needtopractice1":2qiihlpg said:
Hey maybe you can chime in. How do Scumbacks, pre rolas, EVM12ls and the Golds compare? That'd help alot!
Ah, this will be long, and it still won't help that much vs you experiencing them. All I can report is my experience, and we all have different ears. But I can tell you I'm a fan of 70s and 80s hard rock and metal tones (as well as modern metal tones before the cookie monster kicks in), as well as blues stuff. I'm no jazzer, and cleans have their place, but not a big place. Also, I'm no Pro. I'm not gigging out. Family man with kids and responsibilities. I play mostly to Garage Band tracks in a Mac-based basement studio where I can crank it, sometimes with another guitarist friend to the same tracks.
So these are my thoughts. I have the Scumback M75s in a 4x12 Stone Age (which to me is a vintage Marshall reference cab). They really need to be pushed a bit to sound great. For a G12M style speaker, they seem to have a bigger, tighter bottom, and they are noticeably more efficient (though not like EVs or G12H speakers) than the Heritage G12Ms. They sound a bit more modern to me, and they actually work great for more modern metal tones, unlike G12Ms in my experience. I've run my ENGL SE EL34 through it and it works terrific.
Pre-Rola G12Ms - I've played them but don't own a cab with them - seem to play darker too than the Heritage G12Ms, but the comparison isn't very valid. I think a lot of old pre-Rola G12Ms have just been abused - they're not that efficient and they only handle 20-25 watts, and Marshalls pushed through them have stressed them out because they sound best stressed out. That might have been the case with what I played - old, tired speakers. In pre-Rola speakers, I've had a better experience with (and own) pre-rola G12Hs - they are more efficient, are typically less abused as they have higher power handling, and clearly a lot of 70s rock was made with these because they just have that tone. I haven't found any other speaker that matches better with my Soultone amps or my Orange Retro 50 - put a vintage Marshall style EL34 amp through real pre-Rola G12Hs in good condition with a bit of volume, and you're in vintage tone heaven. I also have a lot of Heritage G12Hs, and they are great speakers that come close, but they just don't have that last 5% of the magic of the pre-Rola. I actually play my Soultone amps through the Heritage G12Hs though because they are THAT good, and I've put the same speaker into my Goodsell Super 17. I think pre-Rolas are kinda necessary if you're totally anal and looking to replicate those vintage tones (like I am a lot), but if you're looking forward and just want to rock with a great tone, totally unnecessary.
Now I've tried the EV alone in a thiele, in combo with a pre-Rola G12H, in combo with a G12-65, in combo with Heritage G12H, in combo with a Fane Alnico, in combo with a Gold, in combo with G12T-75s. EV alone leaves me cold, just feels flat, seems to nail everything, but lacks warmth and complexity. Most combos with the EV didn't work. The EV ovepowers most Celestions, but still the EV with the G12-65 was one of my favorites for clean tones - some low mid warmth added to the EV, and I still keep that combo in a halfback config to run my Princeton Reverb through. Well one day I bought a IIC+ with a broken in Celestion Gold in it. When I agreed to buy it, I thought, blech, the amp's mostly for metal and hard rock, why would I want that, I'll switch it out. But it sounded phenomenal. I played it on its own for a while, but then eventually paired it an EV Thiele that I've got and now that's my go-to. Seems to me the bottom is big and tight, the highs are way up there with clarity and complexity but not sharp or piercing, and the mids are chewy and forward. Whenever anyone comes over to play, I have them play through that because I know nothing else I have sounds that good. It's just a wow setup. I've got another IIC+ that I've put through just about every cab I have, but it just seems the Gold/EV combination is light years ahead for a versatile tone that excels at everything, can get very loud, and can sound essentially the same at lower volumes - these speakers take a lot to push, and so when you're dialing in your tone, you're not having to count on needing to push the speaker like you do with the Celestions and my Scumbacks. Nocaster blues, strat cleans, LP classic rock, Explorer metal, from low to higher volumes - seems to work for all these as good as anything else I've tried. Only with LP classic rock can I say that there's something kinda better, but even when I'm going Pagey I still play mostly through the IIC+/Gold/EV set up most of the time. It's just the biggest best tone I'm getting. And it seems to fit the OP's tone requirements to a T.
It'd helps greatly.
