Why is it you never see a guitar amp with a built in crossover

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Guitars don't sound great when being blasted by Mesa Boogies with the gain turned to 11 when a tweeter can faithfully reproduce all that buzzy nastiness.

Some people would argue that Mesa Boogies don't sound good anyway  :p

Most 12 inch guitar speakers can't spit out anything beyond about 6kHz, and anything that can get through is severely attunuated.

Colouration is the order of the day.
 
I've known a couple of geetar players who swear by using a crossover speaker.  Steve Albini used one back in the Big Black days.
 
If you did that then you would have that classic  "Wasp in a Jam Jar" tone !!
......Which I'm sure that you're not after Pucho  :)

As stated you don't want much above 6-8 Khz out of a gtr amp speaker :)

That's why we spend so much time building "speaker emulators" to get that 4x12 or 2x12 tone
just right ..... I have one with 15 IC's in it ..... somewhere !!

MM.
 
bad rep from those 70's piezo bullet tweeters but
i agree the gtr ain't hi-fi to begin with
if you had too much hi end you'd have to crank it down on the
amp and lose some gain  [ in most tube amps ]
Imagine playing a gtr direct through a stereo

there was a splash of people trying subs for gtr but that too
seems to have died down , if transisters had come before tubes
we might all be pining for that sound right now
 
A guitar speaker and cabinet is a type of musical instrument. The design goal is not to accurately reproduce input waveforms, but to convert that input to a pleasing acoustic sound. Guitar speakers are a different animal than hifi speakers, in that the goal is not flat response.

There is less coloration going on with a bass rig (no fuzz on my bass please),  and a tweeter might enhance string sound. But this is all subjective so opinions vary.

  JR
 
Magnatone (as used by Buddy Holly near the end of his all too short career) had at least one with a "crossover" (hey, it's the minimalist approach):

http://www.schematicheaven.com/bargainbin/magnatone_410.pdf

I believe Buddy used the 460 which doesn't appear to have the 3" speaker.

I college friend of mine had a little SS Peavey Backstage 20 amp.  His freshman roommate used to hook it (and other random speakers) up to the stereo.  One day he blew the speaker on the little guy (probably cranking some Floyd) and offered to replace it.  Being the mid-80s in a small college town, Rat Shack was the only option.  Also, being fairly ignorant, they got a "hi fi" woofer instead of an instrument speaker.  Sounded like crap.  Solution?  Add a 2x6" plastic horn!  The only good thing about that setup was that I could use my calculus book as a variable baffle in front of the horn while my friend played--excellent wah/leslie kind of sound.  But break out the cotton swabs if he stomped on the MXR Dist +!  :eek:

A P

 
some acoustic guitar amps have a crossover, I think.  Different animal, of course. 
 
Elcetric guitars produce lots of 'clang'. They don't make much "thump" and they don't make much "tissss" either.

So why on earth would you add a crossover and bring with it all the complications of phase/time/alignment, off-axial summing issues and dozen other issues?

Doesn't a 4X12 sound GOOD, or something? -Did I miss a memo saying that AC-30s sound unpleasant, or something?

-Keith
 
I have built an crossover like circuit for a friend that has a Jazz guitar (7 string arch top)

  One side to a nice closed back cab and amp or 15" combo or bass amp combo the higher notes to a 12inch open back combo. You need to sometimes reverse one of the speakers or cab direction and adjust the placement of the cabs.  It is an active circuit with 6dB slopes and a 1meg input resistance.  It took some time to find where to set the slopes.

You need to adjust the tone control and gain volume knobs but it can really sound nice with the added low A of a 7 string
 
SSLtech said:
-That explains why so many Beatles tunes are so unlistenable then! ;)

;D ;D

4x12 are for noise, green back, g12's, vintage 30's are more noise choice. If you want pristine then yea, cross over, if you want decent sound then no cross over
 
pucho812 said:
Was wondering why no one company that I can think of has ever designed and built a guitar amp with a built in crossover, woof and tweeter combo.

hmmmm?

Charlie combo's had them. French brand IIRC.

http://home.pi.be/~pin00958/charlie80.htm

Schematic, speaker-wiring is on the left:
http://home.pi.be/~pin00958/images/charlie.pdf

Binnenzijde_Speakers.jpg


Probably mostly meant for acoustic-electrics indeed, but I've seen full-rock-electric usage as well.

Maybe with the tweeters just slightly open, or even off, dunno.


On a different note, there are of course lots of bass-cabs with horns/tweeters etc. Nice addition, even with
overdriven sounds (less than gtr), just adding a little tweeter is nice.


Talking about Steve Albini, let's forget Shellac; it's about time for a Rapeman reunion !   :)

Bye,

 Peter


 
For the same reason you don't see acoustic guitars, or fiddles, with a large wood body plus a small tin resonator. You want ONE voice, not a mutt&jeff duette.

Oh, well, there ARE resonator guitars, and horn-loaded fiddles, and guitar amps with 12" + 8", and even with crossovers. Everything gets tried. However a Twelve in a baffle is a very good approximation of an acoustic guitar's voice, and most "improvements" aren't.
 
I guess that means it's time for my Steve Albini story.

About a zillion years ago, Crust was on tour and of course we ended up in Chicago.  We stopped in at Duane's (from Jesus Lizard) house to chill out a bit and catch a shower.  The Lizard gang came out to our show that night with Steve Albini in tow.  He was actually quite nice and not at all the dick people describe him to be.  So we're playing our set and it's not exactly our best show.  It was late in the tour, we were kinda sick of each other, and our equipment was starting to fail.  So about 2/3'rds of the way through our set, Steve goes outside to the porch area and the entire contents of the club follows him.  Everybody, bartender and all.  About 10 minutes later, he comes back in and everybody follows him back in.  So yeah.... I guess maybe he is the man.  :p
 
I will take all the evil AC 30's off your hands
cast away your demon tubes

or nothing sounds like a 4x12 , happy accident or not
it's the sound allot of us grew up with
 

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