I got this 73 vibro champ last year, and it was the best sounding of the bunch I had tried locally. It came loaded with a Jupiter 8SC which I’m sure contributed to its great tone. Yet I still wanted to try an alnico for that extra compression and sweetness. I’ve been very happy with my Jupiter 12LA in my Tweed Deluxe, but had been very intrigued by the paper voice coil former, so I decided to give it a whirl and order an 8SA-P for my vibro champ.
The speaker took this amp from fantastic to amazing. The first things I noticed was a more open top, but not just in frequencies presented, but rather the timbre of the top end. Papery is a great description, but to add to that, it’s like the fretboard itself just feels connected to the speaker. Just think of the jimi Hendrix hammer-on sound in voodoo chile (long version from electric lady land).
The second thing I noticed is the incredible compression and snap, that really presents itself when using pinch harmonics or plucking the strings. It literally just snaps back at you, evident on everything from my strat to es-330.
Highly recommend!
