andy474x
Knows the Drill
Holy balls, these are some bright @$$ speakers.
As advised, I'm trying to give them some time to break in, but they're really pushing my patience into serious into serious saturation! I can't use a tubescreamer or turn the mids or treble much past 11:00 on my amp without feeling like someone's jabbing a pencil into my eardrums. I really, really hope these things smooth out! Last night I played around with a few other speakers I have, and had a very positive experience with an Eminence GB128 (Greenback-ish speaker), so if these V30's don't pan out, I think another one of those will be headed my way and the pair will go in the cabinet. The stock PRS/Eminence speakers sounded great at lower volumes, but they were too rich in the low mids when turned up, and the tones just got blurry at the volume where power tube saturation comes in. The V30's are better when really cranked, but not mind blowing. Right now I would rate them as semi-unusable everywhere else. They also seem to bring out the frequency that produces the fizzy, "box of bees" overdrive tone. The thing I liked about the GB is that it's crisp, but not piercing, and the mids are perfectly situated - and it seems to stay balanced at different volumes too. Almost like it's a more neutral speaker in some ways. I postulate that perhaps the smaller magnet (medium, as in G12M, vs. the heavy as in the G12H V30 as well as the stock Eminence speakers), reproduces frequencies more evenly.
I'm trying to hold out faith on the tones of players I like who use V30's - specifically, a lot of Andy Timmons has been playing around here. I love the warm, fat, yet present sound he gets on the Resolution album - yet I'm currently perplexed as to how he does it with these speakers. If I remember correctly, I read somewhere that he did that whole album with little or no EQ in production. Maybe it has more to do with the Mesa Lonestar that he uses, and I also think the Mesa V30's are slightly different spec than the "normal" ones.
The more I think about it, there are actually a fair amount of V30 players that I've heard and enjoyed their playing, but not loved their tone as much as I could (Steve Vai, Slash, Tremonti), lead tones especially just sound a little thin to me sometimes. Whereas EVH and AC/DC tones have always struck me as nearly perfect. Never really grouped them by what speakers they use, until now.
I'm not disappointed that I tried the V30's - it's one of those things that I feel like, as a guitar player, you just have to try. So, I'll let it run its course, and see if things settle in. If not, I'll put the V30's in a box and save them for a rainy day, and grab another GB128. They're only $65, so it's a lot of tone for the money if I need to.
As advised, I'm trying to give them some time to break in, but they're really pushing my patience into serious into serious saturation! I can't use a tubescreamer or turn the mids or treble much past 11:00 on my amp without feeling like someone's jabbing a pencil into my eardrums. I really, really hope these things smooth out! Last night I played around with a few other speakers I have, and had a very positive experience with an Eminence GB128 (Greenback-ish speaker), so if these V30's don't pan out, I think another one of those will be headed my way and the pair will go in the cabinet. The stock PRS/Eminence speakers sounded great at lower volumes, but they were too rich in the low mids when turned up, and the tones just got blurry at the volume where power tube saturation comes in. The V30's are better when really cranked, but not mind blowing. Right now I would rate them as semi-unusable everywhere else. They also seem to bring out the frequency that produces the fizzy, "box of bees" overdrive tone. The thing I liked about the GB is that it's crisp, but not piercing, and the mids are perfectly situated - and it seems to stay balanced at different volumes too. Almost like it's a more neutral speaker in some ways. I postulate that perhaps the smaller magnet (medium, as in G12M, vs. the heavy as in the G12H V30 as well as the stock Eminence speakers), reproduces frequencies more evenly.
I'm trying to hold out faith on the tones of players I like who use V30's - specifically, a lot of Andy Timmons has been playing around here. I love the warm, fat, yet present sound he gets on the Resolution album - yet I'm currently perplexed as to how he does it with these speakers. If I remember correctly, I read somewhere that he did that whole album with little or no EQ in production. Maybe it has more to do with the Mesa Lonestar that he uses, and I also think the Mesa V30's are slightly different spec than the "normal" ones.
The more I think about it, there are actually a fair amount of V30 players that I've heard and enjoyed their playing, but not loved their tone as much as I could (Steve Vai, Slash, Tremonti), lead tones especially just sound a little thin to me sometimes. Whereas EVH and AC/DC tones have always struck me as nearly perfect. Never really grouped them by what speakers they use, until now.
I'm not disappointed that I tried the V30's - it's one of those things that I feel like, as a guitar player, you just have to try. So, I'll let it run its course, and see if things settle in. If not, I'll put the V30's in a box and save them for a rainy day, and grab another GB128. They're only $65, so it's a lot of tone for the money if I need to.