Eminence Swamp Thang

12" 150W Eminence Speaker made in Kentucky

I have this installed in a mongrel of an amp, don't get me wrong it's cool and I love it. The chasis is from an early 70's Champ with one 6V6 power tube, a 5Y3 rectifier tube, and a 7025 preamp tube. It has been gone through by David Allen of Allen Amps wired to "Blackface specs". (He is great to deal with, check out his web site. I can't say enough good things about his customer service. He builds some high quality "boutique" amps that are an incredible value when compared to other hand wired point to point amps.) The cabinet is a custom that is built for a set up like mine, also from David Allen.

The speaker suits my needs perfectly. It is warm/dark but is still very articulate. It maintains the highs but isn't harsh. There is great note separation in the mids. Since I am only running about 7 watts I don't have a tremendous bottom to maintain but that it the amp not the speaker, but I will say it holds the bottom end together remarkablely well. I am looking for a great warm, but raunchy / Stonesy tone at reseasonable volume levels and I have it in spades now. I play through a Les Paul Classic with Gibson Burstbucker 2 and 3 pick ups, and a Les Paul Jr. with a Gibson P-90. With the volume cranked to around 6-7 the bass on 6 and the treble on 8 I get some really nice tube distorsion and I roll back the volume on the guitar and it cleans up and still sparkles. It goes without saying that the Burstbuckers push harder then the P-90 but to anyone who has never heard a good P-90 roaring through an over driven tube amp, I can honestly tell you your life is not yet complete.

It is a 150W speaker being driven by a 7 watt amp so I don't honestly believe it even breaks a sweat. Which is fine with me, I don't like speaker distortion. I think you need to push the tubes to their limits not the speaker.

I am very impressed with how all of this has boosted the volume of my amp. I expected it, but was surprised by the difference the bigger cabinet and speaker made.

Never dealt with Eminence, and I know what I am getting when I deal with David Allen. So I'll give it a 10 just based on him. I got the speaker from him not direct from Eminence.

I have been playing for 17 years now so I appreciate good tone, even more than technique, and this speaker delivers to suit my taste.


One thing I have to question on some reviews that I have read is, why do people bash things they buy yet they admit they picked out the wrong thing? Don't buy a little Pignose then slam it because it doesn't sound like a 100 watt Soldano.

12", 150 W speaker

I've got two Swamp Thangs in my Avatar 2x12 closed-back cab. I'm using this for my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp. I agree with basically everything Eminence says about them on their website.

I find the tone very "pure" through this speaker. Clean, thick, dark, present. The cleans actually come through cleanly (unlike before with the stock speaker), the only distortion being from the tubes. The speakers also make my leads sing... the sustain is fantastic, and the tone just sounds, again, "pure". LOVE leads though these...

The bass response is very pronounced. Turning the bass knob to 0 on my amp doesn't even cut all the bass! (so if you have an amp that is very bassy/low-mid heavy, you may have trouble dialing it out if you need to) My amp is also very bright, and I like how these speakers tame the highs without eliminating them. Much more pleasant.

Basically, I love low-mids and love the thick, pure tones I get from these speakers. However, if you like high-mids and the grit of speaker distortion, you should probably look elsewhere.

I can't really say, since I've only had these about a month. Plus, my amp is a 40 W amp, and I have a 2x12 cab with these which can handle 300 W, so I'm never really gonna be pushing these hard enough for them to break a sweat, let alone break down.

I've been playing for about 6 years. I'm not familiar with a lot of speakers, but the improvement these speakers have made to my setup is astounding and the most pronounced out of any gear upgrade in the past.

I love almost everything about these speakers. Of course, when I'm playing with more aggressive distortion, this speaker may not be perfect since it has no grit from speaker distortion, but when I played my first gig with the new speakers, I had no problems cutting or having the distortion sound thick.

Just MUCH better than the HRD's stock speaker, and makes me a MUCH happier guitarist. :)

12", 150 watts, heavy frame and magnet.

very deep, dark, and powerful. adds some serious ass end if you pair this with a diff. type speaker.

built like a tank, you'd need a peterbilt to crush it.

never needed it, never will.

i got this by accident one time. i'd imagine you could play keyboard, acoustic or even bass out of this due to it's demonic tone. had it in a 2x12 vertical recto cab with an emi cannibis rex i also got by accident, it may have been the loudest combination i have ever owned. i don't have it anymore, this speaker is like an insanely dark g12h that responds well to your picking. if you want something interesting, i'd recommend it.

