Marshall 1960 "Vintage" cabs Part 2

[Dallas Marlow]

Hey Guys,

I didn't start the original thread but it got burred... anyway, after reading the information about how Series-Parallel sounds different from Parallel-Series and yea well I have to say holy shit it makes a HUGE difference. It's hard to say EXACTLY how much of a difference it makes since as you can see per the picture below since not only the quality of the wire is massively different but I also used 100% soldered connections and got rid of the big ass pcb board in the back of the marshall cab.

I have to say that aside from the cab being loaded with 16 ohm speakers, it does sound MUCH more Mesa like, which makes me think and people will argue with me so flame all you want, that the real difference between the Mesa and Marshall "V30's" has MORE to do with 1 the wiring used, 1st with NO solder, 2nd since its originally wired in Parallel-Series, and 2 that the speakers are 16 ohms instead of 8ohms which DOES sound different, people can argue about that all day long too, but the fact of the matter is 16ohms USES more winds of the transformer, which if nothing else will change the sonic characteristics to some degree.

Anyway, its a HUGE HUGE improvement, so much so that it actually makes me want to play this cab again, and has me thinking about even swapping out the wire in my 1960BHW cab with G12H30's while I know it's soldered, I can't imagine it's as good as this 14awg braided stuff I used.

Anyway heres a vid of the wiring job and a pic of the difference in wires.

OH and yes I realized I said SERIAL parallel, I've been breathing in super glue and solder smoke for the past 4 hours... apparently I'm thinking about printer cables or something!

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Oh and here's the link to the old thread.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=73910

To answer another question from there, this cab IS made from birch ply NOT MDF ONLY the back is made out of MDF, which as someone stated before has been happening since the 70's, I can 100% tell you this because if you look at where the handles go in, you can see the multiple layers of the wood, it does KIND of look a little bit like MDF just because they spray this black goop all over hell and back but I can assure you it is as advertised, at least in my cab!

Dallas

P.S. Keep in mind, this cab is from around 2004-05 era, some where around there. Maybe a bit earlier, 03 or so, it does have the "English" V30's not the new Chinese ones too...

 

[Dallas Marlow]

damn as big as the other thread got this one gets no love haha?

 

[fek]

Looks great. I have some 14 braided wire sitting around just for this type of thing. I have not needed to do it yet but am sure I will want to soon. I am not very handy so it will be an experience I am sure.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Looks great. I have some 14 braided wire sitting around just for this type of thing. I have not needed to do it yet but am sure I will want to soon. I am not very handy so it will be an experience I am sure.

I gotta tell you this square shit was a BITCH to work with man.... doing the whole thing took me the better part of 4 hours, simply because I don't have a drill/electric screwdriver, and its a shit ton of screws just to get the damn back off and put it back on by hand haha. Also it was really not easy getting all these lined up to the tabs, since its a big ass square I soldered it flush to the contact, it was to fat to put through the little ass hole in the tabs...

Also stripping this stuff wasn't easy either since it was square lol. Great wire, just not fun to work with! I took my time too, wanted to do it up right! I also went through and wiped the dust off the speakers (not the cones obviously) and tightened it all up.

I gotta say it's a huge difference and I'm going to re-wire my other cab this way, apparently marshall does the parallel series way to save money since it takes less length of wire, they USED to do it the correct way what I did today, which is series/parallel... It's even the cheap way in my BHW cab, their top of the line makes no sense...

 

[locoed]

I did it and it's much more stable sounding.
And it really happened by mistake in a way. That
switch in the back was dirty with cigerette smoke
and dust and when my tech replaced it I had him
re wire the whole thing.
Good choice.

 

[petejt]

I've got an old angled cab which apparently is a "Celestion" cab. Well it had a 'Powered by CELESTION' badge on it, and loaded with G12M70s. To me it looks like an older Marshall 1960A cab, but feels a bit more solid.


With the help of a mate of mine, I re-wired it to 16 ohms stereo. The left side is a EV 12L 200 watter in series with a C90 Black Shadow. The right side is another EV 12L 200 watter with a Boogie V30. All the speakers are 8 ohms. I've kept them separate, rather than connect both sides together in parallel. Actually maybe I could connect them in parallel so the whole cab will be 8 ohms mono. I'm not sure- what do you guys reckon? Would the sound improve? Or keep it separate 16 ohms per side stereo?

