Eminence The Karnivore-8

So the sound of the speaker is good on its own. It is neither better or worse than a good British v30 in my opinion but just different. Its EQ lowers that mid spike the v30 speaker is famous for and concentrates more on the low mids. It also adds more presence than a v30 does.

I bought a couple to try in my Mesa and Engl cabs. It is better suited for the Engl cabs as those are front-loaded and much more mid-forward. It smooths out the mids and adds the low mids to a pretty sterile sound from the Engl cabinets and makes it sound much more full and open instead of boxy. In the Engl cabs, another note, it can actually be heard when there are other v30s: the cabinet’s construction allows you to hear both the speakers.

This cannot be said about the Mesa cabinets. They are designed differently. Thinner walls, more space for the resonance to occur and bury the mids a bit… The Mesa cabs were designed for the v30 speakers mainly, and mainly for the British version according to Mesa boogie. Adding the Karnivore to the v30s there makes it sound like you have one or more (the number of the Karnivores you put) less speakers in your cabinet: you simply can’t hear the karnivores as they are quieter than the v30s and don’t have the same EQ around the mids. V30 speakers continue to dominate the sound produced by the cabinet and I can’t even hear the Karnivore even when I am standing up close to it, directly. I can hear it with a mic, I can capture the sound but I can’t hear it. In other words, it makes little sense to try mixing the Karnivore with the v30s in the Mesa cabinets: you will still only hear v30s and the Karnivore will be SO much in the background you will just never understand they are even there. It was so much of a difference, that at first I thought the speaker was dead but it couldn’t have been as the impedance was correct and I rechecked the connection - it was all good and in-phase with all the rest. So if you like the Karnivore speakers and like the sound of the Mesa cabs and want to try, replace all the speakers with the karnivores instead; you can’t mix them together there. You will hear more if you have both the top-row of karnivores and the bottom row of the v30s, but it will sound a little odd compared to the X pattern - you will naturally find that crossing line between them, so you will be constantly getting annoyed by their difference and that you hear it so much.

I wish the speaker was as effective (sensitive) as the v30 speaker, so that mixing them together would actually result in the listener hearing them and not just the v30 which is always louder. The lowering of the output in the mids and lower sensitivity of the karnivores makes it impossible to hear it in the Mesa cabs, while they are still audible in the Engl (front-loaded with thick walls) cabs.