I just received my new Eminence Red Fang 12" 8-ohm AlNiCo speaker and installed it in my Fender Blues Deluxe. I had recently swapped out the stock speaker for a Weber Blue Dog (see previous post) and was quite pleased. However, I've been really curious what difference there would be on the tone with an AlNiCo speaker instead of a ceramic magnet. The Red Fang is a 30-watt speaker compared to the 50-watt Blue Dog, so there will be some difference there as well.
First off I noticed that this speaker has much more bite than the Blue Dog and more pronounced bass and treble frequencies as well. The notes sound more rounded and warm with the Blue Dog, but still very good to my ears. I've only played the Red Fang for 2 hours so far, so I'm going to give it some time to get into my head so I can put the Weber back in and compare. I noticed that Eminence has a new sound clip page on their website of all their guitar speakers. They used a loop pedal to record 3 different guitar parts (clean, overdrive and heavy) and ran the loop through each of their speakers. It's a great way to hear the tonal differences of each speaker.
My Fender Blues Deluxe tends to be a very treble-heavy amp on its own, so the Blue Dog did a great job of taming the extended high end frequencies, but the Red Fang also lends itself well to this amp. Because the amp is a 40 watt all-tube amp and the Fang is only 30 watts the touch sensitivity is really there. I can hear every nuance of my playing with great clarity. It's especially nice at lower volume levels when you simply can't crank the amp up enough to get the speaker to move air.
So far I'm really impressed with the Red Fang, but I need to play with it awhile before I try the Blue Dog again. Either way I'm sure to have a winner. Next I'd like to try the Eminence Cannibis Rex hemp-cone speaker to compare yet another driver. Ahhh...the possibilities are endless (unlike my wallet).
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