Eminence Kappa 12

Follow-up, as I've put this speaker in a 212 closedback cab.
Used with bass, through 200w head it sounds shockingly beautiful and balanced, slap comes out very cleanly. Not much treble, but tweeters are available after all (sold separately at your friendly dealer).
Through the new fender bassman150 it is not that beautiful, somewhat processed. It may well reflect the amp I think.
With a heavy style guitar playing (EMG loaded SG through Peavey 6505 head) it sounds way bad: too soft, too slow, too midrangey, no details, ugly in fact.
So this speaker is very responsive to your setup, never know for sure what will work and what won't.
In a 112 closed cab through a behringer 300w bass head it didn't sound good too, no wonders here...

Again, it is a beautiful smooth sounding speaker with huge bass but well controlled. Not much highs but still ok for guitar use.
In open back combo it sounds more alive, this is well known from long time guitar users. That gives more treble and relaxed bass.

The thing seems to be way reliable, just make sure the 212 cab it will go in is strong enough (around 15kgs the pair of Kappas in a handy cab may just break its baffleboard easily).

If I had to do it again, for guitar use I would take the delta pro 12 or the gamma 12 (both go higher, and still are smooth and fresh).
For bass, just add a tweeter but fretless players will like it as it is. It's my very case!
Last thing, this speaker accepts very small (around 20 liters) enclosures and sounds good in them. A good choice for very small combos then.
Hope this helps, choosing a speaker is quite complicated...

Brand new speaker, it can do clean (with a big honking midrange around 1500 hz) and it can also do celestion style crunch. This speaker is like an EV with the accentuated mids of a vintage 30 and rolled off highs like a greenback. It is very clean because of the massive magnet and eminence's super dupont-engineered kapton. The construction is actually a lot like the EVM12LF guitar speaker, except it has a slightly smaller magnet (80 oz instead of 109 oz). the magnet is still big enough to take 450 watts of punishment, though, so even using it in a 1x12 doesnt present any problems. the speaker can definitely produce sound pressure levels of 103 or 104 decibles without getting muddy or floppy. it is a very tight, but slightly unresponsive speaker. good for a 100 or 50 watt marshall non master JMP in the studio. i use this speaker in a 1x12 enclosure with a traynor mark II with 2 EL34 power tubes and it sounds fantastic. very crunchy. 8 or 16 ohms. 450 watts peak. 80 oz magnet. kapton voice coil. pressed steel frame. ceramic magnet.

what i like about this speaker is the accentuated upper mids. really good attack and punch. it has tight lows. the 200 hz freq is especially tight, whereas with an EV it is pretty floppy. if you're using a humbucking bridge pickup with a little bit of growl, that frequency will just mud up everything, but in this case it sounds fantastic. good for bass or guitar. sounds great with a bassman and a strat. tons of mid honk. the highs are rolled off like a greenback, so it takes the edge off of distortion. the speaker sounds a lot like an eminence V12, their vintage 30 clone, except that it does not exhibit speaker breakup. it is an incredibly powerful speaker. i am going to load 4 into my marshall basketweave cab and use it with a bassman. crunch!

incredibly reliable. can take anything you give it. the coil will never fail. the kapton they use is almost indestructible.

never had to deal with em

Been playing since i was 10 years old, im 21 now. i will never use another speaker. I have used eminence vintage 30s, celestion vintage 30s, celestion greenbacks, celestion g12-65's, weber ceramic michigan 12's, electrovoice evm12lf's, JBL 15's, old stock eminence speakers with the square magnet, jensens, oxfords... you name it, im familiar with it. all in all, what it comes down to is that in my opinion, when you're playing a big 4x12 cab, or two of them, with a 100 watt head, the more clarity the better. eliminating speaker breakup and inefficiency in speakers has expanded my clarity ten fold. this speaker is better than any JBL or EV in my opinion, and accentuates the best frequencies in guitar playing: MIDS! so basically if youre playing at high volumes this speaker takes the cake. i use one of them in a 1x12 cab and its loud enough to compete with a drummer who's using a tama rockstar kit with a 24 inch kick and zildjian z custom cymbals. its a huge loud kick but its still only just as loud as my 1x12 and 50 watt traynor. thats efficiency at its best.

This is a way huge speaker! Almost 8kgs, 80 oz magnet, rated at 450 watts!!
I chose it to use with my trusty five strings fretless in a single 12 cab, hooked to a Behringer bxt3000 head (300w, octaver inside).
I didn't test it too long with the bass, but just out of curiosity I did install the kappa in my guitar combo (line6 spider 2 112).
This review is for that, I'll post when tested accurately with the bass.

All I can say is waow. All of a sudden my toyish amp was grown up.
This amp is good-sounding in general, but cold with some treble harshness, and the celestion it comes with ain't the best at all (too midrangey, no details in the sound).
The Kappa12 does have a good treble response, and a smooth one so it's the best match I found for the spider2. The bass response is intense, but never overbearing and that's where I'm surprised.
To sum it up: loud, warm, smooth.
I compare it (with the line6) with legend 121 (too clean-thin, clear-treble), celestion g12p80 (muddy, no details,barfing speaker), eminence budget bass speaker (no volume, but nice details, no bass),
so it's a clear winner

Come on, 450 watts in a 75-watter...
Seems well done, but given its weight one should be very careful when installing. The bigger they are, the harder they fall...
Keep in mind it has no aluminium frame, but a relatively thin steel one.

Way good in a guitar amp! And a perfect match to compensate my spider2 weaknesses (the amp still lacks a lot of things, Kappa or not).
Loud, warm, smooth with good treble response. I can see SRV using those speakers...
I chose it over the delta pro12 only because it was 40 euros cheaper, and it goes down to 40 hz instead of 50 for the delta pro.
Again, I bought it for bass use, I'll post when properly tested.
Thanks for reading, feel free to email me