M
MGSchindel
New member
I wanted to post my experiences with a fantastic, truly custom 4x12 cabinet I recently received, and beyond that, a great personal customer experience as well, from beginning to end. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and I could not be happier with my purchase, or the man responsible for hand-crafting this fine, stunning musical instrument. I’ve used and/or owned, and still do own in some cases, much of what’s out there in terms of comparable cabs. What I received easily exceeded my own very high expectations by a considerable margin, especially after my experiences with other custom made cabinets.
After much careful research and consideration, straining my eyeballs looking at little internet pictures of build-outs, reading dozens of reviews and opinions, and placing a few phone calls, I made my decision to purchase my next 60’s-look 4x12 straight cab shell from John Wheeler at StoneAge Custom Cabinets in Bay City, Michigan. After some very pleasant and informative chats, I was immediately comfortable with John’s friendly, thorough, no-nonsense approach to customer satisfaction, his obvious attention to detail, his great pride in his product and methods, and his generosity with his valuable time, all of which put me at ease that I had made the right decision with someone who knew exactly what they were doing and how to do it right. I quickly received an extremely thorough and detailed build-out proposal that made the process easy as cake and left no stone unturned, no questions, and no room for miscommunication or errors in the trim or other details of the cab build-out. John is a do-it-right and do-it-once kinda guy, no doubt.
Unlike other companies where your funds can seem to go into a black hole, I always knew how things were coming along. A handful of weeks flew by and John proactively kept me updated on the cab’s status, with pleasantly unexpected emails and occasional photos of the work-in-progress. We chatted several times over a few custom details I wanted, which likely put John to great lengths of time, expense, delay and aggravation, to get things just right for me, down to the millimeter, so the cab would match up and fit exactly with some other cab builds I have. I even played a few practical jokes on him along the way (eg, telling him after he labored like a dog to cut and install my 4x12 front baffle that I was looking forward to installing my favorite vintage 10” celestions in there...You could hear a pin drop on the phone for few seconds…LOL!! Sorry John! He probably would have used birch with some nice big voids if he knew I was going to mess with him…ha ha!)
In any event, the package I received a few weeks later was packed up in a manner as to survive a full-blown Indian raid. The box had even been speared with something wicked sharp through several layers of cardboard, which put my heart in my throat when I saw it on delivery, yet there was absolutely NO damage to the cab or grille cloth inside. WHEW!! John took no chances that the shipping company was going to bung up his handiwork, and I am sincerely grateful for his overboard packing job, more of his unspoken “No Disappointments, period” business philosophy. He means serious business. I’ve personally been through the misery in the past of an exchange on other high-end cabs I had waited and waited for that were poorly packed and WERE damaged in shipping…nothing worse than that!
As far as the cabinet goes, this thing is gorgeous and positively regal. From the minute I stripped all the copious packing off it, I sat in awe of its meticulous craftsmanship and stunning presence. And this is not my first time to the rodeo. I felt like I’d stepped into a time warp and come back from 1970 with EVH’s favorite 4x12. Nuts! It is so very concise, clean, and perfectly executed, with strong lines, and finely-contoured, smaller-radius corners and edges. All the trim and hardware is top-notch metal gear, and is also flawlessly executed in terms of selection and installation quality. The attention to detail is absolutely second to none. The grill cloth is evenly applied and wonderfully taut. And this is THE best tolex application I have seen from any maker, on any 4x12, especially one with exposed corners, period! Casters, handles, caster cups, and speaker input jack mount are all bullet-proof. I am really digging the vintage vibe of the textured flat black metal caster cups available nowadays, too. A great option to put on the cab. Just banging on this puppy, the resonance is tremendous, easily 3 times that of the marshall shell next to it. The pics attached don’t do it justice. The marshall cabs almost look goofy in person by comparison, with their tacky shiny plastic bits and half-a$$ tolex corners with glaring seams and underlying wood imperfections. I will not compare this cab to other builder’s custom cabs on the open forum, and granted I have never been in the presence of the newer Scumback cabs, but suffice it to say this thing is easily at the top of the heap. I don’t see how one could do a better job of what’s been done here.
