Eminence Swamp Thang 12" 150/8 Ohm

I bought the Swamp Thang to replace the stock Eminence-made speaker in a Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue, as I found that stock speaker to lose clarity at higher volumes, tend towards a rather shrill high-end even with very low treble settings, and become very flubby and distort quite easily.

The Swamp Thang remedies all of these issues. The bottom end is tight and powerful and never gives in to flub (this speaker handles bass frequencies extremely well, I've played bass through it, and some rather extreme sub-frequency octave effects, and none of those frequencies seem to just "disappear" as they do with many standard electric guitar amp speakers ? Eminence actually state on their site that this amp can handle 7-string and bass guitar easily), the mids are clear and punchy, and the highs are actually manageable now.

If you're looking to retain an "American" tone for a Fender amp, whilst vastly improving sound quality and volume efficiency, I highly recommend this speaker.

I initially tried the Swamp Thang in a Vox AC15 which perhaps sounds a little insane baring in mind this is a dark, super-efficient 150 watt monolith voiced more toward the west of the Atlantic - as someone who loves to experiment however I thought it was worth a go.

If anyone ever questions what difference a speaker can make to a rig, this is certainly the speaker to show them. Volume-wise the AC-15 was pushed further toward it's larger brother and you could audibly hear how much low end was freed up. The bass frequencies were more like something you'd hear from a 4x12 than a small combo, where as the top end sounded a lot more restrained and less spikey than what came stock in the amp. The clarity was enhanced however, so were the limitations of the amplifier. It took the AC-15 from a fantastic rhythm players amp with a charming early break-up to something loud, but a little flat and joyless.

The real joy came however, when I put the stock speaker back in the combo and ran the Swamp Thang in a separate 1x12. The rig came alive as the flat top end was enhanced by the stock speaker however you got the deep, rich bottom end and clarity of the Swamp. The varying efficiency didn't seem to matter as the combo was stacked on top of the 1x12 so the combo was closer to ear level. It's definitely worth experimenting with if you can.

Well, I decided to upgrade my Marshall 2 x 12 1922 cab (with Celestions) to the swamp thang. The online reviews were good elsewhere, and depending on your staring point seems to give a real improvement to mid/lower end (much to annoyance of the bass player) which can only be a good thing. It goes really well with my Jet City 50H amp and I'm hoping that as time goes on the speaker smooths out a little (also with the replacement valves) as it doesn't yet sound "natural". I use the amp/speaker combo for pop and rock material so it does get punished from both Cropper style highs and GnR style rawk with no complaints, and it seems solid in construction and VERY easy to fit. If the speaker does mellow, I'll drop an update.