Vintage 30 China - LOTTERY - samples

[Golden1984]

My story is too long...

I bought brand new Celestions Vintage 30 and I put them into my 4x12 Rectifier Oversized Slant cab.
Now I have two MKIVs (A and B, I bought another one MKIV thinking first one is bad somehow) and more than 4 complete sets of tubes (Mesa, Tung Sol regular, Tung Sol GOLD, RFT, NOS Russian, Mullard, Chinese..., 6l6, el34, 6n2p with custom sockets... any tubes)

V30 speakers (Celebriting 25years) were brand new, bought from dealer, so I was SURE they could not f*ck sound so much

One day my friend bought Roadster, he has DIY 4x12 with V30 speakers (Celebriting 25years).
Once I get knocked out by the Roadster`s tone, then my MKIV knocked out the Roadster. Difference between my Mesa cab (loaded with new speakers) and his cab (loaded with "the same" speakers) was huge. Worst thing is that all the speakers in my cab sound very similar, so it is not one worse speaker, but all of the series.
I bought my cab used, so I cannot realy complain to originals speakers from it. Each of them sounded different way, but none of them sounded like Mesa V30 trademark tone. They looked like they were in good shape, had MESA numbers, but I cannot tell how heavy they were loaded by previous user so I sold all of them.

When I bought new speakers from dealer I started to believe it is something wrong with my amp. I checked tones of cables, guitars, pickups, Microphones, recording devices, etc...

On the other hand, My friend`s DIY cabinet with 4 chinese v30`s sounds good, all 4 of them can be easily recorded.

There is the sample


http://tonefinder.com/files/291372094083-Untitled.mp3



first is my Mesa cab with chinese speakers, second - diy cab with chinese speakers

I tried those speakers even in 1x12 cab, so I`m sure it`s speaker`s fault.

This sample is recorded with MESA MKIVb, Mesa 6L6 GC STR 440 on the outer sockets, matched JJ 6L6 on the inner sockets. RFT ECC83 on preamp. Monster cables, Custom hand made Gibson SG all mahogany with Dirty Fingers. Shure SM57 at the center of the speaker. The same settings, the same microphone possition and distance. The same recording device, cables, room, day, temperature... no post processing.

Both sets of speakers bought from dealer, both still have warranty

Guys from celestion wrote me that maybe I have too dry air in my room...

So now I sold all of the speakers and I have empty Mesa cabinet, two MK IV`s (one is for sale) and beautiful DIY custom channel, FX and volume switcher with additional Rectifier preamp as 4th chanel. (I`m gonna put pictures and samples of it when I have decent speakers for cabinet LOL).

After all I have a problem: how to buy good speakers.

All I know now is: It`s easy to buy good Mesa, but you`ll gonna need tones of luck to buy good speakers.

The worst thing is that when you have bad speaker, you cannot dial decnt tone even from best amp. It will not sit in mix good enough and it will not sound like guitar tone you love.

 

[Rick Mark2A]

Did you consider maybe the bad sound was because the speakers were brand new? I bought some new speakers for my Mark II about 1 1/2 years ago and it took a little while to break them in. The more I used them the better they sounded. I am not familiar with the chinese celestions but I think typically you would want to put anywhere from 40 to 100 hours on them before they really start to sound excellent. I suppose it depends on what part of the world you are in, but here in U.S.A. there is a company called W.G.S. who makes some really good speakers for cheaper prices than most of the bigger companies.. I bought a set of Celestion greenback clones from them which sound better than some genuine vintage Celestions that I own. They are a great value, but depending on where you are located I suppose shipping costs could be very high. Other than that, you could always try some EVM12l speakers. I don't think I have ever heard anyone complaining about those.

 

[Golden1984]

I had those speakers for 2 years, played many gigs and rehearsals. EVM12L sounds differend way, not exacly the way I`m looking for. I`m looking for something like Lamb of God/Cannibal Corpse tones.
I wanted to buy Mesa speakers until I realized that price in my country is 220$ PER UNIT+ shipping while mesa`s online store price is 130$ LOL.

 

[Golden1984]

I sold the old cab and bought new 2x12 Recto Compact cab

 

[RR]

Can you summarize your results?

All I got is you and your buddy bought Celestion V30s Made-in-China from the same dealer and his diy 4x12" -vs- your Recto 4x12", and his sound "gooder" (lol) than yours. But you tried one of your bought V30 in a 1-12" and it still didn't sound good.

So should we conclude there's some inconsistency in Made-in-China V30s[?]

 

[Golden1984]

Can you summarize your results?

All I got is you and your buddy bought Celestion V30s Made-in-China from the same dealer and his diy 4x12" -vs- your Recto 4x12", and his sound "gooder" (lol) than yours. But you tried one of your bought V30 in a 1-12" and it still didn't sound good.

So should we conclude there's some inconsistency in Made-in-China V30s[?]

YES, there is HUGE inconsistency.
I tried all of my speakers in 1x12, the difference between 1x12 and 4x12, when you record one speaker is mainly in lower frequencies, 4x12 has much more low end, but speakers character stays the same. Mesa cabs have perfect wood, so bass in Recto 4x12 is good, as we all know. But if you have too bright speaker, you won`t get rid of it`s brightness putting it into 4x12.