4x12 speakers question

[tepsamps]

Hi,
i bought 2 celestion vintage 30 a while back and i did not like the tone, in a 2x12 closed cab i had made myself. Too much mid's, i sold them out. And after, a customer came to try an amplifier with his guitar and his 4x12 Mesa, equiped with 4 celestion vintage 30. The tone was awesome, i had never heard my amps like that. A growl i don't find now in hi gain with my gear. I don't own a 4x12 though...
So why the 4x12 mesa is soooo good ? Are they special speakers ?
By the way, this cab is very expensive, but it's worth the price i think...
And some marchall 4x12 are for 300 € with celestion speakers inside, but which ones?

[mozz]

Maybe your 2x12 wasn't sized right for those speakers.

[olddawg]

Aren’t Mesa cabs “over sized”? The internal volume and porting of the box makes a big difference. Also.. speakers have to break in, an older Speaker will sound better.... AND.. is the cab the same impedance? Imhe... grind with speakers only happens when and if the speakers are breaking up. That’s why the popularity of green backs. They are low wattage speakers that break up at lower volumes. Most modern 4x12 cabs don’t break up until you reach Lear Jet levels of SPL...

[The Dude]

Are you sure the speakers were in phase in the cabinet you built? If they were out of phase you would be lacking lots of low frequency.

[Helmholtz]

Closed (non-vented) cabinets considerably increase the bass resonant frequency of the speakers. While sound will be strong at the resonance, sound level rapidly drops below the resonance.
E.g., a 4x12 Marshall cab shifts the resonance of 75Hz Celestions to 120Hz. A smaller closed cab will result in an even higher resonant frequency and may cause a low mid emphasis but weak bass sound.

[Chuck H]

And another thing.

The old Vintage 30's made in England don't sound quite like the New ones made in China. I like the Vintage 30 in both incarnations and have used both in a few different cabinets. The British version has a slightly smoother upper mid, a little less focused there and in the bottom end resonance and not as aggressive sounding. Most players prefer it. My tastes lean toward the Asian version with more crack and aggression and more pronounced, meaty hump in the LF. So it's possible that the speakers in either cabinet were more different than two like model speakers would normally be from one another.

Also, the weight of the cabinet and it's acoustic resonance can have a profound impact on the tone. I had a pair of a particular speaker in a 2x12 MDF cab that sounded rather good, with balance and plenty of LF. I built a different 2x12 cab for those speakers to match up with an amp I was building. I used the same interior volume, but I used solid pine for the cabinet walls and 7/16" plywood for the baffle and back. A good bit lighter than the MDF cabinet. Absolutely no bottom end from that cabinet. I have to assume there is some sympathetic acoustic vibration sapping the lower frequencies.?.

Anyway. I do have a pair of Brit Vintage 30's in a heavy 2x12 MDF cab and it has adequate low end. Not thundering, but it doesn't leave me wanting either.

[Helmholtz]

I do have a pair of Brit Vintage 30's in a heavy 2x12 MDF cab and it has adequate low end.

Closed or semi-open? This makes a lot of difference. My explanation above was for closed cabs only.

In comparison to a closed cab an open cab may significantly extend bass response. Also cab type strongly influences the impedance curve at low frequencies and thus changes the interaction with the amp.

[Chuck H]

Closed or semi-open? This makes a lot of difference. My explanation above was for closed cabs only.

In comparison to a closed cab an open cab may significantly extend bass response. Also cab type strongly influences the impedance curve at low frequencies and thus changes the interaction with the amp.

All cabinets referred to in my post are closed back.

[tedmich]

did the Mesa Cab have its price tag on it? They ALWAYS sound 10x better when you can see what they charge

I work in Petaluma, home of Mesa, and there are zero bargains ever even here.

Their Thiele (sealed) Cab sounds great to me, but their 412 are high priced "Meh" IMHO.

[Helmholtz]

Their Thiele (sealed) Cab sounds great to me

From what I've seen Mesa Thiele cabs are not sealed but vented bass reflex designs, probably tuned for the speaker using its Thiele-Small parameters.
That helps a lot with bass response.

[tedmich]

Yah, Mesa Thiele is a bass reflex!

Digging a little deeper it seems the original Mesa Thiele is actually a design from D.B. Keele Jr. at Electrovoice that uses the mighty EVM12L in a so-called TL806 alignment, described here:
https://robrobinette.com/images/Guit...ders_plans.pdf

anyway the numbers check out, Vb ~ 1.3 ft3
it should do 60Hz quite well!

Newer Mesa Thiele's use the Celestion C90, that only handles 90W and costs $145 in a nice cabinet... for $500!