OWEN O'MALLEY: Hi and Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. I'm Owen O'Malley. Today, we're going to be taking a look at the Eminence Patriot Screamin' Eagle. It is a 12", 16-ohm guitar speaker. The Screamin' Eagle, as the name might imply, is made for screaming leads. It's a super bright sounding speaker, or so the Eminence paperwork tells us. It's rated at 15 watts RMS although speaker power matching for guitar cabinets works a little bit differently than PA speakers. Actually, some of the paperwork with Eminence pretty clearly states that even though their speakers may be rated at a pretty high-power wattage or power rating, it doesn't mean necessarily can't use them with lower class A like 10-watt or 15-watt or 30-watt amps. We're actually going to be using this AC15 Top Boost. This amp already comes loaded with a pretty nice VOX AlNiCo Blue speaker, and we're going to be doing an A/B side-by-side comparison with the Eminence Screamin' Eagle.

Now normally, guitar speakers are not an easy thing to A/B, but through the magic of video and the modern art of editing, we're going to be giving you a side-by-side comparison of the Screamin' Eagle with the VOX's factory standard -- well, it is an option at the factory -- AlNiCo Blue speaker.

Okay, so now we've got our AC15 on its front. Let's take it apart and take the speaker out. I've already removed the screws from this lower back panel here. In order to take the speaker out of this particular amp, I've also had to take the reverb tank out of the way. Let's unplug the speaker from its 1/4" speaker input. I've also had to remove the main amplifier section from the main cabinet, so let's very carefully lift that out. You'll notice I have the power unplugged. Whenever you're doing any kind of work internally on amp like this, it is always a good idea to not just turn it off but remove it from any power source. Take that to the bank.

All right. So now I've already removed the screws from this speaker, so let's lift this guy out. There's our AlNiCo Blue right there, paper cone, AlNiCo magnet. Now, this speaker lead wire here was actually soldered to the speaker leads so I'd have to borrow a wire from a different little combo amp. Let's out our Eminence speaker in place, his Eminence. Anyway, here we go. It's pretty nice right there. I wish we could tilt that logo around but our speaker leads are on this side.

Now, the Screamin' Eagle is a ceramic magnet also matched with a paper cone. It's got a copper voice coil. That ceramic magnet is going to be a markedly different sound from the AlNiCo magnet. Let's get this thing wired back up and crank here up and see how she sounds.

[OWEN O'MALLEY REASSEMBLING AMPLIFIER]

Okay. So we have magically traveled back in time, and we've got our VOX AlNiCo blues speaker installed, that's the factory option speaker. We've got our top boost volume cranked being that the Eminence is supposed to be as lead sounding speaker, so we're going to do it with some overdriven tube tones, hear how that sounds, but let's play a simple rhythm lick and we'll compare it to the Eminence speaker.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING A GUITAR THROUGH THE VOX AC15 WITH ALNICO BLUE SPEAKER]

And now we've got our Screamin' Eagle installed. I haven't changed any of the EQ setting but I did take the master volume down because the output was quite a bit higher, so let's give a listen to that same rhythm lick.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING A GUITAR THROUGH THE VOX AC15 WITH EMINENCE SCREAMIN' EAGLE SPEAKER]

Quite a difference.

All right, now let's listen to something a little mellower with the neck pickup selected and then compare those two.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING A GUITAR THROUGH THE VOX AC15 WITH ALNICO BLUE SPEAKER]

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING A GUITAR THROUGH THE VOX AC15 WITH EMINENCE SCREAMIN' EAGLE SPEAKER]

Okay. Now let's just do a quick lead lick and see how those two compare.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING A GUITAR THROUGH THE VOX AC15 WITH ALNICO BLUE SPEAKER]

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING A GUITAR THROUGH THE VOX AC15 WITH EMINENCE SCREAMIN' EAGLE SPEAKER]

So there you go. That's the Eminence Patriot Screamin' Eagle, a much brighter sounding speaker. It’s definitely voiced for real in-your-face lead tones, really pronounced upper mids, very bright sounding like they say, all in all a pretty awesome, pretty aggressive sounding speaker. So that concludes our shootout with the VOX AlNiCo Blue and the Eminence Screamin' Eagle, the Patriot Screamin' Eagle speaker. Thanks for joining us on Gearwire.Com. I'm Owen O'Malley. Hope to see you again soon.