Please note the handles are a bit different than old-spec marshall stuff, and that this cab is in no way intended to be some kind of “vintage look-a-like exact replica” of an old marshall…far from it. It’s John Wheeler’s ideal creation all the way with a variety of improvements, but I still get the crazy, satisfying vibe just looking at this thing that I’ve time-warped back to 1969 and am looking at quality of years past, the real deal. It’s not whose “name brand 60’s cab” the whole idea represents to me, it’s the fact that it is a real piece of hand-made, top-notch gear crafted with sincere attention to detail, tone, features and quality. It represents the pride and satisfaction that has steadily gone lacking out of the world of mass-production over the last 50 years, in terms of the ownership experience. This thing is clearly built to be cherished for a lifetime OR gigged and beaten to within an inch of its life and still keep delivering the goods. You’d need a commercial winch and a Jeep Cherokee to rip the insanely bolted down handles out of this thing, no joke! The metal caster mounts are an equally welcome detail.
I had ordered this cab unloaded, and upon opening the gorgeous birch backpanel, I discovered John had just as carefully secured my additional hardware inside with plenty of tape, cardboard shielding, and so forth. Thank you! Even the inside of the cab is meticulously crafted and over-tolexed for absolute durability, and has a surgical, clean, concise quality inside that is a sheer pleasure to take in. Not a speck of sawdust or an even slightly crooked tolex cut or gluing irregularity, despite the fact that John and I are the only two people ever intended to SEE his inside handiwork. Pride and quality through and through.
How does it sound? This is a highly subjective topic. I’ve had the cab for a while and tested it in great detail before writing this, to avoid the “new-product enthusiasm” syndrome. I really put it through its paces with several different speaker types and brands, playing it with friends, directly alongside various other cabinets with different amp heads over a period of several days.
There is no question that this cab has a perfectly balanced sound, and a rich, excellent tone. The bass is full, smooth, articulate, and tight, with great punch and lots of “marshall knock” on palm mutes. No mud, woof or flub here, right up to where the speakers are crying uncle. The cab resonates perfectly and just FEELS great at volume. I LOVE it! The mids are dense, harmonically interesting, clear and nicely audible, without being excessive, harsh, or buried. Even the reissue 25w chinese and uk greenbacks, which don’t really sound like old greenbacks but are great speakers, have lots of great bass, cool low-midrange bounce, and are less blurry and ratty in the upper mids, while still retaining their cool, woody tone. This cab has great projection and dispersion. It is also noteworthy that the G12M Heritages sound better to me in this cab than any of my other cabs, period. Rich, fat, smooth and complex, with lots of syrupy tone when hit with higher gain, and seem more composed and less compressed in their bass response, right up to their raunchy, wild break-up. Great stuff!!!
I have other cabs of different build design and size that sound different (eg more bass, less mids, etc.). But I do have to say I think this cab sounds better tonally and balance/clarity-wise than any of the others I’ve tried it against, from clean to vintage rock crunch to 80/90’s metal and thrash. Look elsewhere for you Swedish detuned death metal fix, this cab’s about warm, tight, balanced, chunky, woody TONE. I have to give honorable mention to my Bogner cabs for being right in the hunt as well, albeit with a slightly bigger, looser bass. The StoneAge also blows the Bogners away for coolness factor and pure, pleasing aesthetics, just IMHO.
I have to apologize to StoneAge for my cheesing out and installing a tacky brand-name logo on this fine instrument, purely in the name of aesthetics to match some of my other gear. Shame on me. StoneAge > Marshall.
In short, this is the best-built, strongest, most handsome, most carefully crafted, clearest, and richest sounding cab I have owned, regardless of my speaker selections. This one is a keeper. I am a collector rather than a flipper, and I’ll have it until they shoot me and bury me in it, just like my other favorite gear.
