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I had a chance to try the Jensen Mod 12-50. Here are my thoughts.

I received a Jensen 12-50 and a 12-70 from Steve for evaluation. I will take a look at the Mod 12-70 in another review. I put both speakers in a Trinity 2x12 cab and wired up the 12-50 only. It is an 8 ohm speaker with the classic Jensen frame. It fit perfectly. The first thing you notice is that the magnet is fairly small for a 50 watt speaker. The second thing that popped out was the cone. It looks very much like the Celestion 1777 cone with medium doping and a fairly firm feel. Black cloth dust cap too!

The amp was a Trinity sIII with boost and a 1983 two button strat with fat 50’s drove the whole thing. Wanting to see what the speaker sounded like right out of the box I performed no break in what so ever for this, the first listening.

My first impression was that there is a bit of green back DNA in this speaker. That much is pretty much obvious. However there were significant differences between the greenback (reissues) and these speakers.

These speakers are less efficient than greenbacks. I had a 2x12 loaded with 10+ year old reissue greenbacks to compare with . Even after making the 2x12 to 1x12 -3db mental adjustment, it was clear that speaker was quieter than the greenback. I was glad to see, when I later took a look the specs, that the numbers agreed with me. This, of course, means that my beat up raggedy-ass ears still work ok. (whew!)

The 12-50 also had a glassy top end that really shone with clean tones. For crunch and lead tones you could really tell when the tone knob on the guitar was changed. They also cleaned up well (along with the amp of course) when the volume was rolled back on the guitar. You can do that with a greenback but don’t always get the nice crisp high end frequencies coming through the speaker.

The Bass. It was not flubby. I think it is rolled off a bit sooner than the 75hz coned Celestions and this lets you really get some woody tone out of the neck pickup. They have a bit of the mojo I hear from some old Celestions where you can a smooth neck tone WITH bite. Very cool. Because they had that kind of understated bass response, the bass control on the sIII got a lot of use. Looking at the specs the 12-50 has a 1.25â€

After a bit of a delay I managed to record a little messing around though the Mod 50. Through an cranked 18 watt it did loose definition a bit. There were some good bits however. The speaker does exhibit an major grindage but cleans up very well when the volume is rolled back.

For the clip below I used the trusty Tokai SG with crossroads pickups. I went into an sIII with channels linked and kinda cranked. Boost was on. I added a bit of reverb at about the two minute mark. Up until then the track is bone dry. The mike was a sure sm57. Although the bass was good it wasn't as good as it seems to be in the clip. I put that down to my brilliant miking technique....and the fact that the mic stand was so short it would only reach the bottom edge of the cone. The speaker was housed in 1/2 of a Trinity 2x12 open back cab.

http://member.newsguy.com/~tybone/Sound ... III_SG.mp3

Lawrence.

Great, in depth review as usual. Seems like it could be a sleeper.

I'm keen to know what you think of the Mod 12-70 . I tlaked to the Jensen rep and he said it is supposed to hang together and have less cone break up. More like the V-30.

Looking forward to your review on that one.

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Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

I have just finished an evening with the Jensen Mod 70. Take a listen to a small excerpt from the evenings festivities.

http://member.newsguy.com/~tybone/Sound ... 20Clip.mp3

Compared to the Mod 50, the 70 has more bass. It kind of sounds like a Vintage 30 and a Greenback mixed together. The speaker has a good mid response and plays well clean but not as well as the 50. The 50 really cleans up well and gets chimey when you roll back the volume. Not so much with the Mod 70.

I used my Tokai SG (with the crossroads pickups).

For my first sIII,She's going to have a G12V30. Let's see what happens.

Your reviews are invaluable, thanks for the reviews.
Your playing is, as usual, just terrible
I hope in 10 years, I can come as close to playing as you
You da man
Thanks,
Jac

Hey Jac, I got a real chuckle reading your post. Thanks for the support of my reviews. I did a bit of clean up and (even with the new albino 2x12) there are 6/12 pairs of speakers sitting around. That will be rememdies ever so slightly when I get the 4x12 cleaned up but, until then, it is a swap meet.

Cheers
Larry

So there I sat, pretty much done with the Mod review and I wondered what to do next? First I put in a mixed pair of Celestions. I did this because a stupidly sold a matched pair of G12-65's and now only have 2 originals to go back into the 4x12 slant cab. Because of this (and my love for this speaker) I decided to try out a 2x12 combination I haven’t tried before with the G12-65 and a Greenback.

I responded to an email for Coco a little while ago that spoke to the logic of mixing heavy magnet speakers with only other heavy magnet speakers. The same with the medium magnet Celestions like (G12m20/25, G12m70 and of course the G12-65). I have liked the Greenback with the trinity since the combo Coco built way back with an older vintage greeny in it. We called it the “Spinnerâ€

Larry,

Beck sounds great. Is that your Two Rock? Very Dumble-ish!
You did a great job with the dynamics. What guitar? 335?
Excellent as always, my friend. Tres bien.


LeeMo

Great job Larry,

Speaking of heavy magnets, I just bought the Mojo Greyhound. It's ceramic, but it's an 48 oz. magnet, for the price I thought it would be fun to tyr with the sIII. Never know whats going to sound great.
Later, Jac

LeeMo, that is indeed the Opal. It is a fantastic amp that is like driving a ferrari. You can put it into the wall and get some nasty tones very easily. However you can also get some grail tone from the freakin thing too. The guitar was a 1983 Squire JV Strat (Japan) with custom wound pickups from Songbird music. All the changes in tone and volume etc... were done from the guitar.

No, it is not an 18 watt but a lot of the sonic stuff you hear from the speaker with the Opal is there with the 18 watt.



Hey Jac, please let us know how the speaker sounds once you get it installed. Should be no shortage of bass!

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Guitologist at Large
"How does that feel?"

Beck, very nice . I've heard you do that on an 18 watt TMB for BFG and it was delicious. That was with 2 Tone Tubby Alnico's. That would be a great comparison. Both pieces - Side by Side.

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Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Darn if I didn't forget about that one. I think this is the Les Paul Custom into Trinity 2x12 TMB. The amp had BG's personal preference which is the Alnico Hempcone original cones.

http://trinityamps.cohrs.ca/BillyBeck.mp3

Dam those speakers just talk to you!

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Guitologist at Large
"How does that feel?"

Oh so sweet!!!
Noww if I could get my fingers to work again, it would be great.
Jac

Hi lbet,

I too have a 1983 Squire JV Strat (Japan) and was wondering about those pickups... they sound nice.

Are they re-wound or a custom order wind thingy?

JD bassman, good ear there. I had the pickups rewound. I had them done at Songbird music a few years ago. I asked for a rewind acording to '62 specs. The guy who did the rewind did a real '62 strat and it sounding fantastic. I figured I couldn't go wrong.

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Guitologist at Large
"How does that feel?"

Wow, night and day! The Alnico hemps have it, hands down!
-Bionic

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Four strings is enough.