Old SRO speakers

Bill Duncan · Post by **Bill Duncan** » 26 Aug 2013 7:30 am

I just "rediscovered" the SRO speakers from the 1970"s. The ones with the white aluminum frame and black fin covered magnet. Those things are great speakers. I had forgotten how good they were, until I tried one over the weekend.

Chris Boyd · Post by **Chris Boyd** » 26 Aug 2013 10:05 am

I'm a real fan of the white coffee can EV SRO speakers in lower wattage amps... amazing tone ! I have one in a '66 Ampeg Reverberocket 2 and one in a '66 Fender Princeton Reverb... EV made some great speakers back then!

John Gilman · Post by **John Gilman** » 26 Aug 2013 11:23 am

I have a pair of them in the world's heaviest 65 Twin Reverb. Great sound, but major break backers.

Bill A. Moore · Post by **Bill A. Moore** » 26 Aug 2013 2:02 pm

I built a 15" baffle for my "Twin" clone, and used an old SRO that was originally in a Bassman/Showman cabinet. Orange County reconed it for me, and I love it.
I would love to find an SRO12 for my DR, (the 12's were Alnico).

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 26 Aug 2013 2:05 pm

IMHO, the SRO's are the best speakers ever made...and the heaviest!

The later "finned" design was (according to EV) identical in performance to the earlier "coffee can" models, and both were quite similar to the later EVM series.

Chris Boyd · Post by **Chris Boyd** » 26 Aug 2013 2:06 pm

Bill... Check Ebay for the coffee can alnico 12's...I bought one just last month...sounds terrific!!

Steve Spitz · Post by **Steve Spitz** » 26 Aug 2013 2:21 pm

I had a blackface twin with two coffee can SROs. I used it for guitar only , traded it for a triple Rickenbaker while I was in love with super reverbs for six strings. In retrospect, I bet I had the ultimate steel amp then. The speakers were so heavy, the baffle board collapsed into the cabinet sure wish I hadn't traded that one away.
It sounded great for clean six string.

Loren Morehouse · Post by **Loren Morehouse** » 26 Aug 2013 5:24 pm

I totally agree on the SRO's!! This one is in my mint 70's Webb and it rocks big time!! Never heard nothing like it!! This amp eventually will be for sale but I want to unload it up here. If I can't I'll have to consider shipping it then. Loren.

Loren Morehouse · Post by **Loren Morehouse** » 26 Aug 2013 5:30 pm

Oh by the way, that is shag carpeting!! Oh behave baby, yeah!!!

Chris Boyd · Post by **Chris Boyd** » 27 Aug 2013 5:26 am

Loren... I'll bet that setup is amazing and the shag adds to the feel!

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 27 Aug 2013 5:44 am

The old EV SRO speakers are great indeed. When I first started playing pedal steel, I put one in a Deluxe Reverb, and it worked great for reasonable volume gigs. What I liked about it was that it cut through well but still had a nice warm, full-range sound for steel or jazz guitar. But the band got too loud for even that tricked-out Deluxe, and I switched to something bigger.

I still have two of the coffee-can versions and one of the later raw-frame-with-fins versions. If I recall correctly, my coffee-cans came out of a messed up old Kustom 2x12" amp, probably one of the reasons some of those Kustoms sounded so good. Both versions sound similar, but only the coffee-can versions will fit in my Deluxe Reverbs without modifying the cabinet or running into the transformers. So I have the later version in an extension cabinet. I tried the pair of coffee-cans in a Twin Reverb - sounded great, but definitely over the weight limit.

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 27 Aug 2013 6:10 am

I just weighed a 12" coffee can. 20.2 lbs.
That's a lotta joe.

Bill Duncan · Post by **Bill Duncan** » 27 Aug 2013 6:34 am

I have two 12", but I will never miss a chance if any come along at a good price. I want to find a fifteen, to try in my Vegas 400.

Bill Duncan · Post by **Bill Duncan** » 27 Aug 2013 6:34 am

I have two 12", but I will never miss a chance if any come along at a good price. I want to find a fifteen, to try in my Vegas 400.

