Celestion G12T-75 speakers, old vs new

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TheGreatGreen

TheGreatGreen

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I came across a video earlier that compared a bunch of speakers. Among those were two Celestion G12T-75 speakers, one made in 2017 and the other made in 1994. The one from 2017 sounded pretty excellent to my ears, while the one from 1994 was one of the worst sounding speakers in the whole video, and sounded like what I typically remember of when I think of the G12T-75.

These are two time stamps from the same video just to make the comparison easier to click between:

G12T-75 made in 2017:



G12T-75 made in 1994:



Are these speakers manufactured differently now, or is this just what "break in" over a couple decades will do to this speaker? Because to be totally honest, I've always hated G12T-75's because I've always thought of them as sounding like the 1994 versions, but that one made in 2017 sounds great.
 
Maybe they changed something in the latest version? Celestion is well known for changing things and not telling.
My experience with T75s is, the first version sounded very close to the 65 that it replaced. These have the vents. The next version (same label, no vents) lost some mids but still sound very good. Same story over the next ten years where they seem to get progressively more mid scooped until the 90s when they are almost devoid of mids and imo sound bad.
But, I haven’t played a newer production version to hear those in comparison.
 
I don’t know, I thought the 2017 sounded kinda harsh which is exactly what I have typically associated with T75’s. The 94 had less of that aggressive brightness/presence, maybe just due to age and use, but also these speakers can be really inconsistent.

I have a 2x12 loaded with what I think are 2nd generation T75’s from the 80’s. They’re white label but without the vents. They both actually sound quite good but one is definitely a lot brighter sounding than the other. The darker sounding one is kind of like a super greenback.
 
jabps said:
I love speaker shootouts lol? And I still don't think alot of players realize it's one of the biggest single things you can do to alter your tone.
Click to expand...

It's easy to see why a lot of people don't realize this.

Amps are just way more fun and interesting so I think that's where people spend most of their time and research. There's so many controls that do so many things to your sound. They've got knobs and switches everywhere, glowing tubes in them, they get hot, they look great, etc.

By contrast, once a cab is built, that's it. It always just is what it is, no knobs to adjust or switches to flip, it's just... a cab. What you see is what you get.

However, the more gain you use, the more upper harmonic content your sound has in it, the exponentially more important your cab becomes because the cab is going to be what shapes that most audible white-noisey, trebly part of what comes out of the amp. With the highest gain rigs out there, the cab is arguably more influential to your overall sound than the amp.
 
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jabps said:
I love speaker shootouts lol? And I still don't think alot of players realize it's one of the biggest single things you can do to alter your tone.
Click to expand...
HUGELY agree. Years ago I traded a guitar for a Mesa armor plated recto slant. I tried so many different Marshalls through it; just kept selling them but keeping the cab. Duh.
If I’d gotten on the net then I would have realized that GBs or 65s or nearly ANYTHING would sound better than that cab with a Marshall. Or, maybe try a Recto?
Ugh. I ran through some pretty cool amps trying to force feed that speaker cab.
Plus the Mfer weighed like 110 lbs. ?
 
TheGreatGreen said:
It's easy to see why a lot of people don't realize this.

Amps are just way more fun and interesting so I think that's where people spend most of their time and research. There's so many controls that do so many things to your sound. They've got knobs and switches everywhere, glowing tubes in them, they get hot, they look great, etc.

By contrast, once a cab is built, that's it. It always just is what it is, no knobs to adjust or switches to flip, it's just... a cab. What you see is what you get.

However, the more gain you use, the more upper harmonic content your sound has in it, the exponentially more important your cab becomes because the cab is going to be what shapes that most audible white-noisey, trebly part of what comes out of the amp. With the highest gain rigs out there, the cab is arguably more influential to your overall sound than the amp.
Click to expand...
This is a brilliant way to describe it. High gain has upper mid frequencies and treble/presence frequencies that need to be moulded and paired with the correct speaker. A lot of people decide they hate an amp because they dont sound like their fav video of it. Speakers do a lot to tame most of that nasty. Some people use post eq to scrub the rest. But in a mix, best to let a little of the Nasty out!
 
TheGreatGreen said:
It's easy to see why a lot of people don't realize this.

Amps are just way more fun and interesting so I think that's where people spend most of their time and research. There's so many controls that do so many things to your sound. They've got knobs and switches everywhere, glowing tubes in them, they get hot, they look great, etc.

By contrast, once a cab is built, that's it. It always just is what it is, no knobs to adjust or switches to flip, it's just... a cab. What you see is what you get.

However, the more gain you use, the more upper harmonic content your sound has in it, the exponentially more important your cab becomes because the cab is going to be what shapes that most audible white-noisey, trebly part of what comes out of the amp. With the highest gain rigs out there, the cab is arguably more influential to your overall sound than the amp.
Click to expand...
Very true. And of course a cab isn’t going to make your Marshall JMP sound like a 5150, so it’s not like “what’s more important - the amp or the cab?” It’s about making sure that you have a cab/speakers that are a good match for the given amp.

I think most guitarists at one point do the thing where they have ONE cab and then buy multiple amps and never consider that one cab might be a weak point. I know I did.

A lot of times it may even be a good cab, like a lot of guys would get a Mesa recto standard cab and then figure that they must be set for anything. I however had the worst cab, some Fender 4x12 with g12T-100s. I thought the couple amps I was using were “harsh” sounding and hard to record.

I eventually got clued in to the vintage 30 on forums in the early/mid 2000’s and bought a cheap Avatar cab with v30’s and h30’s mixed. It was OK but very beam-like and directional and hit you with a lot of the hard upper mid spike from the v30 and the bright top end of the h30. It was also just a ridiculously heavy cab despite being smallish.

That cab was an improvement because at least I could throw a mic on a v30 but in the room it still just didn’t really do any amp I had much justice. I stuck with it as my lone cab for a while because I just figured “it’s got the vintage 30’s so it should be fine, right?

I didn’t really figure it out until I got a pretty nice sounding oversized 1x12 and a Blackstar ht-5 as a low Volume/portable rig and experimented swapping a lot of different speakers in it.
 
The early white label 75's that are vented/ not vented are a different animal. I've owned several early JCm800 cabs that came loaded with them and they sound very different than the newer 75's, basically g65's with larger magnets.
I feel like this topic has been covered ad nauseum already.
 
Racerxrated said:
HUGELY agree. Years ago I traded a guitar for a Mesa armor plated recto slant. I tried so many different Marshalls through it; just kept selling them but keeping the cab. Duh.
If I’d gotten on the net then I would have realized that GBs or 65s or nearly ANYTHING would sound better than that cab with a Marshall. Or, maybe try a Recto?
Ugh. I ran through some pretty cool amps trying to force feed that speaker cab.
Plus the Mfer weighed like 110 lbs. ?
Click to expand...
Guilty of selling a laney vh100r, only later did I realize that the little Marshall style 1922 212 cab stinks. Wish I would have tried the vh100r through other cabs and speakers.
 
Amp / speaker cabinet importance in overall tone IMO 49 % : 51 % in favor of the speaker cabinet
 
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