210 65 with two different speakers

hc803

First post here for me as I am now an owner of a 210 Sixty Five combo. Haven't even plugged it in yet (trying to get the smell out of the amp first, kind of a "wet dog" smell?) but a previous owner has installed two Celestion G10 60W speakers in it. "Awesome" you're thinking, but one is 8Ω and the other is 16Ω, which creates a 5.33Ω combo when run parallel.
I understand that while this isn't a tube/transformer-killing scenario, I would get roughly half of the power from one speaker as to the other.
Is there a way to utilize the external speaker jack to balance this out (running one speaker from the wiring, the other from the jack) or do I just need to sell the 16Ω speaker and get another 8Ω?

Full Name
Lars Verholt
Music Man Equipment
HD-130 head, 210X cab, 210RH cab, RD-50 110 combo, Sixty-Five 112 combo, RP65-112

Member for

10 years 9 months

lmv Tue, 02/07/2017 - 16:49

Congrats on the purchase!. Yes, they can sometimes be smelly. However, playing them so they warm up is a good way to get the funk out of these amps. Another measure to consider is to dismantle the amp and wipe down the case and the tolex bag for the reverb (take out the tank!) with vinegar and let it sit in a well heated room for a week. Don't forget to wipe the inside of the case too.

As for your speaker issue: You could get the 16ohm reconed to 8ohm and be done with it. Running them in parallel with the impedance selector on 4 ohms will not harm anything, but as you point out, will not yield full power output.

There was a pair of 10" Music Man speakers (in need of a recone, but still) on eBay the other day. May still be there. Just sayin'...

Sincerely
Lars Verholt

Music Man Equipment
MM 2-10-65

Member for

10 years 9 months
Profile picture for user mm210

mm210 Wed, 02/08/2017 - 11:49

I have a pair of original 2-10-65 speakers from MY MM but I wouldn't want to sell them to anybody. Not that I'm stingy, I just think they sound like dog poop. I never like the sound of them I put Webers in there. I would have the Celestion re-coned myself. Here's mine Mike.

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Full Name
William
Music Man Equipment
210 sixty five

Member for

7 years 11 months

hc803 Thu, 02/09/2017 - 11:13

looks like my best option. Waiting to hear back on the cost from a local guy. New speaker is ~$95 so there's always that solution as well. I've read that the original speakers weren't great, thanks for the input!

Full Name
Ian Azrikan

Member for

10 years 9 months

inertian Thu, 02/09/2017 - 17:08

The very early production 210 Sixty-five speakers - 1974 Eminence alnicos - were very nice sounding units. If you can find a set of those, it may be worth your while.

Agree that the later ceramic speakers were only so-so at best in the otherwise excellent MM amps.