Eminence Man O War

120 watt, 8 ohm speakers.

I put two of these in a 2x12 sealed back cab and played through a Laney GH100 with a Schecter 7 string and an Epi Les Paul. Both guitars have Duncan '59 in the neck while the Schecter has a JB at the bridge and the Epiphone has a Bare Knuckles Painkiller. Only effects are BBE sonic max and T.C. Electronic Reverb.

These speakers are kind of like a cheaper sounding GT12-75 in my opinion. Not that they aren't good at somethings but I wouldn't want to use them for the kind of heavy metel I usually play.
With a clean amp the Man-O-Wars are actually pretty nice sounding. They have a nice british voicing and a lot of definition in the upper mids. They can also do well with light to moderate overdrive provided you EQ your amp right.
These speakers seem to really fizz up the more gain you ad to your signal...most likely because of their aggressive high end. The more I crank the gain the more I have to cut the highs on my amp to keep the tone clean enough. My amp in particular has very intense high end character itself so by the time I get the gain up to a suitable level for playing metal the tone is crap. The bottom end lacks the tightness you'd want for modern metal as well. No real punch at high gain levels.

Costs more than eminence legends but the cone doesn't seem as solidly built. I haven't experienced any issues though.

Bottom line is these speakers are fine for clean and light overdrive tones but not modern metal distortions. I could see them maybe being used for old school metal sounds like Judas Priest or something but I personally don't like that type of guitar sound.
I'm using Legend V128's now and they retain punch and clarity with high gain levels that I require. They have a more organic feel to them...I can really hear my fingers on the fretboard and the pick attack dynamics. The lows are tighter and the highs are rolled off so they don't fizz up. Much better speaker IMO than the Man-O-War.

I picked out this speaker to replace the Eminence Legends in my 4x12 cabinet. I was looking for something that would produce a more defined, but not too boomy low end. After reading a number of good reviews, I went with the Man O Wars. Needless to say I was not disappointed. I even went an extra mile and combined two Man O Wars with two Eminence Patriot Red White and Blues speakers, criss-crossing the two types to get an evened out sound. The first time I tested them out, I immediately noticed a huge improvement in clarity and attack. I think the main things the Man O Wars add are a more powerful, but cleaner low end, plus an added shimmer to the top end frequencies, with no unwanted distortion whatsover at high volumes. The two RWAB's, meanwhile, take care of the mid-range frequencies, smoothening them out quite nicely.

They seem to be pretty heavy-duty thus far.

I emailed Eminence with some questions about mixing the Man O Wars and RWAB's, and they responded rather quickly with some useful insights on what I might expect from them both.

To give a basic idea of my setup, I play an Ovation Breadwinner with active pickups through an old 120watt Peavey Rock Master tube head, so there is already plenty of power to go around. The Man O Wars simply throw even more aggression and power into the mix, and combined with the RWAB's, they seem to articulate all the right frequencies to produce a nice full sound that shows plenty of balls to boot. They seem quite durable, as well. In all, I would say that they are every bit worthy of their name.

Manowar is a 120 watt 12" speaker. I have the 8 ohm models but a 16 ohm model is availabe.

