1x12, 2x10, 4x10 thoughts?

aamefford

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I’m curious about 4x10’s and 2x10’s. I’m watching the used market for Mesa open back ones. I’m mostly interested in open cabs. Any recommendations for cabs and speakers? They would pair with a TC-100, usually clean or drive channel. I’m not on channel 3 too often. I have a Mesa 1x12 wide body closed right now. It could be used at the same time or not. Also considering a Mesa 1x12 wide body open. Just like the one I sold last year. Damn. Anyway, thoughts and recommendations are appreciated.
 
I am a fan of a 10" speaker. I have played a lot of gigs with a hand built amp that is a take off of the Vibrolux Reverb. It has served me very well. I like the sound of it and the 10" speakers have a little tighter sound and a different midrange to them.

I also like a 12" speaker. I feel like they are a little warmer and handle gain a little better than the 10". The top end and midrange are different in them. I have a 1x2 open back cabinet with a Celestion Creamback 65 in it for my Twin Sister amp. It sounds very good to my ears.

Of course brand and model of speaker plays into this. Cabinet size and construction also plays a part.
 
Listen to what J said about 10s and 12s. They sound different. If you find same models in both sizes, they sound different. A 10 is not “exactly like the 12, but with slightly less bass” like many people think. They are different through the mids and that’s critical. You may loved them and you may not.

I’d suggest try before you buy!
 
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As someone that relies a lot on clean tones I'm completely in the 12" camp.
It's next to impossible (for me) to get a rich thick Jazz lead sound with 10" cones. Even when I was doing more overdriven tones in Rock & Fusion I preferred the larger diameter for the capability of having the wider range of bottom & lower mids that you don't get from 10" speakers.
With 12" I can at least roll off the lows if I want a tighter sound, you can't add lows & mids to smaller speakers. Yes, the 10's can have a tighter punchier sound, and that might appeal to some depending on the tone they want and musical style, but I lean on the wider sonic range and versatility of 1x12 & 2x12 cabs.
 
As someone that relies a lot on clean tones I'm completely in the 12" camp.
It's next to impossible (for me) to get a rich thick Jazz lead sound with 10" cones. Even when I was doing more overdriven tones in Rock & Fusion I preferred the larger diameter for the capability of having the wider range of bottom & lower mids that you don't get from 10" speakers.
With 12" I can at least roll off the lows if I want a tighter sound, you can't add lows & mids to smaller speakers. Yes, the 10's can have a tighter punchier sound, and that might appeal to some depending on the tone they want and musical style, but I lean on the wider sonic range and versatility of 1x12 & 2x12 cabs.
Oh man, do I have the amp you need to look into. It is a Marsh, The Springfield Reverb Amp. I heard this thing in the shop and had to have one. It is a take on the Vibrolux Reverb. It has 2 10" Ragin Kajun speakers in it. The warm clean tone this amp produces is to die for. That is what drew me to it. I have been able to get snappy country cleans out of it as well as darker jazz clean tones. It doesn't have that spiky top end in it. It is just a great clean amp that takes pedals very well. I have played many gigs with it over the last decade. It is one of my favorite amps and definitely has it's permanent home. It just may change you mind on 10" speakers.

The guy that makes these lives about a 30 minute drive from me. He sells them through my local shop. I am not sure what he has changed in the Vibrolux circuit but it really works.
 
Oh man, do I have the amp you need to look into. It is a Marsh, The Springfield Reverb Amp. I heard this thing in the shop and had to have one. It is a take on the Vibrolux Reverb. It has 2 10" Ragin Kajun speakers in it. The warm clean tone this amp produces is to die for. That is what drew me to it. I have been able to get snappy country cleans out of it as well as darker jazz clean tones. It doesn't have that spiky top end in it. It is just a great clean amp that takes pedals very well. I have played many gigs with it over the last decade. It is one of my favorite amps and definitely has it's permanent home. It just may change you mind on 10" speakers.

