Should I order a custom Mesa Thiele?

[silentrage]

http://toronto.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-musical-instruments-amps-pedals-1x12-Speaker-Cabinet-W0QQAdIdZ217960111#

I'm talking to a local gentleman about building me a mesa thiele copy.
You can check out his work in the link above, he only wants $185 usd for an unloaded cab,
I think it's gonna be natural finish, dovetail joints.

What do you guys think? First, does his work look good?
Second, will a mesa thiele made of pine sound very different from a real one?

 

[dodger916]

It's hard to judge the workmanship from those photos, but it doesn't look bad. I think pine cabs look cheap and being a softwood probably not as durable as hardwood (more susceptible to marks, scratches, cracks, etc.)

Hard to tell what a pine cab would sound like. If you want a tolex cab, Boogie Board member "gts" makes great cabs, including Thieles. He does not make hardwood cabs...yet! Here are a couple of samples: http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=47736, http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=48748.

I can personally attest to his high quality, as can many other satisfied board member-customers.

 

[94Tremoverb]

The dovetailing is OK, but the sanding and finishing is a bit rough, especially on the back - which is ply not solid pine, too. (The baffle is ply but that's more standard.)

Pine cabs can sound very nice - old Fenders are solid pine (with ply baffles up to the Blackfaces, then particle-board) - but it's a very 'live', resonant sort of sound which is maybe not what you want in a Thiele. But maybe it would work well, I don't know. It might not even sound very different, since a lot of the sound of a Thiele is from the tuning of the internal volume and the port, not the cab construction. I've never heard the ply/tolex and hardwood Mesa Thieles close enough together in time to be able to tell.