I use Ibanez RG 550's, Peavey Rock Master + Classic 50/50 and a Marshall Artist 3203. I like heavy distortion. I hate this speaker. It is useless to me right now. It is clean, yes big, but I don't like the "American" type sound it has. I have used Celestion G12T-75's forever, so I guess I am used to them. I really like the G12T-75's. I like the way the 75's alter the sound with some crunch, some breakup. The Swamp Thing doesn't do that. I just hate it.

Heard some strange "Harmonizer" kind of sounds playing single notes at loud volumes. 5th's or something close to it. I think this is known as cone cry or ghost notes(?).

Avatar Speakers is where I purchased it. They were great about packing, and getting it out to me fast. I sent a personal check and he didn't wait for it to clear, just sent it which was cool. I just picked the wrong speaker. Not Avatars fault in anyway. I should have asked him for advice. Oh well. Live & learn. I figure it may, repeat "may", be useful as a subwoofer for my guitar amp if I decide to go that route.

Raw Speaker

Very big and fat, with a hue but tight low end and nice grind on the top. It sounds fat and wrm when played clean and big and raunchy when dirty. I was surprised thta a speaker that is soooo fat could sound so articulate. These things are LOUD too, and the thump factor will knock you on your as#!
I love these speakers.

Eminence speakers are rock-solid and will handle more peak power than any other speaker that i have tried.

I play progressive metal, and these work very nicely for what I do. They are hugh and modern sounding with just enough vintage raunch. They definately kick harder than any Celestians that i have owned, and don't have the icepick in the ear sound that I hate about the Vintage 30's

This speaker is huge and large sounding. it is touch sensative and has lots of sustain. Oddly enough, this speaker does not like unported cabs. it gets very dark sounding and looses some of its projection. Sealed cabs suck for the most part, like celestions, there old technology. In a open back cab, whic is also old tech, they sound great but, the cab with the open back, releases all the beautifull cab compression these speakers make, with no compression and a open back, you have a total lack of sustain, life and color, because, half the harmonic response from the speaker is lost from the back of the cab. If your looking to use this speaker in a modern setting and not with your grand dads old school stuff, you will love them.

I use humbuckers with just about everything, these swampys deliver a thick huge chunk and womp, but with definition. I noticed in some standard design cabs, 10-14 inches deep, relying on the old addage of tall and skiny, which is ass backwards, the cab would fart out, not the speaker, the cab, like the guy in the previous review stated, these speakers dont fart out like celestions.

well, they have a 7 year warranty and are primarily hand made according to eminence.

Eminence has been around forever, there in kentucky, not china and they respect thier customer base enough not to insult our intelligence by producing crap in china and trying to sell it to us for european prices, c'mon celestion, what happened in ipswitch?

Awesome!
ive had the opp to try a lot of these speakers fromt his series and they all sound amazing. this speaker really reminds me of thier 121 but with a little more color and womp, depending on what your trying to accomplish with your speakers, one of the 2 should cover it for ya.

12 inch, 8 ohm 150 watt loudspeaker.

Currently using a Gibson SG Standard into a Marshall 8280 combo. I've got 4 of these speakers front mounted in a homemade sealed enclosure with moderate damping with insulation. Running 2 inputs (amp is stereo), each side wired in series for 16 ohm load per side. This might be rewired when my soldano shows up, but for now, it does alright.

Extremely powerful speakers. Very tight sounding bottom end, no muddiness, whereas the celestions in the amp would sound a little like a loud fart sometimes. On the limited clean channel of my amp, they are significantly brighter than the celestions, and don't seem to produce much speaker distortion at high volumes.

These speakers suit my sound quite well, loud, aggressive rock and roll. From AC/DC and Guns and Roses like sounds to Tool and Queens of the Stone Age, these speakers are doing the job really well.

I'm impressed, and I can fairly say this cab kicks the snot out of most commercial cabs I've tried.

The construction on these speakers is superb. I've only had them a couple weeks, and no problems yet, and by the look (and weight), I think they'll hold up well.

They're new. No problems yet.

Been playing about 10 years. Have 2 celestions in the combo. Switched out one Celestion for one of the eminence first day and tried it out. Could barely hear the celestion over the eminence. Very powerful. Sounded alot tighter and clearer than the celestion, but it was a brand new speaker.

Bought it on a recommendation from the distributer.

Overall, I'd say this is an excellent speaker for rock and roll. I like the sound of this cabinet over my buddies 81 Hiwatt and a new marshall 1960A.

Don't know if it exactly sounds like anything else, I just can say it sounds damn assed good. Definitely good speakers. A little expensive, but hey, you get what you pay for.