 

[Dallas Marlow]

I've got an old angled cab which apparently is a "Celestion" cab. Well it had a 'Powered by CELESTION' badge on it, and loaded with G12M70s. To me it looks like an older Marshall 1960A cab, but feels a bit more solid.


With the help of a mate of mine, I re-wired it to 16 ohms stereo. The left side is a EV 12L 200 watter in series with a C90 Black Shadow. The right side is another EV 12L 200 watter with a Boogie V30. All the speakers are 8 ohms. I've kept them separate, rather than connect both sides together in parallel. Actually maybe I could connect them in parallel so the whole cab will be 8 ohms mono. I'm not sure- what do you guys reckon? Would the sound improve? Or keep it separate 16 ohms per side stereo?

Hopefully someone with more experience than me can chime in on that, if you look at the old thread there is the wiring diagram I used.

Dallas

 

[Sixtonoize]

Hey Guys,

I didn't start the original thread but it got burred... anyway, after reading the information about how Series-Parallel sounds different from Parallel-Series and yea well I have to say holy shit it makes a HUGE difference. It's hard to say EXACTLY how much of a difference it makes since as you can see per the picture below since not only the quality of the wire is massively different but I also used 100% soldered connections and got rid of the big ass pcb board in the back of the marshall cab.

So you can't really say that Series/Parallel vs. Parallel/Series makes a difference at all, can you?

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Hey Guys,

I didn't start the original thread but it got burred... anyway, after reading the information about how Series-Parallel sounds different from Parallel-Series and yea well I have to say holy shit it makes a HUGE difference. It's hard to say EXACTLY how much of a difference it makes since as you can see per the picture below since not only the quality of the wire is massively different but I also used 100% soldered connections and got rid of the big ass pcb board in the back of the marshall cab.

So you can't really say that Series/Parallel vs. Parallel/Series makes a difference at all, can you?

Not as of yet, but I'm re-wiring my other cab later which is wired in P/S with soldered Marshall wire, so the only difference will be quality of the wire when I swap it, which while it does make a difference I don't believe is as night and day as the wiring pattern... I hope

 

[moltenmetalburn]

here is a nifty diagram for those who dont know the difference.

 

[Nigel]

The Aiken diagram uses LESS WIRE than the Marshall OEM job.

It's a nice way to make the cab 4/8/16 ohm compatible, which helps sell cabs.

Notice that bogner has ONE jack and does it this way.

For brothers and sisters of teh TOANZ church, it's high blasphemy and desecration of one of the greatest sacraments.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

here is a nifty diagram for those who dont know the difference.

the funny part about all of this odd that your diagram is backwards labelled name wise compared to what I've been reading from the other thread... apparently there are conflicting diagrams all over the net the important thing is that what I'm talking about is the speakers are in series and they are paralleled at the Jack.

does that make better sense? apparently this way also if a speaker goes out you still have enough of a load that it won't blow your head.

 

[Nigel]

I like "Parallel @ the jack" or "Series @ the jack."

Series/parallel means "two series pairs in parallel."

Parallel/Series is "two parallel pairs in series."

use the "@ the jack" to avoid confusion.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

I like "Parallel @ the jack" or "Series @ the jack."

Series/parallel means "two series pairs in parallel."

Parallel/Series is "two parallel pairs in series."

use the "@ the jack" to avoid confusion.

Haha well WHATEVER it is, I wired mine up to the diagram in the other thread and it kicks ass. By the way the wire I got, is radio shack like super speaker wire or something, maybe mega? I don't recall the name but it's square 14awg braided, a bitch to work with but good stuff and 50 feet of it (which is really 100 feet for our purposes since its wired in a pair and you split it down the middle) was like $25 or something, not to bad!

 

[Nigel]

This is the biz:

Radioshack link

You can do several cabs for $10+tax.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

This is the stuff I used here

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2104178

 

[moltenmetalburn]

I like "Parallel @ the jack" or "Series @ the jack."

Series/parallel means "two series pairs in parallel."

Parallel/Series is "two parallel pairs in series."

use the "@ the jack" to avoid confusion.

Haha well WHATEVER it is, I wired mine up to the diagram in the other thread and it kicks ass. By the way the wire I got, is radio shack like super speaker wire or something, maybe mega? I don't recall the name but it's square 14awg braided, a bitch to work with but good stuff and 50 feet of it (which is really 100 feet for our purposes since its wired in a pair and you split it down the middle) was like $25 or something, not to bad!

