AER driver ( speaker ) with Whizzer Cone

Al Watsky

In some reviews and conversations relating to these AER amps many use on the GJ scene the topic of coloration always comes up.
A friend of mine, a pickup designer who uses an AER Domino as his development platform mentioned that he started using the AER as his reference amp because it was so ubiquitous .
Only problem was he was unhappy with the sound. Found it harsh and sibilant . As he knew that the driver was outfitted with a "whizzer cone" ,which is a cone made of paper glued to the voice coil edge which protrudes about 1" 1/4 inches above the voice coil in the center of the speaker cone a sort of passive high frequency tweeter, he decided to remove it.
He said it sounded instantly more "normal".
He mentioned this in passing.
I've owned a Compact 60 for years and have used it plenty, mostly with nylon string guitars. It was handy and loud enough but was never my favorite sound, in fact I would often pair it with an old Polytone Baby Brute so I would have something more normal to listen to on the gig.
Well for the last couple of years I've been using these French guitars through the AER and find myself cringing at the what to me is the annoying synthetic high frequency sound .
Remembering my friends story about his Domino and not wanting to haul my Polytone to Montreal next week I decided to remove the Whizzer cone from the driver of my Compact 60.
After having done so I must say that yes it sounds more like a guitar sound now , less unmusical hight frequency noise in the tone. It may be less effective as a mini PA though, but I have been successful in stifling the impulse to sing for the last several years, so for me that should not be a large problem.
I think when people refer to the overly colored tone of AER amps they are in part making reference to and noticing this "whizzer cone" feature. It can be removed.
Something to think about for you tinkerers out there.
If you poke around on the net you will see discussions about this Whizzer Cone technology. Most folks consider it passé .
They describe the sound as being inauthentic in that it doesn't represent any thing thats actually in the signal. What is heard is an artifact of the cone itself. So removing it does nothing but eliminate this high frequency oscillation that is mechanical resulting from the presence of this object that tricks the ear into thinking it is hearing musical information , when in fact it is just high frequency noise.
The amps that include a cross over network and tweeter do in fact sound better. The Shertler comes to mind. More expensive and a several pounds heavier than the AER.

HarryR

AL, How difficult is removing this cone? Is there much chance of damaging the main cone? Harry

Al Watsky

You can remove the "wizzer " with a small pair of scissors .
Its not very hard.
Of course not everyone is handy with tools.
It sounds much better. That much is sure.
When I removed mine , when I got close to the voice coil I had a small piece of hard cardboard between the scissor and the main cone which protected the main cone from being punctured.
Better safe than sorry.

bluetrain

I read from some forum that AER changed the speaker in the new Compact 60/3 amplifier from Beyma speaker to Sica speaker and changed the voicing somehow. So the question is, does the new version 60/3 suffer from this same whizzer cone behaviour?

Al Watsky

No Idea about the new voicing, speaker voicing is an arcane topic. I'm quite sure that I do not like the wizzer cone design. I would remove it from any speaker , it just produces high frequency noise IMO.