The *Eminence Private Jack* thread

If you can deal with 16-ohm speakers and are into bargains, Avatar is clearing out their remaining stock of the Legend GB12 50-watt Greenback clone, the precursor to the Private Jack, for $29 each! Just stupid cheap for a pro-quality speaker that has nearly identical specs as the PJ. I recently put a quad in a 4x12 and though they're not fully broken in yet, "aggressive" is definitely a word I'd use to describe them.

That said, I've heard lots of raves about the PJ. Doubt you can go wrong either way.

 

They sound like an Eminence speaker, which is a cool sound. But IMHO, they don't sound remotely like the greenbacks I have, especially when pushed with a lot of fuzz, octave, and preamp gain. Great for clean, Mark Knopfler tones, Larry Carlton smooth jazz sounds, and clean jazz comping. Great bottom, full midrange, and highs. IMHO, kind of anti-greenback when pushed. I've never tried them in a 412, or a rear-loaded cabinet. Might change my thoughts if I ever had that chance. Those clips of the PJ on the Scumbag tests were my least favorite. Think I'd pop for the Scumbag first if I were serious about greenback tone, and not considering the actual Celestion product to which all of us guitar players owe!

 

I think Peterson has a 4x12 loaded with them that he seems to be happy with it. Maybe he'll chime in.

 

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=109572

 

Here it is Brent. The key is that these folks chimed in before they knew what was what. You have to listen like you don't know what each sample is. http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=86870&highlight=scumbag

 

9, 16, 25 all PJ. 4 is Scumbag, 10 is Heritage 12M. There is a key to all those clips deeper in the post.

 

The PJ's breath better than GB's, in fact the whole Eminence Red Coat line is like this. Very open sounding, something will have to really blow me away before I ever change. I wish I had them 30yrs ago. Doug

 

The speaker info file is this one: http://scumbagamps.com/stf/STF clip info.rtf

You should be able to open it in Microsoft Word. If you have troubles, email me and I'll send it to you in an email. Hope that helps.

 

They work fine on my lady's PC with QuickTime installed, even in her Windows XP Media Player or Dell Music Match software... I listened to clips 13, 19 and 8 without any problems, so maybe you have an incompatibility or a finicky WMP. Good luck!

 

Sorry...hope you've got good speakers on your PC at home, that helps pick out the differences in the speaker clips.

You might consider upgrading to QuickTime from Apple, it's free, and it gives you their Itunes MP3 player/burner software... and the ability to play movies, etc. Here's the link...

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html

 

Just uncheck the option for it being the "default" player for all audio and video types. That's what I do on my lady's PC, then it doesn't "take over" everything and fight with the Microsoft stuff.

Put's a QT Player shortcut on your desktop for you, then you can drag and drop right onto it from the directory listing and it just launches like it should, without telling WMP, or your other media stuff that it can't run. I'm on a Mac G4 most of the time, but I wander over to "the dark side" of the room to handle support calls like this...

Anyway, your WMP should do it just fine if you have that configured, so no big deal, whatever works for you!

Jealous of your monitors...need to upgrade that here next...my old Altec Lansings are starting to sound a little...er...uh...."Pushed"... LOL

 

I try not to offer up my "opinion" on speakers much, as we start getting into the subjective area of "what tones float your boat" type stuff. And let's face it, I market a speaker that does compete with Eminence, Celestion, etc. on this level of tone, so I can't be unbiased in my opinion.

There are people who don't like my speakers, there are those who think they're great, so it's all in the "What sounds good to you, IS good." category, right?

That said, I found the PJ's I had to be less efficient than the G12M Heritage or my SA12M75. The tone seemed to be darker, a bit muddy, and without the midrange hump that M style Greenbacks exhibit. Perhaps because they handle more wattage, they didn't get "pushed" to their optimum tone range, but then you have to ask Eminence why they made them that way. I can't answer that one.

Now, in a really bright amp, that might counteract the tone I heard from the PJ I had/tested, and work out great. In an amp that was more balanced it might seem to sound different once again, so until you compare apples to apples, amp to amp, speaker design to speaker design, it's all a crap shoot... the Eminence is not made the same way the Scumback M75 is, so it's not quite a fair comparison. I had the M75's made to recreate the old Pre Rola G12M T1221 "Greenback" tone, and Ted Weber delivered a very close recreation to the 71 G12M 102 003 Pulsonic cone speaker I sent him. Since I don't know what the PJ had as it's "tone target", I'd prefer not to speculate.

One of the reasons I had AndyZ, Dan Boul, and the other guys there, was to have them decide what the optimum mic placement, EQ settings and all that was, that way I wasn't biasing the tone fest in any way. If I had been involved in any of that (other than supplying some speakers and two cabs to mount them in), the tonefest wouldn't have been valid, therefore making it pointless, in my opinion.

Sorry I couldn't expound on that thought more for you. Listen to the clips, and get back to me if you have any questions.