4x12 cab decision for my TR [help needed!]

[turmoil]

currently i'm using a 3 channel triple recto and i love it and i have no desire to change amps.
i am, however, thinking about changing cabs. right now i have an oversized mesa 4x12 cab. it's great and i love it but the low end just seems very boomy and not quite as tight as i would like.

so i want to sell it and get a new 4x12...this leads me to my dilemma. i've been researching cabs a lot lately and i've narrowed it down to an Orange 4x12, Bogner Uberschall 4x12, or a Mesa 4x12 recto standard slant.

i have heard so many great things about the Orange cabs but my main concern is that they don't have casters and i need them for playing out and it kind of bugs me that paying almost $1000 for a cab and you don't even get wheels?? weak.
the Bogner cabs looks REALLY interesting with the X speaker config. using V30's and GT75's. looks just as sturdy as a mesa. does anyone have any experience with them?
and the Mesa standard recto cab. Many people have said on here that they are MUCH tighter than the oversized ones and i love my cab so i'm thinking about staying within the boogie family and getting one of these.

unfortunately i can't try out an Orange or a Bogner cab because no dealers around me stock any but of course cab order one in...but then i'm committed to buying it. so, any input would be greatly appreciated. thanks!

 

[siggy14]

OK, Since i have a mesa traditional and bogner uber cab I will give you the run down. I have also played through orange cabs.

So here we go.

First you want the mesa traditional cab, not the standard, the standard is the oversized, mesa kinda threw people for a loop with that. Before the stiletto's came out you had mesa recto standard (oversized) or mesa recto tradtional (normal size of most every other cab out there)

But once the stiletto's came out they renamed the traditional recto cab to the stiletto cab, same **** thing though.

So anyway the mesa traditional cab will give you a tigther bottem and more pronounced mid's then your oversized cab. However there is a little trick you can try if you want. The reason the oversized cabs are boomier is because there is more internal volume (more air) What you can do is goto a arts and crafts store and get some poly fill stuffing, like this stuff. http://www.michaels.com/art/online/displayProductPage?productNum=nw0200

What this will do is bring down the internal volume and it should tighten up your bottem end some. The stuff cost about 3 dollars the last time i bought it (7 year ago). I would get 2 bags and try putting it in your cabinet to see if it gives you the results you like. You can just let it free flow in there, you dont need to glue it down or anything.

The bogner cab is the same size as the mesa traditional slant front, even though the uber cab is built to be like a B cabinet, they still slant the baffle just like marshalls do.

The Uber cab is built just as good as the mesa's, however the casters are cheaper then the mesa cab, but everything else is top notch. But they do put some poly filling glued to the back panel which causes the internal volume to decrease a little. What this does is deadens some of the highs, increases the the midrange and tightens the bottem up even more then the mesa 4x12, a little to much in my opinion, but not enough that would notice unless you are comparing them side by side like me.

The uber cab's mix of v30's and 75's sound great, but some people love it and some people hate it, so it is just a matter of experimenting to see. I ended up pulling the two V30's out of my uber cab and putting another two 75's in. I figured i already have a cab with four V30's, so if i want to mix the V30's with the 75's i can just run two cabs. Besides most people only Mic one speaker so the X pattern does not do you that much in a live mic'd situation.

The one thing I do not like about the uber cab is it is single input like the old old marshalls, so you can not do stereo unless you modify the cab.

Both the Uber cab and the Mesa Cab use a special V30, it has more relaxed mid's and a lower bottem end then normal V30's. You will see on Avatar site they use to sell special Hellatone 60L (V30) speakers. The hellatones are celestion speakers broken in for 15 hours by suspending the cone. The hellatone 60L's as they described them, these are the speakers that a very well known amp company uses in there cabs that have better bottem end and relaxed mid's.

Now for the orange cab, i played through one a few times, great sounding cab, very middy and a mix between a cab with 75's and a cab with Greenbacks. This of course is what the V30's are ment to sound like and if you were to buy V30's directly from a normal store this is what you would get.

I cant comment on the construction of these orange cabs because I never pulled one apart, but i heard they are built very well.

