HUGE difference among Vintage 30`s

[Golden1984]

Hello. I have a late 90`s 412 Recto cab on vintage 30`s and I found each of four speakers sounding different. The difference is huge enough to say that only TWO of four speakers can sound good enough to do some recordings, but only one sounds really good to me. It`s old enough to make me sure that speakers were made in UK. If I didn`t know they are all the same model, I would say there are four different speakers in the cab. I compared sound samples I made by using Shure SM57 and/or AKG Perception 200 mics with samples on Celestion`s page and there is HUGE difference between them. I put mics on the same position every time, I even put each of the speakers to 1x12 cabinet and then into isolation cab to avoid bad sound from the room. Each other sounds different. So I bought almost new V30 from guy who took it out from new Mesa Recto 212 cab. It sounds TOTALLY different from older ones, it lacks high tones and has no soul at all. Instead it has tones of hi mids I hate. In higher volumes it gets even more moody. I guess that new one was made in China Has anyone noticed similar problems? I assume that to get really good sounding speakers I need to buy brand new V30 speaker, then sell it if it sounds crappy, then buy another one... After trying dozens of them there is a chance to get similar sounding four...

I use `91 Mark IV with no effects in loop. I have especially matched power tubes /the same russian tubes that mesa sells nowdays/ and fixed bias. NOS RFT Ecc 83 tubes in preamp stage, so I guess it isn`t amp`s fault that the speakers sound bad

Thanks, Peter

 

[crguti]

Do you have tose sound samples? so we can hear them too.

 

[screamingdaisy]

Speakers manufacturers can get away with some pretty low manufacturing tolerances, thus two speakers rolling off the same assembly line have a good chance of sounding different.

Beyond that, there's differences in OEM designs. The original "V30s" were actually Marshall's Vintage speakers. Celestion liked them so much that they wanted to make them an aftermarket speaker but couldn't release Marshall's proprietary design... thus they tweaked them slightly and called it the Vintage 30. Mesa liked the sound too, only they wanted more top end rolled off and contracted Celestion to produce an OEM version for Mesa.

Mesa's current V30s are made in the UK, just like they've always been. The brighter sounding V30s are the off the shelf version, of which manufacturing moved to China in 2003. The brightest are the Marshall Vintage speakers.