Laney 2x12" cab sounds bloated/congested

[Zado]

Hi everyone.
I have an old Laney (I guess an older GS212?) cab; it's an heavy AF, V30 loaded cab I used to use with my bands years ago.
It's a funny cab, very short height wise, like 40-45 cm, and almost as deep (possibly deepest cab I've ever played with). Closed back, 2 V30s, extremely solid. Laser directional, but very cool when mic'ed, especially for metal.
What's not to like? Well, after quite some time, yesterday I've decided to plug it again and jam with my orange TT, and for hell sake it sounded abysmal to say the least: sure, the TT's never been a super tight amp, but it was unusable with the neck pickup of my Schecter (Duncan 59), so congested it sounded basically muted when playing basic powerchords on the low E string in E standard... Sorta like the low end was so aboundant the speakers were overloaded and couldn't spit out the sound. Doomer than the Doomest Doom Metal and then some.

I've been playing with that cab for very long, with many amps, hell I'm attached to it, but I don't remember ever sounding this way. V30s should be anything but oooomphy like that!
An old friend of mine borrowed the cab in the past, might be that he removed the back panel and by doing that compromised something? Or is this a symptom of out of phase speakers or stuff like that? No idea, just asking. In any case, how can this be solved? Stuffing the cab with some foam might help?

Thanks everyone!

Btw looks similar to this one, but it's an older model, the jack plate has a mono/stereo selector.

 

[BeZo]

I Googled it to read some specs, and the Sweetwater page for it did not mention wood anywhere in the listing. It might not be made of solid birch.

Aside from that, you can tap a 9v battery to the speaker cable and make the speakers jump to make sure they are moving in the same direction. Touch the positive to the tip and the negative to the shaft and they should both push out. That will check to make sure they are in phase.

 

[Zado]

I Googled it to read some specs, and the Sweetwater page for it did not mention wood anywhere in the listing. It might not be made of solid birch.

Aside from that, you can tap a 9v battery to the speaker cable and make the speakers jump to make sure they are moving in the same direction. Touch the positive to the tip and the negative to the shaft and they should both push out. That will check to make sure they are in phase.

Thank for your reply, I recall Laney saying it was "marine plywood". Not sure what that means, but gotta give a try with the batteries. By any chance, is that the kind of behavior you should expect from out of phase speakers?

 

[Nigel]

Get a bag of pillow stuffing polyfil or the like and put it in the cab. That'll clean it up for metal tightness.

 

[Laputan Machine]

Pour some Ex-Lax in the jacks.