4x12 Speaker Cabinet "Holy Grail"

[Bad.Seed]

Man. Not the best i heard, but the first cab i ever had, I bought for $150 off of craigslist when i got a XXX. It was a Randall XL and it came loaded with UK V30s. I had asked the guy what kind of speakers it had, and he said g12-65s. I was cool with that. When I played it, sounded amazing. So i took off the back and laughed. Guy had never opened it. Not the most high quality cab ever built, but it sounds really good. I would put it against my Mills. I think Killertone uses those too.

I once grabbed a full stack of the Randall XL cabs for $300 with the V30's. Kept the straight because it was mint, sold the straight right away because it had some wear and at the time, I cared for some reason.

Sold the slant last year and made out like a bandit, but I wouldn't mind landing another down the road. I'm a cab hoarder

Well, I will give you the unloaded randall slant i have for free. With speakers, you could just pay the price of the speakers. I don't use it any more. Just sits in my garage. I wouldn't mind giving it to someone that would enjoy it.

I'd absolutely take it off your hands. I have an extra quad of speakers that needs a home. That'd be perfect.

 

[japetus]

I’ve owned a lot of cabs, and the best sounding was a cheap ass Sonic cab loaded with EVM12s. Great cab.

Your ears must be broke

I know how it sounds, but it was a great sounding cab. I was surprised too, believe me. Lol

I had a cheap ass ampeg 4x12 ($299 guitarcenter special from 1995) has some OEM eminence speakers in it. I gave it to my Niece years ago as it was just setting in storage, and then a closet for 10 years. Afterwards she would comment how great is was, and everyone in her ban loved it.

Well short story long, she later had a problem with the jack, and dropped it off for me to fix it. GOD DAMN, I totally overlooked this cab it sounds amazing HAHA. I was kicking myself in the ass for parting with it.

I have that same cab, but with g12-75's. I will never get rid of it. I've had it since 1998 and it's beat, but sounds awesome.

 

[mooncobra]

i am down to a bogner 212 with v30 and creamback that sounds great. i had an avatar 212 that sounded and felt killer also, never should have sold it. i had an engl 412 with greenbacks that slayed as well. bought a matching engl cab with vin30s that sounded like ass, just terrible.

 

[CornNutz]

I’ve owned a lot of cabs, and the best sounding was a cheap ass Sonic cab loaded with EVM12s. Great cab.

Your ears must be broke

I know how it sounds, but it was a great sounding cab. I was surprised too, believe me. Lol

I had a cheap ass ampeg 4x12 ($299 guitarcenter special from 1995) has some OEM eminence speakers in it. I gave it to my Niece years ago as it was just setting in storage, and then a closet for 10 years. Afterwards she would comment how great is was, and everyone in her ban loved it.

Well short story long, she later had a problem with the jack, and dropped it off for me to fix it. GOD DAMN, I totally overlooked this cab it sounds amazing HAHA. I was kicking myself in the ass for parting with it.

I have that same cab, but with g12-75's. I will never get rid of it. I've had it since 1998 and it's beat, but sounds awesome.

Even Phil X has one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZURo9InXyo Jams war pigs on it later in the vid.
Total sleeper cab. Kind of funny too that it's made out of cheep ass chip board. However they use that on their bass cabs, and those are great.

 

[Racerxrated]

I’ve owned a lot of cabs, and the best sounding was a cheap ass Sonic cab loaded with EVM12s. Great cab.

Your ears must be broke

I know how it sounds, but it was a great sounding cab. I was surprised too, believe me. Lol

I had a cheap ass ampeg 4x12 ($299 guitarcenter special from 1995) has some OEM eminence speakers in it. I gave it to my Niece years ago as it was just setting in storage, and then a closet for 10 years. Afterwards she would comment how great is was, and everyone in her ban loved it.

Well short story long, she later had a problem with the jack, and dropped it off for me to fix it. GOD DAMN, I totally overlooked this cab it sounds amazing HAHA. I was kicking myself in the ass for parting with it.

I have that same cab, but with g12-75's. I will never get rid of it. I've had it since 1998 and it's beat, but sounds awesome.

Even Phil X has one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZURo9InXyo Jams war pigs on it later in the vid.
Total sleeper cab. Kind of funny too that it's made out of cheep ass chip board. However they use that on their bass cabs, and those are great.

