Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Express, Liverpool, Rocket, Dirty Little Monster, etc.

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Mark
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Mark »

How do you deal with the phase cancellation in the live environment?
A lot of people say that open back cabs sound thinner live.
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Plexified
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Plexified »

Hey Mark ,
very good question. I find the venues always vary so much. Depending on indoor/ outdoor , large/small , crowd size etc. An Eq is a good tool to carry and a person to record you in different locations . I can usually find a sweet spot on stage and find the right frequency to add cut or focus. The bottom flub is what I try to avoid. What gets to tape is measurable. The 12's have the bottom and the 10's have the detail. I focus more on the clarity and the overall group mix and it seems to work better than focusing on just me. On its own however volume usually dictates headroom and what I am trying to do. I gets me connected to the tone and I just love to play without a pick and focus on each note delivery and blossom. Their are ways to close the back up a bit if need be. Definitely varying degrees of open to work with.
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Plexified
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Plexified »

you know, the thing is that lately hi fi has gone towards 'soundfield' speakers that go outside the box. And its funny , because that seems whats happening in my experience. I love old Marshall vintage cabs, and would be the last guy to embrace the open back, but I have and it gives a more ambient soundfield. Not necessarily on stage , but personal listening pleasure. Live is a a different deal , a large collective of monitors and house sound. It can be done for sure , and using mics is a pleasure. Set up a bit more complex, but well worth it. However, when recording , open back gives way more 'options' and aside from that live pleasure. I worked hard to come to this , and you can do a lot of experimenting with a lot of cabs . Even the 4x12 can deliver a lot when thinking that you can make panels to do it right. A 4x10 and even a 2x10 make that clear. Apply it to a 4x12 on the cheap making a few panels and its real nice for sure!
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johnny riff
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by johnny riff »

1960 B 4x12
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Winder
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Winder »

Pretty happy with an "older" (bought in 1980/original owner) Marshall slant with G12-65s for my Express. I've been running through a Mojave 4x12 with G12H-30s ... seems brighter than the Marshall cab; adding some guitar cable to the front helped remove the glass from the top. I recently recorded a through an Eminence Cannabis Rex in a 1x12 pine cab that I have in closed-back configuration. I like that best so far for recorded tone and will probably outfit a 2x12 with a pair or a mix.
jtaylor996
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by jtaylor996 »

I run an orange 1x12 cab (closed, quality construction) with a Austin Speaker Works Elegante speaker in it. I tried all sorts of stuff and landed on that combo for my Rocket.
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Reeltarded »

My Liverpool sounds fantastic through a '75 slant I have with creme 30s, but it sounds even better through 800 cabs with 75s.

I hate it through 25s. The amp gets on too early and misses a sweet spot. The eq becomes useless above RMS in a way. I like brutal but I like articulation.

Luckily, cabinets full of 75s are on CL for 250-300 most days. You can try to blow them up everytime you play. :D can't.
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rooster
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by rooster »

OK, here's a twist. I have a lot of cabs, 4/12 (Marshall slant, 2 Jensen P12Ns lightly doped 50 watt Weber recones, 1 Celestion Gold, and 1 vintage Celestion G1265), 2/12 (Vox - Celestion vintage Creamback/Austin Speaker works KTS), 2/12 65 Amps (Scumnico 65 watt/Weber Blue 50 watt Alnico), 1 homemade 2/12 (Celestion Blue/ vintage Celestion G1265 reconed with Celestion V30 cone), a 1/12 (EVM12L with swappable cab back), 1/15 (JBL K130 in an open back Mojotone cab). They all have their virtues, sure, and sound good.

But I also have a nice sounding BFSR that I loaded 4 '66 Jensen C10Qs into (that were are reconed and lightly doped by Weber in '96). And then, somewhere along the way, I bought a Peavey 4/10 box, open back, the tweed vinyl covered plywood thing you've probably seen around, very stout. A year ago I loaded a quad of Eminence alnico 10's in it. Eh, not great sounding but 35 watts apiece, and a 4/10 that can deal with 140 watts. Hm.

Skip to the chase. I lightly doped these alnico Eminence Legend 10s for a great improvement in tone (less edginess and bite), but then decided to mix and match the BFSR's C10Qs with them. So two Eminence and two reconed C10Qs in each cab. Wow, what a surprise, a great combination of speakers. Then I added a stereo split switch to the Peavey cab, such that I can run either two pairs of 10s (one Jensen, one Eminence in either pair) at 16 ohms, or the whole box at 8 ohms. This is probably my most recordable speaker cab. It just sounds really good and can deal with all kinds of power - the Jensen is 25 watts, the Eminence 35, 60 watts for the pair or 120 watts for the whole cab.