The guy that makes these lives about a 30 minute drive from me. He sells them through my local shop. I am not sure what he has changed in the Vibrolux circuit but it really works.
I appreciate the tip but I think your idea of dark jazz tones is vastly different from mine. I checked out some sound samples on that amp and it is definitely not a Jazz amp. It seems to excel for blues & country vibes, but with the smaller speakers it just doesn't have enough low end.

The bottom line is smaller speakers just don't have the sonic range for the task.
 
As far as you all know, I parted ways with average cabinets and most common speakers. And I won't recommend classical cabs or confirm or support those paths.

The reason for that was the acquisition of a four channel amp. The manufacturer's sound impression is very much Marshall. I first started the journey with a 2×12 of that particular brand.
YouTube made me discover the UK based brand Barefaced with their advanced back named Augmented Vent Defractor (AVD), which ensures a 3D-ish emission.
The cabs sound big.

20201103_093357-jpg.766635


20211211_202325-jpg.828185


If you are open for the opinion, that a neutral speaker provides any amp and guitar the most space for their genuine tone, then watch out for Celestion Neo 250 Copperback speakers, 12", or EVM-12L.

A few months later Kammler cabs crossed my way and I ended up to order a 2×12 format cab, but combined the 12" Neo 250 with a 10" speaker. Own guitar, own amp, a cab with the Neo 250 and then taking time for finding the best match. My ears liked the EVM-10M most.
I don't any other cab.

20230513_095642-jpg.935618

Left the big old heavy used 10" speker, right the light, new 12" speaker.
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Kammler cabs are relatively rare, he built in the past 15 years 50 cabs a year. The majority are 10" ("Mini-Kai") and 12" ("Mono-Kai") cabs. Kammler closed business end of 2024.
Second hand cabs are sometimes offered, but you can't change speakers easily, because of their specialized joint (it fits perfectly to the speaker's magnet), named Tunator, which is a relevant part, that the cabs sound 3D. The beams of the Tunator could be turned tight or let loose, which emphasizes low end (let loose) or high end (tight). My Tunators are untouched since I got the cab, my amp's EQ is as follows: bass 3, mid 2.8, high 8. Enough punch with clarity.

If brand new is mandatory, then give the Barefaced 112 Reformer a chance.
 
I appreciate the tip but I think your idea of dark jazz tones is vastly different from mine. I checked out some sound samples on that amp and it is definitely not a Jazz amp. It seems to excel for blues & country vibes, but with the smaller speakers it just doesn't have enough low end.

The bottom line is smaller speakers just don't have the sonic range for the task.
I am not sure what sound samples you found. There are a few jazz guys in my area using this amp. It isn't just my opinion I was speaking from. I get that we all like different things. No worries. I was just passing along something that I found that I really like.
 
While 2x12s have been my usual since, well, forever, and I have three of them here, I have one of Mesa's new 4x10 cabs that I really like. I mostly use it with my Fillmore 50W head. Just because I like it doesn't mean anyone else will like it, of course.

I was interested in conjuring up some of the 4x10 vibes that came with the old Super Reverbs (they were mostly 4x10s).

I think it's a great sounding cab. It's open back with 4 Celestion 10" Creambacks. I got it because I wanted something that sounds different from my 2x12 cabs.

I've also had Mesa's 2x10, another open back cab with Alnico speakers from the factory that I used with a Mesa Blue Angel. It made a nice combination with that amp as well.

As someone that relies a lot on clean tones I'm completely in the 12" camp.
It's next to impossible (for me) to get a rich thick Jazz lead sound with 10" cones.
No doubt a 12" speaker will give you more bottom end. I can see why you'd choose that.

I know Robben Ford isn't really a jazz player, or hasn't been since his Miles Davis days, but he's played a Little Walter amp with a 3x10 speaker cab as one of his amps for 5 or 6 years.

But then he's also a guy who played Strats with Miles and so on...so...not a purist.

