Marshall 1960a Cab & loss of Gain

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sinfish

sinfish

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Hey Guys,

I have a 1960a cab with the G12T-75 speakers. The Speakers are broke in but when I use this cab compared to every other cab I have I seem to lose response, gain, and sustain. I will dial in a amp tone and the tone that will work with my 5150 cab, Ear Candy 2x12, and both Genz Benz 2x12 and 4x12. When I use the Marshall no amount of tweaking will get close to a tone I am happy with. I have to really work my ass off when playing with this cab. The cab is still wired as factory. the problem was not as noticeable with the Marshall TSL I once had.

Is there any tricks that I can try to improve the response of this cabinet / speakers that's on the cheap? I would rather sell it than dump cash into it. I heard at one time someone here say something about wiring in an X pattern but I am unsure what the results are or if it can be done to a stereo/mono cab.

Thanks!
 
I'm no expert, but whenever I A/B'd my 1960A cabs against other cabs it always sounded like there was a blanket over it. To be honest, I have no idea how anyone uses those cabs. I compared mine to an old late 70's Marshall with black 65's in it and a new 1960BX. There was no comparison...

The 1960A was gone that afternoon...
 
mlkx2":35rkzga0 said:
I'm no expert, but whenever I A/B'd my 1960A cabs against other cabs it always sounded like there was a blanket over it. To be honest, I have no idea how anyone uses those cabs. I compared mine to an old late 70's Marshall with black 65's in it and a new 1960BX. There was no comparison...

The 1960A was gone that afternoon...
Click to expand...

Lots of people use those cabinets with great success. I have two. One with 75's and one with 12-65's. Could be the 75 having less midrange than you are use to. That would make it seem like less gain. Lots of people hate those speakers. Personally, I like them with the right amp. If I'm not mistaken, there were many variations in manufacturing, so maybe mine have a quality that I like. The box could most certainly make a difference, but matching the right speaker to the amp is going to make more of a difference.

Schaf
 
It's all in the mids which are pretty non existent in the gt75. Solution is to change all or mix to middy speakers in ala ubercab v30.
 
sinfish, it's time to check your wiring in the cab, maybe it's loose, or just crappy wire. If it's the stereo cab, I always find changing the wire to 16 gauge copper stranded "zip" or lamp cord wire works wonders. That's going to set you back about $8-10. Might be worth a try, it's worked for a lot of other people who complained of poor response in cabs with that thin 22 gauge wire Marshall uses now.

Now, if that doesn't fix it, then it's time to change speakers, cabs, or something else. Good luck.
 
I've had problems with 2 of those dam stereo/mono pcb boards, I take 'em out and wire them straight with lamp cord (as was mentioned)
Those speakers have no mids either :no:
 
So I love my Marshalls. I wasn't a huge fan of bass response in the cabs so I did some research and found a video from a guy named Bob Molton. I've been looking so I could share the info with you, but he went and made all his videos private. In any event..what you do is (I apologize if this is all well known information, but I found some of it helpful):

1. Remove the back of the cab and use compressed air to blow out any debris-sawdust.
2. Tighten all the screws on the baffle to make sure none of them are loose.
3. Go to home depot/lowes and get some caulking and seal as many seams in the wood as possible; all corners, around the baffle, and as much of the handles as possible. Allow the caulking to cure the proper amount of time it says on the caulk tube. Bare in mind not to seal the back of the cab because air flow is necessary.
4. Take the center brace/block off of the baffle and glue it back down and tighten the screws up.
5. I "X" patterned both of mine and had great results but I'm also a fan of the G12-75s.
6. Rewire the cab as mentioned above with heavier gauge wire (I recommend stranded copper 16 gauge) and solder as many connections as possible unless you intend to plug and play speakers, then you may not want to spend all that time doing that, but soldered connections are better.
7. Replace the back cover but do your best to center the center screw into the center brace from the baffle.

This did make a difference with the low end and clarity by focusing it out the front of the cab instead of losing it out the seams. As far as settings on my 6505 that give me kick ass THICK HEAVY tone;

Lead Channel: (Not clock, actual numbers)
Pre - 6
Low - 8
Mid - 4
High - 6-7 depending on the day
Res - 10
Pres - 7

Boosted with my tube screamer
Gain - 0
Tone - 12 (o' clock)
Level - dimed

And I find that 5150s/6505s really open up around Post 3...just what I like. I've owned 4 and they are very hit or miss IMHO.