Paul Honeycutt · Post by **Paul Honeycutt** » 27 Aug 2013 8:40 pm

FWIW, Jerry Garcia used SRO's in the Twin he used for pedal steel guitar. Of course, he had roadies!

Clyde Mattocks · Post by **Clyde Mattocks** » 27 Aug 2013 9:03 pm

I have one in my mid 70's Vibrolux. It is my favorite guitar rig I have ever owned.

Chris Boyd · Post by **Chris Boyd** » 28 Aug 2013 4:37 am

I have found that it is a good move to replace the flimsy Fender particle board baffle with a good birch ply baffle when using these heavy beasts.. One of my pals in Roomful of Blues used an SRO in a Deluxe Reverb and it blew out the cheesy particle board..

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 28 Aug 2013 7:52 am

Here is a 2x12 cab with SRO's that I have:

Here is a pic of Jerry G's SRO Cab (1970 Soundstorm Festival in WI).
There ia a pic of a Twin with SRO's out there somewhere, also.
Looks like three SRO's and a Grey JBL in a 4x12 cab:

Lefty · Post by **Lefty** » 31 Aug 2013 7:28 am

I had a pair of the finned ones that I used in a Musicman HD130-2-12 amp, and it was a good combination. I used it for guitar and steel for a while until I got my first Vibrosonic Reverb. My back still reminds me of moving it around though.
I still have the speakers in a vertical bandmaster speaker cabinet. It feels like a chuck of granite, but sounds so good.
Those speakers are almost heavy as the JBL E120s.
I still have many of the EVM-15Ls which are good speakers. I don't know about their new products.
Lefty

Steve Hinson · Post by **Steve Hinson** » 31 Aug 2013 12:47 pm

LOL!Jerry had SROs for the audience...and a JBL for himself.

Harold Parris · Post by **Harold Parris** » 1 Sep 2013 4:08 pm

The old SRO's are great sounding speakers. The best steel sound I've heard was a Peavey VTG tube amp running through two 12" SRO's. The only thing I find wrong with them is "They will cause a double hernia carrying them around"

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 3 Sep 2013 2:33 am

I had two, in a Twin. (with casters) My preacher wanted me to play guitar at a night service, and I did. Took an Epiphone Sheridan and THAT amp. The preacher was a small guy, but he offered to help me in. I said, "ahh, grab that amp."
And his arm was stretched out 5 inches.
That was a heavy beast. Well over 100 lbs., maybe.
I later sold the amp to a guy on the west coast--A genius with pickups. But he wanted to pay shipping, and he didn't like the SRO's. He's got a bunch of D120's, and that's what he wanted.
Genius.

Bryant Aycock · Post by **Bryant Aycock** » 8 Sep 2013 11:05 pm

I have two 12 inch SRO's. I plan to put one in a '65 Deluxe reissue I just bought.

Chris Bauer · Post by **Chris Bauer** » 18 Jun 2014 8:16 pm

I just found an SRO 15 inch 'coffee can'. My back is saying, "No, no, no!" but my ears are loving it. What a sound!

Eric Philippsen · Post by **Eric Philippsen** » 19 Jun 2014 4:44 am

Here's an SRO story.

I lived and played 6-string and pedal steel for 25-some years in South Bend IN, which is located near the Michigan state line. At the time, Electro-Voice was located about 20 miles away in Buchanan MI. At the time I was playing through a blackface Twin with the EV coffee-cans and it sounded great.

Now, it happened that our band's singer was an exec for EV and he was floored with the sound of those speakers, so much so that he kept telling EV about them. Puzzled because they believed their current speaker line was better, they told him to bring one in for testing, i.e anechoic chamber, frequency response analysis, everything. Over a span a week they put my Twin's SRO speaker through all the tests they had.

The result? "Nothing substantially different" was the verdict. I and the singer shrugged our shoulders, put the speaker back in the Twin, and that was that.

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