Robben, Miles Davis. I'm just posting this because I like it, and I don't know what Robben was using as an amp for that gig.

 

I know Robben Ford isn't really a jazz player, or hasn't been since his Miles Davis days, but he's played a Little Walter amp with a 3x10 speaker cab as one of his amps for 5 or 6 years.

But then he's also a guy who played Strats with Miles and so on...so...not a purist.

Robben, Miles Davis. I'm just posting this because I like it, and I don't know what Robben was using as an amp for that gig.


Yea he definitely is not a Jazz cat and is more an educated bluesman that can do a lot of things, and that was during Miles fusion & Pop period.

This is an example of what a lot of Jazz guitar players strive for tone wise, and there's no way you can get that with 10" cones.

(Kenny starts @2:10)
 
While 2x12s have been my usual since...

No doubt a 12" speaker will give you more bottom end. I can see why you'd choose that.

I know Robben Ford isn't really a jazz player, or hasn't been since his Miles Davis days, but he's played a Little Walter amp with a 3x10 speaker cab as one of his amps for 5 or 6 years.

But then he's also a guy who played Strats with Miles and so on...so...not a purist.

Robben, Miles Davis. I'm just posting this because I like it, and I don't know what Robben was using as an amp for that gig.


Yeah I've been in a 2x12 mood for a while now. I have been thinking about building an oversized 1x12 because those supposedly sound similar to a 2x12 (although I find that hard to believe entirely) and because they don't weigh as much.

On Robben Ford... I was around when he and Phil started getting involved and was, at the time, trying to get a business started building guitars. I was asked to bring guitars I built to the endorsee jam Phil put on annually at the same time as summer NAMM and this was the first time I met Robben. As far as I can remember, he was using the Little Walter 59 with the 3x10. Soundcheck sounded incredible and the actual show was better.

Less than a year later, I quit playing full-time and intended to buy an amp like Robben's and, in talks with Phil, I learned he was coming to Nashville with a bunch of cabs for Robben to test and I think he went with a 1x12 to go with the 3x10. Then COVID happened and all that got put on the back burner and I got sucked into the black hole of dumble circuits.

Now in the Miles video you can see the dumble around 2:07 and more clearly at 2:38. I'm not sure what cabinet he's using. For some reason I thought it was a 4xsomething and dug up this interesting video with some older PRS history mixed in as well but I still can't tell what cabs his amp(s) are going through. Looks like the dumble is here again under the Marshall.

 
Yea he definitely is not a Jazz cat and is more an educated bluesman that can do a lot of things, and that was during Miles fusion & Pop period.

This is an example of what a lot of Jazz guitar players strive for tone wise, and there's no way you can get that with 10" cones.

(Kenny starts @2:10)
It all makes sense now. :) I agree with you. You have to us a 12" speaker to get that tone. I am also not sure that an amp with a Fender style circuit is the best choice for that.
 
Yea he definitely is not a Jazz cat and is more an educated bluesman that can do a lot of things, and that was during Miles fusion & Pop period.

This is an example of what a lot of Jazz guitar players strive for tone wise, and there's no way you can get that with 10" cones.

(Kenny starts @2:10)
Burrell is a master, always sounds great. And certainly, that tone is a 12" speaker. Though I'm not a jazzer, I've been around enough and seen enough live jazz to understand how to capture the tone.

I'm not a genre-specific musician. I like everything. If it's good, I'll listen to it. If it's boring and predictable - like folks who just play scales over changes, which you hear far too often - I'm out.

I should mention that in the '90s I took bass lessons for a year from one of the jazz professors at Wayne State, who also, interestingly, was a first-call session player for sessions at Motown after James Jamerson passed away.

Not that bass and electric guitar are the same thing, and not that I'm any good at it, but I do have a smattering of understanding the genre. Just enough to get myself in trouble (though I was hired to write and produce music for Detroit's Montreux Jazz festival ads - their mistake, of course, but they were happy anyway).