Goodluck and I hope I helped,
Jonny


EDIT: I read you were using a 5150..not the cab. Sorry.
 
I have a 1960a here, mid 80's cab with greenbacks, man they break up quick but when I push it to stage volume, it gets fuzzy on me. I just picked up a Mills Afterburner with V30s, what a difference in the overall quality of tone over the 1960a
 
sinfish, one more thing, check to make sure you have the wiring on the stereo board hooked up correctly. I had a client bring over a cab that had that caulking thing done to it (what a joke that is!). He bought the cab for $75 (it was a new Marshall 425A purple cab w/black cloth).

We installed four M75 65w in it and it sounded thin, no sustain/gain. I checked one of my demo cabs and it turned out two of the wires on his stereo switch were swapped and 1/2 the speakers were wired out of phase, which caused the cab to sound bad.

I swapped those two wires and it sounded great after that, but that whole caulking thing? Please, that's just retarded, I don't care who Bob Moulton is. It was obvious the previous owners of that cab saw that video, and tried it to improve the sound caulking up the cab/handles/etc., when what they need to do was check their wiring.

Don't do that to your cab, it's a waste of time/caulk/DAP, and money.
 
Scumback Speakers":14wn8k2p said:
sinfish, one more thing, check to make sure you have the wiring on the stereo board hooked up correctly. I had a client bring over a cab that had that caulking thing done to it (what a joke that is!). He bought the cab for $75 (it was a new Marshall 425A purple cab w/black cloth).

We installed four M75 65w in it and it sounded thin, no sustain/gain. I checked one of my demo cabs and it turned out two of the wires on his stereo switch were swapped and 1/2 the speakers were wired out of phase, which caused the cab to sound bad.

I swapped those two wires and it sounded great after that, but that whole caulking thing? Please, that's just retarded, I don't care who Bob Moulton is. It was obvious the previous owners of that cab saw that video, and tried it to improve the sound caulking up the cab/handles/etc., when what they need to do was check their wiring.

Don't do that to your cab, it's a waste of time/caulk/DAP, and money.
Click to expand...


Why is it a waste of time? I'm more curious than anything and I'm not out to argue. I'm genuinely curious. Why WOULDN'T it help? I work with steel so I don't know wood and all of its characteristics nor do I know much about cab construction short of using solid wood versus Marshall's particle board. I noticed a difference in doing the tightening, caulking, and soldering...perhaps JUST soldering the connections was the change?

Jonny
 
The caulk "might" help seal the handles if you have plastic ones that are cracked/broken, but the real answer is to get decent metal handles.

As for the DAP/caulk around the baffle board, you have to understand that the front lip of a Marshall is built so that the baffle board lays flat against it. There's grill cloth between the front of the baffle, wrapping around the sides. They cut these cabs/baffles to accommodate the cloth, and no more space. Between having to force the baffle into the cab frame, and the 16 screws holding the baffle tight to the front lip, the chances of any air getting through that minute gap is so small, it's ridiculous.

I've owned well over 100 Marshall cabs now, plus my own designs. In a properly built/fastened cab there is plenty of low end available if you have the right speakers/wiring/etc. The caulk, IMO, does nothing for the cab, it's some sort of "airtight" fallacy. Marshall cabs are designed with an air gap in them in the back panel supports. They cut those supports (the part the back panel screws into) at the top for six inches to allow removal of the baffle board. So they're not completely airtight by design, which is good because that would keep the cones from moving freely to reproduce your sound.

The client with the 425A cab I fixed had practically no low end at first. I tested my M75 loaded cab to make sure I had a good reference tone in my head, then tested his again. It was apparent it was wired wrong. After I fixed that it sounded great, had a lot of mids/volume/low end. But the caulk/DAP wasn't the reason, it was correcting the wiring.

You guys have to be careful with taking advice from guys on the internet. A lot of them aren't too diligent or scientific in their tests, or they just repeat other crap they've read/seen/heard without any first hand knowledge or experience doing the tests. Some of this is due to them not having the proper cabs/experience to do it right, but they wind up fixing their wiring after doing all the caulk/DAP, and don't realize that was the real answer, not squeezing a bunch of goop into their non-existent air gaps/holes.

