> any type of enclosure behind the driver? A free-standing speaker is not going to sound very good, above very low volumes.
A hi-fi woofer WILL flap at high power.
The typical guitar speaker, on guitar, will not flap even near its maximum power.
> Even a Silvertone has some sort of homosote box
Yes, in conventional speaker design, the optimum box is bigger than the optimum cone.
Also in Marketing, you want a big box to justify a high price tag (and to hide your undersized speakers).
For authoritative guitar-boom in an open-back baffle you want two 12" in a 30" wide box on the floor. Fender Twin. With floor-reflection and sides, roughly a 40"x40" baffle. This will support a wave down below 160Hz; the bottom octave is bumped by the under-damped ~~90Hz cone resonance.
The near-naked 8"(?) will fall below 800Hz. But much slower fall than an optimized resonant-box speaker.... 400Hz and even 200Hz will be audible if you lean on them. And you can make a LOT of "music" above 250Hz..... sopranos and most tenors have little below 250Hz.
OTOH, if steampunk22 goes to a show where real ballz are needed, he can jack-out to a 2-12" or 8-10" cabinet, leaving the open 8" as decoration or a spot-monitor. Even the little 15G will boogie with a large-area speaker.
> punk a brass horn
Visually gorgeous. But a horn with ballz has to be BIG. Something in the 8" scale, even something scaled 24" like a large-room Victrola, won't go as deep as a cone in a smaller box.
> does it have any kind of desirable sound?
An amazing variety of sounds can be "desirable" on different guitar works. I recall a company who used reject trombone bells and reject PA horn drivers to sell a speaker which made "any guitar sound like a trumpet!!". I guess it never caught on, but someone thought it was worth the trouble to bring to market.