Im not really familiar with the debate but it seems clearly defined to me.

I see it this way;

If you look at the diagram on the left it is labeled Parallel/Series. when I look at the diagram I see two pairs of speakers in parallel first then those pairs wired in series.

When looking at the diagram on the right labeled series/Parallel I see two sets of speakers wired in series first then those pairs wired parallel.

A far as the diagrams and their names I believe it is correct.

The only real question I have now is which one of these is the one you prefer?

 

[Dallas Marlow]

I like "Parallel @ the jack" or "Series @ the jack."

Series/parallel means "two series pairs in parallel."

Parallel/Series is "two parallel pairs in series."

use the "@ the jack" to avoid confusion.

Haha well WHATEVER it is, I wired mine up to the diagram in the other thread and it kicks ass. By the way the wire I got, is radio shack like super speaker wire or something, maybe mega? I don't recall the name but it's square 14awg braided, a bitch to work with but good stuff and 50 feet of it (which is really 100 feet for our purposes since its wired in a pair and you split it down the middle) was like $25 or something, not to bad!

Im not really familiar with the debate but it seems clearly defined to me.

I see it this way;

If you look at the diagram on the left it is labeled Parallel/Series. when I look at the diagram I see two pairs of speakers in parallel first then those pairs wired in series.

When looking at the diagram on the right labeled series/Parallel I see two sets of speakers wired in series first then those pairs wired parallel.

A far as the diagrams and their names I believe it is correct.

The only real question I have now is which one of these is the one you prefer?

Haha in the previous thread there was a link to a thread on another forum where it was like 10 pages of confusion on which way to go. But according to the way your diagrams are labeled the Parallel/Series is the VAST improvement IMO. According to the bit of research I did on the other threads, that is how the OLD marshall cabs used to be wired, and apparently how the bogner currently does it. It makes everything more organic, I noticed more sustain, easier playability, more harmonic content, less ice pick from BOTH cabs I did it to and I got more low end out of the deal. Everything in general is just richer sounding much improvement!

My ONE caveat to this is that I did replace the original marshall speaker wire in my 1960BHW cab with the Mega wire I linked up top, so I don't know how much effect that even played considering the fact that the stuff was soldered in already, it was a definite improvement to me!

Does this help man?

Dallas

 

[moltenmetalburn]

I like "Parallel @ the jack" or "Series @ the jack."

Series/parallel means "two series pairs in parallel."

Parallel/Series is "two parallel pairs in series."

use the "@ the jack" to avoid confusion.

Haha well WHATEVER it is, I wired mine up to the diagram in the other thread and it kicks ass. By the way the wire I got, is radio shack like super speaker wire or something, maybe mega? I don't recall the name but it's square 14awg braided, a bitch to work with but good stuff and 50 feet of it (which is really 100 feet for our purposes since its wired in a pair and you split it down the middle) was like $25 or something, not to bad!

Im not really familiar with the debate but it seems clearly defined to me.

I see it this way;

If you look at the diagram on the left it is labeled Parallel/Series. when I look at the diagram I see two pairs of speakers in parallel first then those pairs wired in series.

When looking at the diagram on the right labeled series/Parallel I see two sets of speakers wired in series first then those pairs wired parallel.

A far as the diagrams and their names I believe it is correct.

The only real question I have now is which one of these is the one you prefer?

Haha in the previous thread there was a link to a thread on another forum where it was like 10 pages of confusion on which way to go. But according to the way your diagrams are labeled the Parallel/Series is the VAST improvement IMO. According to the bit of research I did on the other threads, that is how the OLD marshall cabs used to be wired, and apparently how the bogner currently does it. It makes everything more organic, I noticed more sustain, easier playability, more harmonic content, less ice pick from BOTH cabs I did it to and I got more low end out of the deal. Everything in general is just richer sounding much improvement!

My ONE caveat to this is that I did replace the original marshall speaker wire in my 1960BHW cab with the Mega wire I linked up top, so I don't know how much effect that even played considering the fact that the stuff was soldered in already, it was a definite improvement to me!

Does this help man?

Dallas

absolutely, thanks! ill have to try this in my next 4x12