I don't know everything, far from it. But on this subject I have some experience, and felt it was necessary to dispel this silly practice/rumor/fix.

Hell, that's probably why those videos are private now. He likely got so much flack/crap for thinking that was the answer and was proven wrong that he made them impossible for guys like you and I to look at.

In any case, since I had a caulked cab here that sounded thin and buzzy, and all I did to fix it was correct the wiring, that pretty much disproves anything that video was saying to do.
 
i found vintage 30s to have the same problem.....every time i used a V30 cab i had less of everything including sustain and it felt like there was a huge hole in the middle of the guitar sound...
i changed to eminence legends and it just chucks out sustain ect
 
I have a 1960A with the terribly thin stock wiring and it has always sounded thick with lots of lowend. Not quite as much as my Mesa or front loaded 400 watt H&K cab, but not drastically less that it causes me any distress.
Adding two V30's to the T75's helped even more with the depth of the lowend and overall sound projection.
I'm not sure if the stock wiring is always to blame. Unless the wiring was done incorrectly. Mr. Scum has more authority on that matter than me though.
 
I think the problem with the Marshall cabs is threefold. Could be the stereo switch, jacks or the wiring. I've had the thin wiring, replaced it, and the cabs sounded bigger/thicker.

The 425A cab owner had the stock thin wiring & stereo switch (it was fairly new, though), and once I wired it correctly it sounded great.

I've also had problems with the jacks on the stereo switch, or the switch itself, or the sliders...it's just a frigging crapshoot after they're a few years old and have been toured/handled.

Now I just get the locking 1/4" GLS jacks, 14 gauge wire, attach it solidly and flog them at high volume without worries. It just gets tedious to track down crappy sound when you can fix it all for about $15 with a jack and 8 feet of 14 gauge wire.

But then again, I'm getting grumpy/crabby in my old age and prefer to do shit once, not twice, or three times. :yes:
 
My thoughts exactly, once these things were done, they sound great and are bulletproof (with the right speakers)
I did not make myself very clear earlier, my problems with the stereo/mono jacks/board was with them causing the cab not to work, not really that it made them sound crappy. I'm glad to hear someone else has had trouble with those things, I thought I was the only one :lol: :LOL: and I've had 2 that went bad
I gut the panel, put in 2 switchcraft jacks (1 as a parallel jack) and wire them w/14 g wire.. Done
Never had a problem since
 
I gotcha and thanks for clarifying. You're more knowledgeable about it than I am and I am/was one of those guys that just took the videos advice blindly...but it made sense. So it was definitely the wiring..had to have been because there WAS a noticeable difference from before and after.

Jonny
 
No worries. I've learned the hard way and paid my dues, too.
 
Speaking of the stereo jack plate, I was playing through my 1960A today with my Soldano and I turned the cab around and was looking at the jack plate while doing some heavy palm muting.
I put my hand on the back of the cab to feel it thumping, and my hand passed over the open 4 ohm jack insert and I could feel these little puffs of air shooting out with every palm mute chunk. I thought that was funny...
Cab sounded great though...thick, tight and clear. The Soldano sounds better through it than it does with my other Marshall and Mesa cabs.
 
Scumback Speakers":24so60f8 said:
sinfish, one more thing, check to make sure you have the wiring on the stereo board hooked up correctly. I had a client bring over a cab that had that caulking thing done to it (what a joke that is!). He bought the cab for $75 (it was a new Marshall 425A purple cab w/black cloth).

We installed four M75 65w in it and it sounded thin, no sustain/gain. I checked one of my demo cabs and it turned out two of the wires on his stereo switch were swapped and 1/2 the speakers were wired out of phase, which caused the cab to sound bad.

I swapped those two wires and it sounded great after that, but that whole caulking thing? Please, that's just retarded, I don't care who Bob Moulton is. It was obvious the previous owners of that cab saw that video, and tried it to improve the sound caulking up the cab/handles/etc., when what they need to do was check their wiring.

Don't do that to your cab, it's a waste of time/caulk/DAP, and money.
Click to expand...

I do have that shity thin wire. I will rewire it and check phase then maybe I can remove my CL post trying to sell it.

I know you really know your stuff so thanks for the tips!
 
Those 16/8/4 jacks always come Parallel-Series, fyi...which is teh FAIL in my book. :D
 
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