In the late 1960s as a teenager, I could get into Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit, a famous jazz club where I had the joy of seeing a lot of the great players, including Wes Montgomery. It was about a mile from where I lived in the city back then.

I do remember seeing black panel Fender combos for the guitar that would have had 12" speakers. The piano, bass and drums weren't miked, nor was the guitar amp. It's not a big place.

They'd let young people in as long as you got dressed properly in a jacket and tie and didn't try to order alcohol. 😂

Speaking of very good jazz players, In the late '80s- early '90s I got to hang around a bit with Earl Klugh, who was my neighbor. Earl had a home studio similar to mine. So we shared that interest. He was into classical acoustic guitars at the time, super-nice guy and always sounded amazing. I went to his shows, where he often played with Alexander Zonjic on flute.

But obviously he didn't play electric guitar (that I was aware of).

I got to see Barney Kessel play at a Guitar Summit in Ann Arbor in 1997, and his tone was very similar to the classic tone I remembered. Very much like Burrell did in that video he played solo.

For all the greatness of the other players, the star of that show (that included classical players) was not a jazzer, it was Michael Hedges, who was so amazing that at the end of the show the other players came out on stage and gave him a standing ovation along with the audience.

I mention him because he was a genre-buster, a unique and inventive musician who didn't care what anyone else did or sounded like. He was gonna be him. Astounding player, one of a kind. He died only a few months later in a car accident.

I feel the same way about Robben Ford, a guy who can just show up and play with just about anyone, doing it in his own style. He wasn't bound by convention, though I will also say that I've heard him play a little trad jazz on his old Baker guitar at a clinic, and he could do it very well, even if it wasn't his means of self-expression. He loves blues based stuff, and more power to him.

Bottom line for me is, sound the way you want to sound. If it's a particular genre-based thing, great. If you're the only one who sounds like you, also great. Whatever gets your music across is wonderful.

My final thought here is that I'm a terrible guitar player and shouldn't be allowed to make comments on any guitar forum, yet here I am. :eek:
 
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Yeah I've been in a 2x12 mood for a while now. I have been thinking about building an oversized 1x12 because those supposedly sound similar to a 2x12 (although I find that hard to believe entirely) and because they don't weigh as much.
I've had a Bogner oversized 2x12 and a Mesa oversized 1x12.

The claim for the 2x12 was it could compete with a 4x12, and with the 1x12 that it gave a similar result to the 2x12.

In terms of generalities, yeah, I mean you could come close. But I each case the phase shifts and swirl imparted by the cabs with more speakers went missing.

Still, perfectly reasonable.
 
Yeah I've been in a 2x12 mood for a while now. I have been thinking about building an oversized 1x12 because those supposedly sound similar to a 2x12 (although I find that hard to believe entirely) and because they don't weigh as much.

On Robben Ford... I was around when he and Phil started getting involved and was, at the time, trying to get a business started building guitars. I was asked to bring guitars I built to the endorsee jam Phil put on annually at the same time as summer NAMM and this was the first time I met Robben. As far as I can remember, he was using the Little Walter 59 with the 3x10. Soundcheck sounded incredible and the actual show was better.

Less than a year later, I quit playing full-time and intended to buy an amp like Robben's and, in talks with Phil, I learned he was coming to Nashville with a bunch of cabs for Robben to test and I think he went with a 1x12 to go with the 3x10. Then COVID happened and all that got put on the back burner and I got sucked into the black hole of dumble circuits.

Now in the Miles video you can see the dumble around 2:07 and more clearly at 2:38. I'm not sure what cabinet he's using. For some reason I thought it was a 4xsomething and dug up this interesting video with some older PRS history mixed in as well but I still can't tell what cabs his amp(s) are going through. Looks like the dumble is here again under the Marshall.

So interesting to read stuff like this! I love the personal involvement aspect.
 
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