This review is for both the Man-O-War and the Red White and Blues speakers because I have two of each in a 4x12 cab. RWB's are also 120w and 8ohm.
Basically I got these speakers to replace the stock drivers in my B52 LG 4x12 cab. I figured it would be less expensive and less of a pain in the butt to order these from Musician's Friend than to buy a whole new cab (especially since I don't own a car).
My goal was to have as open and clean a sound from my speakers as possible, which is why i wanted to mix two Red Coats with two Patriots in a criss-cross pattern. This way I'd get a broad spectrum response in my sound and not be pigeon-holed into a specific voicing.
The sound is a marked improvement over the stock speakers I had. Not only are the eminence drivers more powerful (the stock ones were 100w), they're actually a bit lighter for some reason. As soon as I started playing through the new ones I heard a big improvement in presense and high-end character, that is; they sound much louder and more "in your face" while at the same time the sound is not harsh and has a rounded off "fattness" to the high end attack. With high gain(but not to a rediculous extent) overdrive, the Manowars seem to have middle to low-mid range growl that is given authority by powerful and chunky lows while the RWB's have a flatter mid-range and tighter low-end. The combination of the two together gives me a very articulate, clean sound that has a great balance of warmth, clarity and, most importantly...BALLS! It's perfect for either heavy rock or metal. There isn't really any cone break-up that I can hear and the sustain is definately a bit better than my old speakers.
The clean tones are also very nice. I noticed a lot more clarity and volume right away. Although I should say that on the clean channel, there was a little bit of speaker break-up while playing my seven string. However, the low end never lost any clarity or sounded muddy which was a big problem with the old speakers.
And I have to say one of the best things about these speakers is that unless you go crazy with the high tone control on your amp, you can stand directly in front of the speakers and not get that ice-pick beam.
Overall, even with the combo of the british and american types, my cab definately leans towards sounding more like a british style amp because of the Manowars' mid-range shinning through. However, the high end character of the RWB's definately does come through in the chimmy high-end and tight low-end.

Just got them but they seem very well built.

I have been playing for over 14 years. My rig is fairly straight-forward: Schecter 7 string guitars(007 Elite and C-7 Black Jack, both with Duncans), B52 AT 100 watt tube head, Fender rack tuner, TC Electronic rack effects (controlled by Rocktron Midi Mate), Boss NS2, BBE Sonic Maximizer all into a B52 LG 4x12 now loaded with 2 Manowars and 2 RWB's. These speakers have really brought the whole thing to life. My bass player plays through a 1200 watt Ampeg rig and with the old speakers in my cab I was always being overwhelmed because they were weaker in the middle to upper mid range. Now, without changing any of my amp's settings, I cut through on both rythym and lead parts.
As far as style goes, I play progressive metal and these speakers are excellent for that. Very responsive and powerful so I don't need to use tons of gain. I'm very happy that I bought these.
*On a side note: These speakers sounded excellent right out of the box. Eminence recommends allowing for break-in time but these didn't really seem to need it.

12" 8 ohm guitar speaker up to 120 Watts. The Man O War is part of the Red Coat Series from Eminence and is described by them as "A proven and revered sound, very loud and responsive/articulate in every register. Chunky and solid sound with a little top end sparkle." Their application description is "Great for College Rock, Classic Rock, Grunge and Heavy Metal." The speaker is made in the USA with a British Cone and the description and applications are spot on. I am using the speaker in a Laney LC50-II and compared to original speaker which was a HH Premier Vintage Sixty, the changes are amazing and dramatic.

This speaker really does everything I want it to do. In combination with my amp, which is reviewed in depth on this site, it goes from a glassy fender twin clean with excellent bass response to brown sound to classic crunch to aggressive metal (think Soldano / Krank - Krankenstein, which uses Eminence Texas Heat speakers) depending on how much gain I use on the overdrive channel. I love the British flare of this speaker and it is so versatile in my Laney. It really is a great hybrid of American and British Speaker Technology. The cone is made in England by the way. Tone is subjective and I don't know how well this speaker would do in an American amp, but if you have a British Tube A/B Tube amp and you are sick of weak midrange heavy speakers with no punch or sparkle then the Man O War should be in your top 2 or 3 picks for speaker replacement.

From what I have read and experience, Eminence has a great track record, but as I am laking long time experience with this particular product I will have to hold off on rating this category.

I emailed some technical questions to Eminence when trying to figure out what speaker to pick and they were very timely and helpful.

I have been playing guitar for 21 years. I play mostly Gibson Les Paul 1960 classic, SG '61 RI and couple of modified Fender Strats. I have a Fender Twin Reverb as well as the Laney, but I don't see much use for the Twin now that I have replaced the speaker in the Laney with the Man O War. I would not hesitate to replace this speaker, this thing smokes speakers that cost 3 times as much.