Guitar Gear

Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know… This speaker came out in July 2015 and I’m only now getting around to writing a review. But if you’ve followed this blog for awhile, most of my writing about gear has been within the context of being in a band or recording. I haven’t been recording at all in the last year, and it wasn’t until recently that I was in a band. But with joining a new band, I have new inspiration, so I’ll probably be more active here in the months to come. Okay… now on to the review!

Don’t be fooled by the demos…

When I wrote my original announcement of the speaker, I included the sound clips that Jensen provides. I’ll just say it: While the playing was good, the sound was not at all representative of what this speaker is capable, especially with the Jazz clip. Jensen bills this speaker as a “warm” speaker, but that Jazz clip sounded like someone threw a thick, wool blanked over it. I will emphatically state that this was NOT my experience with this speaker.

A lot of factors go into dialing in a sound. Who knows how they set up the chain for the Jensen demos. As for me, I used my DV Mark Little 40 set up in a slightly “scooped” EQ and from the first chord I hit, I was in love with tones this speaker produces. It just goes to show that recorded demos don’t necessarily give you a good picture of a device’s capabilities, and can sometimes be detrimental if you don’t do ’em right.

Since I had no other reference to go on with the speaker other than Jensen’s demos, I didn’t go into rehearsal with my expectations. But that all changed once I started playing.

How it sounds

Even though the speaker is billed as “warm,” I found that using a scooped EQ configuration on my amp produced the best sound. The most apt description I can give for the speaker is that it has balls. Even clean, the tone was rich and full, and with its sensitivity and power rating, I had no problem cutting through the sound of the band, and in no way did it sound muddy. I think this may be due to the pronounced high-mid to high hump in the frequency response chart. This makes me think that setting my amp to a scooped tone probably served to emphasize the frequency response of the speaker. And playing clean lines up and down the neck, well, the sound was inspiring. So subtly complex, like a vintage fine wine.

As far as overdrive sounds were concerned… Wow! Smooth as silk! Whether I was overdriving from my amp, or using my EWS Little Brute Drive distortion pedal, there was absolutely nothing harsh about the overdrive of this speaker. Admittedly, I was little concerned with using the LBD with the speaker as it emphasizes the bottom-end. But used with my Strat, the sound was absolutely heavenly, and I didn’t lose the highs as I originally suspected might happen. With my Les Paul and using only amp overdrive, the tone was nice and crunchy for rhythm, and pushed into full overdrive, I just experienced simply heavenly tones. With a warm speaker, I was expecting a little less note separation, but that was not at all an issue with this speaker, and I didn’t have to adjust my EQ on either my guitar or amp unless I wanted to do it for effect. For instance, I like to do “woman tone” leads for some songs (turning the EQ all the way down on my neck pickup), and the speaker didn’t muddy up at all.

Now all that said, a comment our front man said after a song was that my sound was a bit too metal – as I said, this speaker has BALLS. And that became apparent as I experimented with pushing the speaker to see what it would be like at band volume and a lot of drive. For sure, it really wasn’t appropriate for the song, but it sure did RAWK! We all laughed at the comment, and I said that this speaker has a pretty full bottom end, so I backed off on the overdrive and all was well. After that exchange, our bassist asked me how I liked the speaker, and I replied, “I’m smooth as silk today, baby. It’s a keeper!”

Overall Impression

I have a tough decision ahead of me. I absolutely adore the Jensen Jet Falcon, which is great to cover a wide variety of styles. But the Nighthawk is simply so kick-ass that I don’t think I’ll be taking it out of my cab any time soon. It can rock and it can also play some very deep, clean tones.

A big test for me about how good some gear might be is its ability to get me into what I call the “inspiration zone.” And the sound that comes out of this speaker gets me there – and quickly. It certainly is worth checking out!