My advice to you, depending on the music you play would be how i would determine what cabinet I would get. Honestly i am very anal, if i am playing a mesa head i want a mesa cabinet, but that is just me. I play mostly hard rock to screamo to metal and I love my mesa tradtional cab for that.

For normal Rock with my XTC I love using my uber cab with four 75 watt celestions, but the XTC also sounds great going through the mesa with the V30's for normal rock. But much to my amazment I really did not like how the XTC sounded through the uber cab when it had the X pattern, however my dual rec sounded freaking killer going through that cab.

 

[siggy14]

PS even another thing to try is take one of your pillows and put it in your oversized and see if that tightens it up enough for you, this way you dont even have to spend money!

 

[turmoil]

wow man. that info was awesome!! thank you so much!

i play metal primarily and i love a tight low end sound, which is why i'm finally deciding to part with the oversized cab. i do love the sounds my recto puts out and i really feel that a cab with a really tight low end and some nice mids will help bring out the best in what i want to hear from this amp.

the Orange cab interests me the most because of what you said about it having 'stock' sort of speak V30's plus a lot of people i have talked to said they are amazing cabs. the casters thing still kind of bugs me paying all that money for no casters.

of the two cabs you own which do you think would be more suited for speed metal with some fast picking? that mesa traditional cab interests me a lot because mesa cabs, i feel, are just awesome hands down but i know Bogner makes some awesome stuff too.

this is tough decision

 

[barneyc4]

Is a Mesa Traditional 4x12 enough for stuff like Tool and Alter Bridge?

I would really like a OS Recto Standard, but im thinking that it might get too boomy.

Will the Mesa Traditional 4x12 work well in my case?

(I plan on using a Roadster head)

 

[songrider]

I use the oversize cab as well with V-30's with my Dual Rec. and I found it boomy on the bottom and the highs would get shrill. What I did is to put 2 runs of regular house insulation across the back and that helped the boomy lows (also started running E34L's to) and for the highs I made some beam blockers for the top 2 speakers and it tamed the harshness of the highs.

Its a great cab but you just might have to tune it to what you enjoy.

I cant stand my stiletto trident in the recto cab so I run that into a stock Marshall 1960b cab and a Kustom cab with V-30's in it and it works GREAT thru that.

But you might want to try "tuning" the cab you got before investing in another.

 

[ThunderMonkey]

Nobody's suggested an older half-back 4x12? :shock:

Dude, I've had 4 of these older Mesa half-back cabs in the past and have used/tried almost every cab out there. I swear by these tone boxes. I'm running my 97 Dual Rec through a mid 80's slant with Black Shadow Celestion MC-90's in the open top and Black Shadow VINTAGE Eminence 50 watters in the closed bottom and it just slays 24/7. Nice, tight lows, balanced mid-range tones. I can play the rudest, loudest bombastic metal through it or go for nice, warm, chimey clean sounds . The half-back doesn't even cough. Of course they came in different driver configs, ie... MC-90's/EVM 12L and some have all MC-90's, they've all sounded killer.
They are HEAVY - 13ply mahogany? later they used birch.
I would go for a half-back if you get a chance, I think you'd dig it a lot !

my $.02

\t/\m/

 

[ThunderMonkey]

oohhh..... I completely forgot to mention a very important detail... the mean looking grill in the front. :lol:

\t/\m/

 

[disassembled]

I have a 212 Mark series cab with a MC90 up top open back and ported EV 12L on bottom. It screams 80's!!!!! but sounds good nonetheless so for now it's worth keeping (besides I haven't seen any of these here in Japan and got lucky when I stumbled upon this one).

Having 2 212 cabs would probably be better than 1 412 because the 212's are pretty wide as well as being ported on the bottom. The 412's look a little small to me compared to the current Mesa 412 cabs.

I don't know if it would be what you're for since it is kind of bright and very airy with the open back cab. Also the MC90 and EV 12L make for a somewhat flattened midrange (in comparison to V30's or similar).

Maybe you should try some of the cheap things mentioned previously (cotton stuffing and beam blockers) before you plunk down the dough on a different cab.

Greg