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Peavey 215BW speakers

#21
Not sure if this helps but I bought a Peavy rig in 1981 with 2-15 BW's. Also the next year two of my friends bougt them as well. I still have mine in excellant condition. In that time frame all the BW's I ever seen in any enclosure had shiny bright metal dust covers on them. I never seen one that didn't. They are bright enough you can easily see them through the grille cloth. I may be wrong, but I don't think your speakers are original BW's at least, maybe newer?
 
#22
My mid 80's 215BW cab has the lumy dust caps. Both speakers still fire up after all these years, and I found mine to be one fat and punchy sounding cab with a good tone range; not harsh at all from day one. One could e.q. in brittle and harsh noise if you wanted to, from whatever amp head you use and the BW's will respond. My cab takes to e.q. tweaks quite well for good and bad, and that seems to the nature of the beast as far as my experience with BW's go. I used to run a decent enough early 70's SUNN 2 x15 cab, and I'd take the Peavey BW over that cab any day of the week. That's my 2 cents worth of comment and opinion.
 
#23
vaccastracca said:
About the BW on CL, Oren, yes please, if you can recheck it and let me know it would be great!
Click to expand...


Check CL for Orlando,FL - last listed 12/29 as 15" Peavey Black Widow... I see that is has been listed a couple of times before. The price has remained constant at $60. That's a very good price IMO. You'll need to have the aluminum dust cap replaced (or added) since it looks like this one is (painted) black. That's not an expensive thing to get done. :cool:

PS I just located another one for you! This one's on Pittsburg CL listed 12/30 as Peavey 15 in. Black Widow... for $100. Again, IMO, a good deal. This one looks good and has the aluminum center cab intact. I haven't seen 2 BWs at the same time in a way, way long time!

BTW - these are both the correct older style 1502-8 ohm BWs for your cab.
 
#25
@ Oren: thank you so much! :-)
Contacted both. The one of the painted dome didn't answer. Other answered but seems not willing to ship. I'm used to that...people on CL rarely wants to ship! I'll try to insist a bit, and if can't get anything out of it, I'll just keep looking! I tell you...as soon as I saw that wonderful BW with the silver dome my heart started beating faster! ;-)

@ thumpbass 1: glad to read about your good feeling with the BW's!

I think I kinda making up my mind. BW's is the way to go!!!
 
#27
What did your meter actually read? Or better yet, test each speaker independently. The bottom one may indeed be a 16ohm. That would technically be a 5.33ohm cab with the meter reading 4.something. For a true "4ohm" cab, the meter should read 3.something. That could be why the bottom one moves less and plays a little quieter.





Or it could be because it's a different speaker.:D



As far as real Black Widows, the 1505's spec out better than the 1502's even though the 1502's were advertised as "bass speakers" but seeing as yours aren't BW's I'd figure out what the top one is and find it a mate.
 
#28
So, lower driver probably an SRO, upper most probably an EV15L (like said in previous answers). Top is the better sounding one, for sure! In theory it should be easier to find one EV15L than a pair of BW 1502's, but you never know with vintage gear...I'll just have to be patient!

@ will33: yes, the meter measures 4 something! So, bottom speaker is really working at 16 ohm while the upper at 8??? Isn't this bad? I know absolutely nothing about electricity and so on, so I have no idea about these things: does having a cabinet with two different speakers working with different ohm load harm one of them, or both? At this point I'm also worried about the head...well, with solid state heads there should be no problem, they can handle ohm differences automatically (most solid state bass heads works with 2, 4 and 8 ohm)...but with tube heads it would maybe be a problem, they are more delicate, and require manual ohm setting!
 
#30
@ billfitzmaurice: yup!
@ Oren: the guy of the painted BW answered. The speaker is original (I mean, there's the aluminium dome under the paint). At this point it's a bit a dilemma. I would have an original BW 1502, but that black paint is unwatchable! And I'm afraid that in order to restore it to the original specs, I would necessarily have to have it reconed...I guess it's impossible to remove the paint without harming the cone!!!
So, reconing a speaker that works good has no sense. But keeping a speaker that looks so ugly isn't good either!!! ...I wonder who the paint genius was!!! :mad:
 
#31
vaccastracca - you don't have to recone the entire speaker to replace the center cap. I've had a few done. I don't remember it being too costly. If the rest of the speaker is good, including stuff that you can't see, replacing the cap wouldn't prevent me from going with it. :cool:
 
#35
Some time passed.
Got a second EVM 15 L speaker, and also a Peavey Black Widow 1502 in great shape, with original aluminium dome.
Thoroughly compared the EVM15L with the BW1502. I must say that the ElectroVoice is really superior! A richer and fuller tone, more punch, and much more high frequencies response as well!
The Black Widow is still a very nice speaker, and very well constructed...but compared to the ElectroVoice it's just not as good...sounds almost muffled, and a bit nasal!
Pity for the BW (it's so much cooler looking), but I had to bow to the EVM15L! A truly amazing speaker!!!
 

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