Product: Jensen Mod 10-70 Cabinet
Price Paid: USD 2968.
Submitted
04/20/2007
at
03:13am
by
Dave Page
Features
:
5
This "test mule" is an early '70s 8x10 Marshall bass cab that was given to me in the mid-eighties (over half my lifetime ago, thing's almost as old as I am!). It came with six 16-ohm original speakers and two new-ish 16-ohm Celestion G10s. The Tolex was hanging off in shreds, the jack-plate was twisting in the wind, the emblem was "Marsha" (its allure of femininity was prolly what attracted me to it, or maybe it's because it was free!), but the grille cloth and piping was in good shape. Upon bringing it home, it became rather apparent that the original speakers weren't exactly terribly healthy. No surprise. It was used by a bunch of Black Sabbath wannabees, and the voice coils had been subject to so many renditions of "War Pigs", that they had unconditionally surrendered, sort of like somebody being tortured at Gitmo! I managed to rescue two of them after cleaning the gap between magnet and coil with folded tape and solvent. Two others were toast, farting miserably with crumbly magnets and ripped cones, and the remaining two had seriously deformed and scorched voice coils and sounded really scratchy even after I did what I could to fixxem, so I tossed the bad four. I ended up with a half-stack (2 orig. + the 2 Cels) and four empty holes. Sounded pretty good, but, umm...lacked something. Years later, I finished removing the rest of the Tolex I hadn't compulsively peeled off by then, and sanded and refinished the cab in Minwax Dark Walnut, applying many coats of matte polyurethane afterward, with a little fine-sanding in between. Threw in some sticky-backed foam. Wired it stereo. Then I got the wabbit-bwained idea to load it with eight Peavey Scorpions (they were at a good price). As if I really needed a cab that handled 600W/side or 1200W total R.M.S.! Or that could handle that kind of overkill without rattling apart! I was younger and my back didn't care, and I grunted it up and down stairs, growling, with raw lion haunch hanging from my mouth! These days, I think my nuts might go Bowling for Dollars, followed by the cab, then the rest of me! Me still big and strong as bull, but FFS, why kill myself? Realizing it was my fortieth birthday 'n' all, I reloaded the cab with 8 of guess what!
And guess what?
IT SOUNDS SO MUCH BETTER AND NOW I CAN THROW IT AROUND AGAIN, ONE-HANDED, JUST LIKE IN MY TWENTIES! RRAARRR!
Features? They're speakers. Not much new under the sun here!
Sound Quality
:
9
As above, so below. Yep, it sounds a whole butt-load better with eight of these cheap-assed bad boys, now I don't mind that I sold my 4x12 cabs! It even sounded better than ever before the speakers broke in! Now that they're well broken in, I almost want to bukkake it! I was never totally satisfied playing live particularly with the clean sound with the Peavey Scorpions in 'er, and it took WAY TOO MUCH WATTAGE to bring 'em to life. They aren't as sensitive, (89 dB @ 1w, 1m IIRC, the Mods are ~98, and the volume knob agrees) and sounded overdamped in this cab. EQing was a must. The Scorps sound much better in the monitor wedges and the deep, ported 2x10 cab I built.
Well, I've heard a few better-sounding speakers in my travels (some Eminences, most Webers, a couple Celestions here and there, some sweet old Alnico vintage no-names, REAL Jensens, Fanes, etc., mostly 12"s), but am I gonna buy eight more expensive drivers to load this thing with? HELL, NO! These things sound just fine for this application!
These are my entirely subjective impressions of these speakers in this cab: I'm not going to reiterate the "English sonics" party-line, but I will say that for a bunch of "Made In China" sweatshop speakers, they sound surprisingly crunchy and full-bodied. They break up late-ish, and stay warm and musical up to, and through this point. Nice, round, chimey, bluesy Hendrix/SRV sound. Good heavy rock chunk. Musical sizzle---warm, not icepick-spikey midrange. Inspiring with arpeggiated shred. Tight bass response, although they got a tiny bit flabby with Big Bottom 7-string excessive volume. To be fair, this may be 1) constructive interference inside the cab leading to undamped low-freq resonance, or me hitting the resonant frequency of the cab with more than it can handle without breaking up; 2) a dirty pot on the Jackson; 3) some of the above; 4) all the above, as I tried the 7-string at excruciating volume with just my main rack before giggling madly like a schoolgirl high on mucilage! They are excellent for classic rock and blues, especially for what I paid. Sound better than the Celestion G10s. I A/B ed. They're more harmonically complex and "richer", with a warmer voice. The Celestions were more upper-middy, and a little shrill at the same EQ settings. This isn't to say the Celestions sound bad, just that I'd have to EQ them differently ;-). Comparisons were done at usual moderate stage volume, playing along with program material.