Well, this shows how different identical cabs can sound. My old drummer has one of these Ampegs with T75s at his place; I’d use it for rehearsals. Couldn’t stand it. Dead and sterile sounding. Ugh.

 

[CornNutz]

Well, this shows how different identical cabs can sound. My old drummer has one of these Ampegs with T75s at his place; I’d use it for rehearsals. Couldn’t stand it. Dead and sterile sounding. Ugh.

Definitely True. After hearing how good the one I gave to my niece sounded, I admittedly tracked another one down for super cheep. However it did not have the mojo, I ended up giving that one to her too Same speakers, everything but sounded sterile like you mentioned.

I suspect the 10 years of gigging I did on the original one is the difference.

 

[DanTravis62]

Well, this shows how different identical cabs can sound. My old drummer has one of these Ampegs with T75s at his place; I’d use it for rehearsals. Couldn’t stand it. Dead and sterile sounding. Ugh.

Definitely True. After hearing how good the one I gave to my niece sounded, I admittedly tracked another one down for super cheep. However it did not have the mojo, I ended up giving that one to her too Same speakers, everything but sounded sterile like you mentioned.

I suspect the 10 years of gigging I did on the original one is the difference.

That is the strangest thing. One of my buddies has one of those T75 loaded ampeg cabinets, and it was the only cabinet that has ever sounded bad with my Larry; the crazy thing is that the Larry LOVES t75s - that's what schaffer and many others use as their main speaker with one.

And sure enough, a plain jane 1960 with 75s sounds phenomenal, but for some reason keef's ampeg just sounds lifeless with it.

I wonder if it's just speaker break-in over the years, or some other factor.

 

[311splawndude]

For me so far my go to cabs have been Mesa traditonal with v30s and Splawn with green back type speakers.

 

[SpiderWars]

Maybe not grail but equal opportunity.

Creambacks/Greenbacks/Blackbacks matter. Putting this together this week.

 

[Riffraff]

425A cab I had with my Vintage Modern. I should have held on to that.

This cab sounds pretty good too. I dropped the x-pattern B.S. and put the V30's on the bottom & ET65's up top.

 

[the4thlast1]

Maybe not grail but equal opportunity.

Creambacks/Greenbacks/Blackbacks matter. Putting this together this week.

WoW that's an interesting mix ! Tell us more

 

[the4thlast1]

425A cab I had with my Vintage Modern. I should have held on to that.

This cab sounds pretty good too. I dropped the x-pattern B.S. and put the V30's on the bottom & ET65's up top.

I've been wondering if X pattern or top/bottom is the way to go when mixing. What were your findings ?

 

[SpiderWars]

Maybe not grail but equal opportunity.

Creambacks/Greenbacks/Blackbacks matter. Putting this together this week.

WoW that's an interesting mix ! Tell us more

They are all G12M-25s I've pulled from other cabs, they span 1973-1976.

 

[Mr. Willy]

I can’t imagine many cabs sounding better than my Bogner straight 4x12. Granted, I’ve never played through a proper vintage Marshall cab. But still, everything I run through it sounds better than with any other cab.

 

[Smashedguitaris⸸]

Man. Not the best i heard, but the first cab i ever had, I bought for $150 off of craigslist when i got a XXX. It was a Randall XL and it came loaded with UK V30s. I had asked the guy what kind of speakers it had, and he said g12-65s. I was cool with that. When I played it, sounded amazing. So i took off the back and laughed. Guy had never opened it. Not the most high quality cab ever built, but it sounds really good. I would put it against my Mills. I think Killertone uses those too.

I once grabbed a full stack of the Randall XL cabs for $300 with the V30's. Kept the straight because it was mint, sold the straight right away because it had some wear and at the time, I cared for some reason.

Sold the slant last year and made out like a bandit, but I wouldn't mind landing another down the road. I'm a cab hoarder

Well, I will give you the unloaded randall slant i have for free. With speakers, you could just pay the price of the speakers. I don't use it any more. Just sits in my garage. I wouldn't mind giving it to someone that would enjoy it.

I'd absolutely take it off your hands. I have an extra quad of speakers that needs a home. That'd be perfect.

