Tube Amp Archive

My friend who gigs a lot likes the re-issue Jensen C12N. But he has some that sound really good, and others that just sound bland and tired. I think they're either worn or perhaps were produced earlier than the ones he likes. I can really hear the difference, but I can't see anything wrong about them.

Anyone have any thoughts on whether there are "bad years" and "good years" of production, or do they just sound sloppy after they've been used a bunch?

Afraid I don't have direct input on the speakers, but are you sure its not the cabinet(s)?

I have a re-issue Jensen C12N in my Deluxe Reverb. Sounds fine to me. Many years ago when the reissue Jensens were first being made in Italy, there were some rumblings on several forums about the speakers having issues. My reissue was made in Italy and I don't have any problems with that.

These are all made in Italy "reissue" Jensen C12N

He rolls through these things pretty quick, as he gigs for a living virtually every day of the week. We've done some swapping it is the speaker it seems. Some of them have a great tone, balanced and not too bright/harsh and articulate. Others have a sharp treble peak in the icepick frequency and a tired, ratty kind of tone overall.

They're not, "broken" in any way, just sound like poo. Voice coils not rubbing, or crackling or anything like that.

So far, it seems to be earlier production and/or those with lots of hours of use on them.

When they're good, they sound really pretty decent. But, they seem to get tired and ratty over long-term, hard use.

I like the Weber C12N. I just used one in a build for my grandson.
Jensen doesn't exist really. The name was purchased by the Italian company, Recoton i think.
I believe they also make Sica and other speakers. They make some good speakers I'm sure but speaker cones and spiders fatigue over time. If they sounded bad when new, possibly there was a factory issue with a weak charging of the magnets, or maybe there was a material change in the voice coil former, cone dope, or such.

Yeah, I'm aware of the history of Jensen speakers, from the originals, to the various US owners and its demise, and the current made in Italy reissues.

I played around with a few of my friend's C12N's from various amps. One of them is great, made in 2014, he recently acquired the blues junior it is in, very lightly used amp. One of his others is a 2008 Blues Junior, with a C12N from 2008.

The 2008 C12N was bad, in a kind of weird way. Right around the note of A-flat on the 9th fret of the second string, the speaker itself was generating a harsh overtone that resembled a very buzzy fret. But - the guitar has no buzz. Moved the speaker around and it followed the speaker, so it was the speaker.

I think some of the rest of his fleet of amps also have bad C12N.

I loaned him a WeberVST C12Q with light doping. (from 20+ years ago). It sounds pretty good, he's a little on the fence.

But it is a weird failure in the speaker. I think he's just wearing the C12N's out, and they're not failing in the old-fashioned way where the voice coil overheats and rubs. This is some weird kind of cone failure.

2008 was a while ago for a regularly gigged speaker. Any evidence of wear at the cone/dope edge? At any rate, a recone replacing all the soft parts will cure it. If you've ruled out any warp in the basket.

No obvious wear along the suspension or edge of the cone. No edge doping on the C12N. Something looks odd about the seam.

I dunno.

Not sure if anyone re-cones the made-in-Italy SICA, Recoton or whoever they are now.

Most any speaker can be reconed with commonly available parts.

WeberVST doesn't recone them, as they say their parts will not fit.

Not sure if there's a generic that does. I would suspect that the re-issues are likely metric, at least internally.

They say their gaps are tighter, so maybe so.
Most re-coning shops have a range of parts options that will cover most speakers. It's certainly worth a few calls to save a speaker.

Yeah, it would be great if OEM replacement re-cone kits were available. I hate wasting a perfectly good frame and basket over a paper cone.

But Sweetwater will sell you a brand new C12N for $112.95, free shipping too. Hard to beat that.

Several years back, a California cousin came to visit, and was talking about his BJ that he just couldn't get to sound like he wanted. I had a Weber alnico I gave him to try, he installed it when he got home, and raved about "that" was the sound he was looking for! He sent me the C12N, but later I picked up a BJ with problems, and no speaker. I serviced the amp, changed the inout jack, and used the Jensen, it sounded great! This amp had the BillM mods installed earlier. but I found no problem with that C12N!

Yeah, my friend's favorite blues junior is a "2010 board" with the "sparkle mod" as it is called on various forums, with a C12N, all built in 2014. It is a peculiarly good sounding one too. I just recapped it, added a bias control and repaired the cracked PCB traces on the tube socket board. (all the standard weak points). The "sparkle mod" is just where Fender removed a 1500pf cap off the master that trims out treble and jumpered over a 0.033uf in series to the phase-inverter input, which slightly increases the bass to the power amp section.

But this amp has barely been played prior to him getting it. He kind of treats blues juniors as "consumable". They're perfect for his gigs, grab-and-go. He just plays them until they get unreliable, hunts down another used one, especially those with C12N's in them.

I think he's just wearing the C12N's out with gigging nearly every day of the week. I got to convince him to stop rolling tubes in these things as the circuit board simply will not take the constant wiggling of the sockets. (see my thread in the Fender dicussion area on how to epoxy the EL84 sockets).