and prefered it over the Texas Heat which sounded really great in this amp. The Blue tick hound was just a bit more relaxed than the Texas Heat and I wanted something more mellow. Originally I though the bass was boxy sounding and discovered it was much better in a slightly larger cabinet (24" wide rather than 18").
This speaker is not Celestion sounding and if anything leans more towards a Jensen MOD but fuller and smoother breakup in the highs.

Good

never used it

I felt the Texas Heat was better in many ways but this speaker was mellower and that was what I needed. I coulds not quite get as relaxed a blues sound as I wanted with the Texas Heat.

12 Inch speaker 8ohms. This is suppose to be a speaker with scooped mids but ir sure did not seem like it. Maybe it's scooped compared to other Eminence speakers. A celestion Vitage 30 is scooped and compared to this Eminence does not seem that scooped at all.

The bass is lacking, it's firm but thin sounding, it just seems to lack body or some degree of fullness. The mids are okay and I can get some variation of this area with the amps tone control, better than I could with the Screamin Eagle, perhaps this is do to the scooped mids Eminence claims. The mids are not like a Celestion with that warm body that many Celestions seem to have but are more of a piercing nature turning off the presence tone knob helps. The highs are nice and not over predominent like a Screamin Eagle. The blend of highs to mids works pretty good to get pretty nice cleans but the bass can sound pretty strange as it is lacking or thin. When using Distortion it's smooth and not grainy. In some ways this speaker reminds me of a Celestion Greenback in it's tonal range (bass to mids to high ratio) but this speaker is NOT woody sounding at all and has more of a over-all sound that tends to lead to a bright presencecy character (the screamin Eagle really has this character in heavy dosages). Try playing a Fender Blues junior to get a tonal idea of what this speaker sounds like. The Eminence Fender speaker has more bass and fullness and a high-end that breaks up easyly and just seems over-all looser and funner to play through. The Blue Tick Hound is tighter and the highs more defined than the Eminence Fender. I was not happy with the speaker mainly do to the poor bass quality tone.

Good

I have not used them

Thin bass and mids that seem too piercing rather than musical left me dissapointed. It worked well for new Metal or a biting blues lead or modern rock but for Classic rock or just plain laid back guitar playing it seemed like it did not cut it for warm or pleasing musical tones.

a supplement to my review below... as i've played this thing more and more using the S-73, i'm really beginning to like it a great deal. for rock/metal/psychedelic heavier-type stuff it's just awesome with a chunkier guitar, even on cleans (not as fond of it with single coils, still). i've just replaced the C-Rex with the Blue Tick as it's internal for now 'cause i'm having so much fun cranking it.

purchased new from avatarspeakers.com....one of the Patriot models from Eminence's Redcoat/Patriot line of speakers. this one has a scooped midrange, a small ceramic magnet, an early breakup, and a moderate 99db efficiency. no matter what you have, this will probably sound different, and so is a good speaker for recordists to keep in a extra 1x12 cab no matter their staple sound.

i'm using this as an extension for my Classic 30, to be run instead of the internal speaker (my internal is an Eminence Cannabis Rex 8ohm which is plugged into the external speaker output) for recording. the guitar i'll be using with this is a Squire S-73 (continuation of the Guild/DeArmond S-73, as the company was purchased by Fender) which is heavily modded, most notably with the excellent GFS Fat PAF Alnico humbuckers. true to their EQ curve on the Emi website, these sound very scooped and therefore have the bottom end giving more of the sound's body, and a thinner high end which sounds very pleasant and shimmery. contrary to the Emi description, i like it for cleans as well as for overdriven sounds, and like i mentioned, it's a great "extra" speaker even if scooped metal sounds aren't your staple. this is the second Patriot i've gotten, along with the Cannabis Rex that is my main speaker, and it's the second one i like a lot.

not much to say, except that it's got a 7 year warranty. it's new, so no marks.

Eminence has a superb website, excellent speaker data and descriptions, as well as very helpful info on speakers in general. never had to call them for a busted product, and may never have to.

for me, a great role player as it's the polar opposite of the much middier and thicker Cannabis Rex. if i played in a metal band i would consider loading a cab with them, possibly in combination with something else, but i'll just use this for recording as my two amps, separately or in tandem, can get me any sound i want. Eminence is on a roll with these Patriot/Redcoat speakers, it seems.