Mesa Boogie 1X12 for Mark IV

[psychodave]

You should lift a 4x12 EV in a roadcase.

I had one. I was trying to bring it into my basement and one of the casters moved. It put a hole in the wall.

 

[Dr. Tweedbucket]

I have an older metal grill 4X12 with the 300 watt EVs in the bottom and, while it sounds great, it is just too LOUD. I mean, pain peeling loud. I am probably going to sell that and get a 1X12.

I have a wide body 1X12 for my Mark V 35 with a C90 black shadow already which I like a lot. But I'm wondering what other mesa 1X12s you may recommend. I think the main options are:

• 1X12 Widebody
• 1X12 Thiele (compact)
• Other?

I'm open to other brands too. Any recommendations are welcome. Thanks!

Jeff

Yeah, the wide body is a good choice. Sounds as big as a 2x12. I never liked the Thiele... it just sounded too choked or something. It's good for bass though. My fav is a 2x12 metal grill cab.... just run some less efficient speakers like greenbacks or turn the dang amp down a bit... run a 12AU7 in the front end, pull 2 power tubes and half the impedence. I mean it is a master volume amp, you should be able to get a good sound at a lower volume.

 

[srommes]

Love Mesa 1x12’s. I have a pair of Thiele’s, Recto cubes and 3/4 back Widebody’s with C90’s. If you just want one standalone 1x12, I would go with a Widebody. They all sound great but the Widebody is more open and less directional than the other two. Nice thumping low end as well. Just my .02.

 

[blackba]

Yes, the top half is open. 2 C90s on top, and 2 EV 12L 300 watters on the bottom. I wouldn't mind building and enclosure for the top for a little more thump, but it is not a big deal.

The cabinet sounds fantastic. It's the loudness and in your face nature that is killing me lol. Not to mention the thing weighs as much as a small car.

I have the same cab. I run the mark iv in class a, and tweed. I used to have the top portion closed, then open, and finally I cut a few panels, so there is like a 1/3 opening in the top. Love it.

 

['63-Strat]

Cabinets aren't loud. Amps are.

Your "cabinet" is not too loud. The problem is that the amp you're pairing with it has a poor master volume control.

Seriously. In this particular case I don’t doubt a 4x12 of EVs isn’t sensitive, but as you said all it takes is a volume pedal in the loop etc. But I see people say things like my Princeton/pro junior/etc is too loud and just go WTF. Turn it down then, the notion we *need* to be able to “crank” our amps, at all times, and if we can’t, that the amp os “too loud” is a new phenomenon and completely ridiculous IMO. I can play my 100 watt amps quietly if need be, so the notion that one can’t gig or practice with virtually any amp is pure operator error IMO.

 

[TheGreatGreen]

Seriously. In this particular case I don’t doubt a 4x12 of EVs isn’t sensitive, but as you said all it takes is a volume pedal in the loop etc. But I see people say things like my Princeton/pro junior/etc is too loud and just go WTF. Turn it down then, the notion we *need* to be able to “crank” our amps, at all times, and if we can’t, that the amp os “too loud” is a new phenomenon and completely ridiculous IMO. I can play my 100 watt amps quietly if need be, so the notion that one can’t gig or practice with virtually any amp is pure operator error IMO.

So, after thinking about it a bit, I wonder if the real issue might be closer to the idea that it's not that the amps are "too loud" and can't easily be made easily quieter, it's that these folks might just be used to the naturally enveloping and addictive, percussive effects of high volume guitar. So people who say "the amp is too loud" these days might be actually saying "the great natural feeling of high volume guitar doesn't happen at low enough volume" and unfortunately, well, you can't fight physics.

If that's not what people are talking about though, if they're literally implying that the minimum volume of their amp is too loud, well, I think they're either trying to play in "baby sleeping in the next room" situations or they just have a weird idea holdover from 35 years ago where you had to crank every amp to levels that would recede your gums to get any full sounding distortion at all. Great master volume amps have been around for 30+ years now. At this point, you pretty much have to go out of your way to purposefully get a high gain NMV amp.

 

[Racerxrated]

Agreed. But I have played it through my Friedman cab and it is not as head shattering if that makes sense lol. I don't know, maybe I just need an attenuator!

Those metal grill 412s aren’t loud per se, but to get them to sound their best (because of the EVs) they have to be pushed.
If you swap the EVs out for some lower wattage speakers, that might be all you need.

 

[blackba]

Those metal grill 412s aren’t loud per se, but to get them to sound their best (because of the EVs) they have to be pushed.
If you swap the EVs out for some lower wattage speakers, that might be all you need.

My metal grill sounds great at all volumes, you are right that the EVs shine when moving some air, but I still think they work great at 80db volumes. I had a set of eminence ms12 that sounded like a muddy mess until you pushed them and they really opened up and sang. I don’t hear this with the evs.

And I think the whole amp too loud thing can mean a bunch of different things and I see it posted far too often on forums.

 

[Racerxrated]

My metal grill sounds great at all volumes, you are right that the EVs shine when moving some air, but I still think they work great at 80db volumes. I had a set of eminence ms12 that sounded like a muddy mess until you pushed them and they really opened up and sang. I don’t hear this with the evs.

And I think the whole amp too loud thing can mean a bunch of different things and I see it posted far too often on forums.

I liked mine too, at lower volumes...but man, when I opened up the Coliseum through that cab it was unreal...amazing metal tone to me anyway.

 

[blackba]

I liked mine too, at lower volumes...but man, when I opened up the Coliseum through that cab it was unreal...amazing metal tone to me anyway.

You have a Coliseum, wow. I bet that sounds killer. Glad to see there are others who are not afraid of big amps. The all you need is a fender Princeton reverb crowd gets annoying.