The first thing I played thru it was Joe Satriani "Summer Song" from "Live in S.F.", then it was some Joe Stump-Yngwie-type-stuff. Then Doom 2 "Running From Evil" (a good, "slow" arpeggio workout for developing precision and phrasing techniques). It's the tune from the "Entryway" map. Then it became "Jukebox Mode", because the tone made me smile! I wrung it out with C+W ballads, chicken-pickin', blues, pop, Motown, jazz, funk, classic, prog, fusion, metal, shred, from clean to mondo distorto, with and without effects, with several amps, at least six guitars of various shapes, sizes, and idioms, and I can't say it enough: this cab sounds MUCH BETTER! These are the best-sounding cheap speakers I've heard so far! The cab sounds nice 'n' Marsha-ey. Just what I wanted!
Reliability
:
No Opinion
Reliable? Sure, as long as my quickie weld-job on the tailgate of my POS Ford work pickup (Eeyore) holds, and the cab doesn't slide out and go tumbling across the highway on the way to a gig! Or I succumb to the lure of wretched excess and decide to ignore that mike on my cab at an outdoor gig, thus pissing off nearly everyone (especially the sound guy, whom if I were he and he was me, would pull the fader down and leave it down and go get more beer and shmooze with the gals) with "The Vicar of Volume Strikes Again"!
The speakers haven't blown yet, and I've pounded the snot out of them with heavy palm-muting chops with the Engl 2x100 power amp I nabbed recently (a great-sounding amp after a PI tube swap, BTW, Sovteks notwithstanding), wearing the enclosed earmuffs I use for chain-sawing, chipping, shooting, and other such things! It was my Rapid Break-In Test. I'd have to say that their wattage rating is fairly accurate, based on the tolerance for such abuse! Yep, they made it thru "War Pigs" jes' fine, too! I'm hoping all the neighbors in a five-mile radius forgive me, but I can't hear 'em yelling anymore...
I haven't gigged with this cab since the refit yet, but rest assured, I will most certainly do so! I always bring a small combo to gigs, too (usually a not-exactly-untweaked Peavey Triumph PAG-60), Just In Case.
Nonetheless (it's broken-record time, I recall possibly stating this before, perhaps?), I don't feel I've had them for quite long enough to properly assess their longevity, so all I can say is "so far, so good"...
Customer Support
:
10
Customer support comes in two easy letters: ME. And I like myself a lot, for the most part---I'm the only ME I've got until the clone lab deep in the South American jungle finishes with their Grey project and gets to my mass-replication work order, so I can implement my diabolical plot of distributed global domination...then I'll be simply beside myselves ;-). So I'm gonna rate myself based on my usual healthy level of self-esteem (and modesty), ignoring occasional kvetches and cries for the Waaa-mbulance. 'Nuff said?
Oh, Jensen? Well, speakers *should* last at least a lifetime, barring unforeseen circumstances, abuse, or Bose-like driver construction. They seem to be fairly buff and studley for a set of "Made In China", thin stamped frame, budget build drivers. I guess if these things go by now, it's my own damn fault and I'll suck it up, unless the magnet falls off or something. In which case, I could always do something totally cheezy like that little weasel Scam-severe et. al. and pretend to be Dave Mustaine's guitar tech...
Problem is, now Jensen prices have jumped (not quite a$ much a$ Bu$h'$ oil company cronie$ and lobbie$ have jacked u$ off at the pump$, or as the government under either party has done less for us while collecting more, without remorse or restraint, or as the utility companies have done immediately following deregulation, and the insurance companies, doctors, music industry, etc. as rampant greed and other less wholesome facets of human nature consume the dream of civilization, but I digress...), so I'm thinking Eminence for future reloads.
Overall Rating
:
9
Been playing for ~28 years. My name is Dave and I'm a gear-a-haulic! My girlfriends sometimes think I'm overly long-term co-dependent on gear and tools and not enough on them, but the former two frequently last longer (I still have my first guitar...), and musical equipment usually reliably delivers WITH CONSISTENT EXPECTATIONS when you turn it on ;-). Before I capitulate to major GAS pains, I intend to build a couple of tube power amps, get two more rack processors (one for the PA, one for me), at least one with passably-tracking intelligent harmonizing. Mebbe me mod the ol' Blues Jr. into something I don't need to use a dirt-box with to play out. Then I'll prolly start selling off a few things-at least those things that aren't (ahem) "essential" for studio duty, seeing as how I've got my live rigs all set. Provided these pathologically selfish idiots, fraudsters, control freaks, greedy corporate warmongers, and shoeshine-brush-helmeted Martians running our "bipartisan" (another adjunct to the illusion of democracy) government and civil infrastructure like the Axis of Weevils they are don't end up messing it all up for everyone more than they have already ("Oh, the Earth? I'm going to blow it up!..."), this cab will be likely doing more shows with me, at least until my impending demise! Because I just don't see anyone stealing it and buggering off with it anytime soon, bulky thing that it is! I'm quite sure I can change some would-be thief's mind with a careful finger-squeeze, even if its prior container will resemble a watermelon dropped from a skyscraper after such persuasion is applied!