As to home doping, if anyone pursues the Eminence 'Legend' alnico 10s, I cut a cardboard paper circle 7" in diameter, laid it in the center of the cone, and used 3M spray adhesive applied in a circular motion. Maybe 3 light coats, not much. I definitely think these speakers are sleepers due to their lack of doping. What a shame.
Last edited by rooster on Fri Jun 08, 2018 6:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Noobytube
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Noobytube »

Great thread! Forgive me if it’s been covered anywhere else, but how do the new greenback celestions compare to the scumbacks? I’ve been lurking around here for years and I’m finally collecting info and materials for an express, can’t wait!
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Scumback Speakers »

Noobytube wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 4:20 am Great thread! Forgive me if it’s been covered anywhere else, but how do the new greenback celestions compare to the scumbacks? I’ve been lurking around here for years and I’m finally collecting info and materials for an express, can’t wait!
I wish I could answer this for you, but with all the different versions of G12M variants that Celestion makes, I'm not sure which/how/what to compare to mine. LOL
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Noobytube »

Hi, is there anyone out here who’s ever tried using passive high pass speaker filtering in their 4-12 cab with the express? Or measured how far down the express amp reaches in HZ output? I’m a studio rat and during a mix we are constantly filtering off unwanted lows on guitar tracks, bass tracks, kick tracks etc, actually it is rare a track doesn’t get either high pass, low pass or both. A lot of it is due to proximity effect of close micing, but it is often observed that speaker cabinets are seemingly working too hard trying to reproduce ultimately unwanted lower freqs that are compromising its function(mushing, crying etc) and are not desireable in a mix, so my thinking here is to consider unburdening the speakers of any unwanted rumble/ low freq’s at the speaker as it seems it wouldn’t serve an amp well anyway, is my thinking wrong? Is there a performance/signature sonic tradeoff I’m over looking?

A high quality 2nd/3rd order passive butterworth filter at 30-40hz for example?

Thanx for any insight or info
Mark
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Mark »

I'm not aware of a fix for your problem, though I suspect the tone shaping should be done prior to the output stage.

https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/fi ... ter_8.html
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by geetarpicker »

I rarely need to put a HPF on my Express into a 4x12. These amps have quite a bit of low end filtering built into the circuit.

That said I often put a HPF on my Fender amps. These amps run larger coupling caps and often need a little bit of HPF treatment. It’s also might be that the open back speaker in a combo has a bit of phase cancelation going on, but the close mic is probably not as effected from the backside spill and in turn sounds fatter than the amp may sound to the ear.
Noobytube
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by Noobytube »

geetarpicker wrote: Tue Jun 12, 2018 12:45 am I rarely need to put a HPF on my Express into a 4x12. These amps have quite a bit of low end filtering built into the circuit.

That said I often put a HPF on my Fender amps. These amps run larger coupling caps and often need a little bit of HPF treatment. It’s also might be that the open back speaker in a combo has a bit of phase cancelation going on, but the close mic is probably not as effected from the backside spill and in turn sounds fatter than the amp may sound to the ear.
Thanx GK,
My thinking here is that.. I’ve noticed on all I’ve messed with on Amp books/amp calculators, that the cut offs in general are around 1st order or less, having freqs lower than an octave below 82hz(41hz) injected into a 4-12 is seemingly unnecessary and burdensome to the speaker function. And according to the stages I’ve looked at, those hz ‘s are present all the way down to 10hz, and even though they are way down in db, they still put demands on our speakers, maybe that is part of the sound? But my guess is that if filtered off-some of the complaints of flabby bass could vanish with them? How it would effect over all tone? This is all a studio rats theory at this point, I will try this during the tweaking stage when my build is finished and report back.

I should also add that I have NOT seen a hz response measurement of what comes out of/what’s filtered off by the 2ndary of the Express OT variants, I’m trying to choose between the express Heyboer set and the Pacific set from RJ as I write this, your opinion would be appreciated as to which or others you might recommend? thanx!
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Re: Favourite speakers and cabs for Trainwreck amps.

Post by rooster »

Interesting. There's a Premier Guitar youtube video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5C7GKGxICg ) with a tech going over Angus Young's stage setup. I think eleven 100 watt Marshall heads are in play for stage (3 at a time into 3 stacks behind Angus, another stack on Stevie's (Malcom's replacement) side?), some ready to be switched over if anything fails. FOH is a couple of 2/12 iso cabs under the stage...

Anyway, there's masking tape on the heads showing the knob settings: Presence 1, Bass 3, Mid 3, treble 3, Volume 6, MV 8. Yes, there have been MVs installed on these amps (seems the control knob has been placed in the Bass channel spot?) but what type wasn't qualified. It seems they don't really use any metered bias settings, they just turn the bias pot till Angus says 'OK'. J/J EL34 tubes. The tech says, 'If we blow some tubes it's OK, we have more tubes.' Full time amp tech goes over all the amps after every show.
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