Yeah. Just PM me your address. I will get a shipping quote and let you know.

 

[Racerxrated]

Maybe not grail but equal opportunity.

Creambacks/Greenbacks/Blackbacks matter. Putting this together this week.

WoW that's an interesting mix ! Tell us more

They are all G12M-25s I've pulled from other cabs, they span 1973-1976.

One of my cabs has a similar mix..2 74 creambacks and 2 76 creambacks. 2 RIC cones and 2 1777. They all sound identical to me. The 76 creambacks are supposed to be blackbacks though? Creams were not made after 75 or so I've read. So I don't know if the cab is from 74 or 76, and the creambacks are leftovers they threw in? Lots of oddities with vintage Marshall stuff.
By contrast I've owned 3 other 77-78 Marshall cabs with blackbacks; 2 G12M and 1 G12H. Those were very sterile sounding to me, disappointing to say the least since I'd heard so much about them. Maybe they were all worn out, but they stood up fine under high volume. But they didn't come even close to sounding as good as the 74/76 cab I have now, or my other 74 cab with cream backs from a few yrs ago.

 

[SpiderWars]

Maybe not grail but equal opportunity.

Creambacks/Greenbacks/Blackbacks matter. Putting this together this week.

WoW that's an interesting mix ! Tell us more

They are all G12M-25s I've pulled from other cabs, they span 1973-1976.

One of my cabs has a similar mix..2 74 creambacks and 2 76 creambacks. 2 RIC cones and 2 1777. They all sound identical to me. The 76 creambacks are supposed to be blackbacks though? Creams were not made after 75 or so I've read. So I don't know if the cab is from 74 or 76, and the creambacks are leftovers they threw in? Lots of oddities with vintage Marshall stuff.
By contrast I've owned 3 other 77-78 Marshall cabs with blackbacks; 2 G12M and 1 G12H. Those were very sterile sounding to me, disappointing to say the least since I'd heard so much about them. Maybe they were all worn out, but they stood up fine under high volume. But they didn't come even close to sounding as good as the 74/76 cab I have now, or my other 74 cab with cream backs from a few yrs ago.

I have a '78 slant that has two early 70s GBs on top and two '78 BBs (original to the cab) on bottom. I love that cab. The BBs I have are all Ms with 1777 and they have a tiny bit more lows and bite. I think they mix with older G12Ms well and are actually a little better for chunky metal.

Some of the older speakers I've searched on CL look like they have been sitting in a damp garage for a decade or more. Some look really new-ish so I imagine there is a lot of variance there in addition to the differences out of the factory.

 

[Nigel]

Fave cab right now is a 2003 Mesa OS/Standard 4x12. Usually I get all tweaked out upgrading wire and removing PCB's and such, changing to series/parallel but not this time. It was all "just right," no sweat no bother.

The freak cab that survived my teens to this day is a custom front loaded Marshall style 4x12 that used to be carpeted. Had it sanded and stained (it's birch), then put fiberglass on the back panel, wired in some early 90's V30's bottom and newer Chinese Greenbacks up top with Sound Runner 10 gauge and an Aiken S/P-P/S switch: kind of an Uberkab/Dave special Frankenstein thing.

The Mesa gives me the 8 ohm, parallel-series, OG Vintage 30 formula, big-box "American" open sound, and the freak box gives up the vintage and modern 16 ohm tight-yet-deep-and-fast Marshall "British" thing.

Together they fill in each other's gaps and work sort of like a time-space machine that distorts reality into altered states of being, a kin to Matt Talbot's sound on Hum's 2020 release, Inlet: https://humband.bandcamp.com/album/inlet

 

[Marshall Law]

The White Cab is a 1973 with 25w Greenbacks an amazing sounding cabinet.

 

[EyesOfTheSouth!]

I’ve been through a dozen or so over the years. It all depends on the amp/music style. But hands down for me is my Mather 68’ repro slant loaded with Weber 1265’s. I much prefer these over the Heritage 65’s, Scumback BM75LD’s, and WGS ET65’s that I’ve had in the same cab at one time or another.

I have a Splawn B cab loaded with old U.K. Greenbacks that rarely gets any play time. My grab and go 2x12 is a horizontal Splawn with Weber Legacy LD’s.