I have no reason to write this post other than the fact that I thought people should know this kind of quality is available, and that John Wheeler is doing a stellar job producing a superior product for a great price, IMHO. And from my brief time knowing him, John is a first-rate professional craftsman of integrity whom I gladly give my business to, as well. With people like John Wheeler in the retail business, “Made in America” is starting to mean something again for some of us. A++++++
After much careful research and consideration, straining my eyeballs looking at little internet pictures of build-outs, reading dozens of reviews and opinions, and placing a few phone calls, I made my decision to purchase my next 60’s-look 4x12 straight cab shell from John Wheeler at StoneAge Custom Cabinets in Bay City, Michigan. After some very pleasant and informative chats, I was immediately comfortable with John’s friendly, thorough, no-nonsense approach to customer satisfaction, his obvious attention to detail, his great pride in his product and methods, and his generosity with his valuable time, all of which put me at ease that I had made the right decision with someone who knew exactly what they were doing and how to do it right. I quickly received an extremely thorough and detailed build-out proposal that made the process easy as cake and left no stone unturned, no questions, and no room for miscommunication or errors in the trim or other details of the cab build-out. John is a do-it-right and do-it-once kinda guy, no doubt.
Unlike other companies where your funds can seem to go into a black hole, I always knew how things were coming along. A handful of weeks flew by and John proactively kept me updated on the cab’s status, with pleasantly unexpected emails and occasional photos of the work-in-progress. We chatted several times over a few custom details I wanted, which likely put John to great lengths of time, expense, delay and aggravation, to get things just right for me, down to the millimeter, so the cab would match up and fit exactly with some other cab builds I have. I even played a few practical jokes on him along the way (eg, telling him after he labored like a dog to cut and install my 4x12 front baffle that I was looking forward to installing my favorite vintage 10” celestions in there...You could hear a pin drop on the phone for few seconds…LOL!! Sorry John! He probably would have used birch with some nice big voids if he knew I was going to mess with him…ha ha!)
In any event, the package I received a few weeks later was packed up in a manner as to survive a full-blown Indian raid. The box had even been speared with something wicked sharp through several layers of cardboard, which put my heart in my throat when I saw it on delivery, yet there was absolutely NO damage to the cab or grille cloth inside. WHEW!! John took no chances that the shipping company was going to bung up his handiwork, and I am sincerely grateful for his overboard packing job, more of his unspoken “No Disappointments, period” business philosophy. He means serious business. I’ve personally been through the misery in the past of an exchange on other high-end cabs I had waited and waited for that were poorly packed and WERE damaged in shipping…nothing worse than that!
As far as the cabinet goes, this thing is gorgeous and positively regal. From the minute I stripped all the copious packing off it, I sat in awe of its meticulous craftsmanship and stunning presence. And this is not my first time to the rodeo. I felt like I’d stepped into a time warp and come back from 1970 with EVH’s favorite 4x12. Nuts! It is so very concise, clean, and perfectly executed, with strong lines, and finely-contoured, smaller-radius corners and edges. All the trim and hardware is top-notch metal gear, and is also flawlessly executed in terms of selection and installation quality. The attention to detail is absolutely second to none. The grill cloth is evenly applied and wonderfully taut. And this is THE best tolex application I have seen from any maker, on any 4x12, especially one with exposed corners, period! Casters, handles, caster cups, and speaker input jack mount are all bullet-proof. I am really digging the vintage vibe of the textured flat black metal caster cups available nowadays, too. A great option to put on the cab. Just banging on this puppy, the resonance is tremendous, easily 3 times that of the marshall shell next to it. The pics attached don’t do it justice. The marshall cabs almost look goofy in person by comparison, with their tacky shiny plastic bits and half-a$$ tolex corners with glaring seams and underlying wood imperfections. I will not compare this cab to other builder’s custom cabs on the open forum, and granted I have never been in the presence of the newer Scumback cabs, but suffice it to say this thing is easily at the top of the heap. I don’t see how one could do a better job of what’s been done here.
