What is your cabinet choice with your Recto?

[6stringer]

I run my roadster with a 212 Recto cab.

 

[Botch]

I use an Orange PPC412 with my 2 channel Recto, hands down the best cab I've played it through.

 

[LegGodt]

I'm using a 90 watt Thiele (Black Shadow Speaker) and a 200 watt Thiele (EV Speaker) with both my Roadster and Triaxis/2:90 rigs. I love these cabs!

 

[YellowJacket]

Lesson learned for me, don't overlook anything in the signal chain when trying to find your sound.

Can we prop this a hundred times from here to yesterday!?!???

I currently run a 2 channel Dual Rectifier with a Gibson Les Paul and a Standard Rectocab. (Mine has diamond plate on the sides)

This is my thoughts on some of the cabs I've spent time with.

1) Standard Rectocab. It is great for loads of gain and a big, THICK, sound. It maintains a lot of clarity with really heavy gain settings and tends to really love the Modern gain settings on a 2 channel recto. The downside is that the low end is huge, even tubby, and can get slow, especially with the tube rectifiers working. When you run the vintage gain setting on the two channel dual, (red to vintage) there just isn't enough overtones to 'fill' the cab so it swims a bit. It sounds kind of empty. Great for really thick and heavy power chords. Good for NU Metal, or any style where a huge phat sound is desirable.

2) Traditional Rectocab. I found the modern gain sound a bit to 'huge' for this cab. Kind of like it was trapped inside and squashed. (personal preference) The vintage channel fit well though and it had a great vocal midrange. A VERY, VERY pleasing tone. Downside: It doesn't do justice to the expanse of the modern gain channel on a Recto. The upside, it is an incredible sound that isn't 'boxey'. The vocal mids make for a mean crunch! THe Marshall 1960 vintage cab is very similar in dimension and it has the same speakers. It sounds similar but it feels much more elasticy than the Mesa, which has much more thump to it. Mesa's construction wins!!

3) Marshall 1960ax / ac. The ax looks awesome, not going to lie. The quartet of greenbacks sounds great at low volumes and it has a really warm woody sound with excellent grind / breakup at low volumes. It simply LOVES the vintage gain setting and has that amazing vocal midrange of the traditional rectocab. The downside is that it doesn't like modern gain setting so much, and the bottom end tends to be farty. (rather annoying)


.... continued (because of computer fail)

4) Marshall JCM900 1960a lead

Well, this cab is the most popular marshall 4 x 12, probably because it is cheaper. I find the G12T - 75s have many great points to them. They are high power handling speakers which have an amazing grindy crunch to them and the low end doesn't far out like with the greenbacks. My complaint with them is that they sound scratchy. The cab itself has a super sweet midrange crunch like all the cabs of that size and the speakers sound incredibly warm as well as good at lower volumes. (v30s sound constipated unless the volume is at least on 4) The lower efficiency means you can run the head harder before the sound guys whine (too much)

5) Peavey 4 x 12 with sheffields. **BARFS** The Sheffields in the cabs I tried sound tight, cold, and fizzy. Just not my thing. They can take tonnes of gain and maintain clarity, perfect for a 5150 II which has gain of stomp box and solid state proportions. EVH heads sound like a hive of angry hornets, in my mind.

6) Fender 4 x 12. I tried one once, but our furnace broke (in the great white north) so I chopped it up and burnt it for firewood. 'nuff said!

Speakers: The most common Celestions in high end cabs are V30s, g12m greenbacks, g12H greenbacks, Classic lead, and G12T 75s. Basically, Celestions rule the speaker roost because everyone has heard them on recordings and many like the sound. (I guess some players don't like taking chances)

My issue is that while most of the popular Celestions sound good, there is always something that annoys me. G12T -75s are scratchy, v30s have icepick highs and sound constipated at low volumes, g12m - 25 has a farty low end, Classic lead is tight and muddy at low volumes and isn't good for rhythm, etc etc. One great solution is to mix and match. Some common configurations are a g12m with a v30, a G12H with a v30, or even a v30 with a G12T - 75. I get the impression that the speaker combinations cancel out weakness in individual speakers while adding to the thickness of distortion. Thoughts? (I don't comment much on clean because why does anyone buy a Dual or Triple for Clean anyway? The clean works? GREAT!)

 

[Metaltastic]

2) Traditional Rectocab. I found the modern gain sound a bit to 'huge' for this cab. Kind of like it was trapped inside and squashed. (personal preference)

Could not agree more on this, hence why I've always described the Traditional as sounding unpleasantly dense and stuffy. However, while I agree with all your pros for the Recto Standard cab, I can't say I have a problem getting acceptable low-end tightness by using diodes and a Tube Screamer!

 

[YellowJacket]

2) Traditional Rectocab. I found the modern gain sound a bit to 'huge' for this cab. Kind of like it was trapped inside and squashed. (personal preference)

Could not agree more on this, hence why I've always described the Traditional as sounding unpleasantly dense and stuffy. However, while I agree with all your pros for the Recto Standard cab, I can't say I have a problem getting acceptable low-end tightness by using diodes and a Tube Screamer!

^__^ What guitar do you play? I play a Les Paul and it has a pretty tubby low end unless it is EQ'd out. It is true, if you EQ the head right, a Standard Rectocab will keep up fine. Just keep in mind that if you AB it with the Traditional Rectocab, the traditional one has much more thump to it. You just can't compare the two. I think that was more my point. I gather something like a high end Ibanez with active pickups tracks much faster than a LP though.

I'm curious about using an OD pedal with my Dual. I tend to dislike pedals greatly but I'm second guessing this because while my Dual gets a great clean and crunch, it would be great to dial in searing lead tones. I'm thinking it might be a great investment to have something that I can use to get a great lead sound without trading in for a three channel dual since I like the sound of my head already.

 

[Metaltastic]

^__^ What guitar do you play? I gather something like a high end Ibanez with active pickups tracks much faster than a LP though.

You're very perceptive sir

And my good god, I would NEVER play my Dual Rec without my Tube Screamer, and as to how the best way to use it (and why I feel it's superior to clean boosts such as the Fulltone OCD for tightening low end) check out this thread.