Please note the handles are a bit different than old-spec marshall stuff, and that this cab is in no way intended to be some kind of “vintage look-a-like exact replica” of an old marshall…far from it. It’s John Wheeler’s ideal creation all the way with a variety of improvements, but I still get the crazy, satisfying vibe just looking at this thing that I’ve time-warped back to 1969 and am looking at quality of years past, the real deal. It’s not whose “name brand 60’s cab” the whole idea represents to me, it’s the fact that it is a real piece of hand-made, top-notch gear crafted with sincere attention to detail, tone, features and quality. It represents the pride and satisfaction that has steadily gone lacking out of the world of mass-production over the last 50 years, in terms of the ownership experience. This thing is clearly built to be cherished for a lifetime OR gigged and beaten to within an inch of its life and still keep delivering the goods. You’d need a commercial winch and a Jeep Cherokee to rip the insanely bolted down handles out of this thing, no joke! The metal caster mounts are an equally welcome detail.
I had ordered this cab unloaded, and upon opening the gorgeous birch backpanel, I discovered John had just as carefully secured my additional hardware inside with plenty of tape, cardboard shielding, and so forth. Thank you! Even the inside of the cab is meticulously crafted and over-tolexed for absolute durability, and has a surgical, clean, concise quality inside that is a sheer pleasure to take in. Not a speck of sawdust or an even slightly crooked tolex cut or gluing irregularity, despite the fact that John and I are the only two people ever intended to SEE his inside handiwork. Pride and quality through and through.
How does it sound? This is a highly subjective topic. I’ve had the cab for a while and tested it in great detail before writing this, to avoid the “new-product enthusiasm” syndrome. I really put it through its paces with several different speaker types and brands, playing it with friends, directly alongside various other cabinets with different amp heads over a period of several days.
There is no question that this cab has a perfectly balanced sound, and a rich, excellent tone. The bass is full, smooth, articulate, and tight, with great punch and lots of “marshall knock” on palm mutes. No mud, woof or flub here, right up to where the speakers are crying uncle. The cab resonates perfectly and just FEELS great at volume. I LOVE it! The mids are dense, harmonically interesting, clear and nicely audible, without being excessive, harsh, or buried. Even the reissue 25w chinese and uk greenbacks, which don’t really sound like old greenbacks but are great speakers, have lots of great bass, cool low-midrange bounce, and are less blurry and ratty in the upper mids, while still retaining their cool, woody tone. This cab has great projection and dispersion. It is also noteworthy that the G12M Heritages sound better to me in this cab than any of my other cabs, period. Rich, fat, smooth and complex, with lots of syrupy tone when hit with higher gain, and seem more composed and less compressed in their bass response, right up to their raunchy, wild break-up. Great stuff!!!
I have other cabs of different build design and size that sound different (eg more bass, less mids, etc.). But I do have to say I think this cab sounds better tonally and balance/clarity-wise than any of the others I’ve tried it against, from clean to vintage rock crunch to 80/90’s metal and thrash. Look elsewhere for you Swedish detuned death metal fix, this cab’s about warm, tight, balanced, chunky, woody TONE. I have to give honorable mention to my Bogner cabs for being right in the hunt as well, albeit with a slightly bigger, looser bass. The StoneAge also blows the Bogners away for coolness factor and pure, pleasing aesthetics, just IMHO.
I have to apologize to StoneAge for my cheesing out and installing a tacky brand-name logo on this fine instrument, purely in the name of aesthetics to match some of my other gear. Shame on me. StoneAge > Marshall.
In short, this is the best-built, strongest, most handsome, most carefully crafted, clearest, and richest sounding cab I have owned, regardless of my speaker selections. This one is a keeper. I am a collector rather than a flipper, and I’ll have it until they shoot me and bury me in it, just like my other favorite gear.
I have no reason to write this post other than the fact that I thought people should know this kind of quality is available, and that John Wheeler is doing a stellar job producing a superior product for a great price, IMHO. And from my brief time knowing him, John is a first-rate professional craftsman of integrity whom I gladly give my business to, as well. With people like John Wheeler in the retail business, “Made in America” is starting to mean something again for some of us. A++++++
