World's BIGGEST Celestion Vintage 30 Shootout

[norminal]

I sold home and car audio for about ten years and in my experience, speaker break-in is a real thing. Surrounds and spiders are typically very stiff from the factory and loosen up substantially over time, allowing for greater xmax/linear excursion. With that said, a speaker can also sometime suffer from a worn out suspension.

I would love to see a comparison of two identical V30’s, one new and one broken in.

 

[Cirrus]

Ok I'm going to break my short paragraphs rule, suck it up ADHD forumers.

Me too @norminal . I've heard it myself, mainly in Alnico speakers which is where most of my experience lies. I wonder if V30s are less prone to it since they're by design quite tight, controlled speakers, and also higher wattage so in most situations aren't really being pushed? Whereas something like a 15 watt alnico blue, I've experienced them get thicker and less bright sounding over several months of regular use. I actually wouldn't like to gig a new one for the sake of the audience

The other thing that's quite hard to test - V30s are often driven by higher gain amps with more controlled power sections, which are better at making the speaker obey instructions. Whereas, say, an ac30, with no neg feedback and power section sag etc, kind of lets the speakers do what they want more, and possibly that makes it easier to hear the speaker's resonant frequency/ xmax change as the suspension loosens up?

The V30 video is fantastic @The other John Browne , seriously top work! It's amazing how different the speakers all are from each other with little corelation to age. Most people form anecdotal opinions from a very small selection of speakers, so if you happened to have a fizzy but loose Marshall label one, a thick Mesa OEM and a very mid focussed Celestion label one, you'd take to the forums and say "It's all true! I can prove it!" Whereas someone else who just gets a single Marshal V30 and it happens to be dark might just think they got a dud.


Now, what would be interesting (and quite amusing) would be if your break in tests show a clear difference, and you discover that a lot of the differences in your V30 collection could be attributed to how hard they've been worked over their lives. I don't don't expect it to, to be fair.

 

[James Freeman]

@MirrorProfiles

What's your opinion on the Marshall 4x12 with their 'G12 Vintage' speakers in comparison to a standard chinese V30?

Anyone else directly compared the Marshall 'Vintage' and other V30 types?

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I haven’t compared similar years so it’s hard to rule out if it’s just a different batch of V30’s when comparing.

All of the AV and BV cabs I’ve recorded have always sounded great, maybe it’s just luck but they haven’t been as hit and miss as other V30 cabs. Somehow Line 6 have the worst sounding Marshall V30 cab ever though.

I suspect @The other John Browne will have some examples somewhere of similar dates/codes where they sound essentially the same

 

[The other John Browne]

I haven’t compared similar years so it’s hard to rule out if it’s just a different batch of V30’s when comparing.

All of the AV and BV cabs I’ve recorded have always sounded great, maybe it’s just luck but they haven’t been as hit and miss as other V30 cabs. Somehow Line 6 have the worst sounding Marshall V30 cab ever though.

I suspect @The other John Browne will have some examples somewhere of similar dates/codes where they sound essentially the same

Yeah! I had two 16 Ohms Marshall G12 Vintages in my test that I ran out of contention because both got damaged sadly. One had a fixed hole in the cone and one had a repair job done to the suspension. Although I have to say, their frequency response curves looked pretty much like the other V30s from their years though the one where the suspension had been fixed had its low end shifted quite a bit- the mids and highs did not seem affected. The one with the hole in the cone behaved pretty normally. I just didn't feel comfortable putting them in the analysis as they had been compromised, strictly speaking.
A fact that I didn't mention is, I ruined the one with the hole in the cone. Kids, if you're changing out speakers, don't leave your screwdriver on a surface above the speaker you've just removed!

I recently picked up a Marshall cab with 2021 G12 Vintages in it. I'm going to do a quick comparison with those too but probably won't make a dedicated video for that.

 

[headcrash]

@MirrorProfiles

What's your opinion on the Marshall 4x12 with their 'G12 Vintage' speakers in comparison to a standard chinese V30?

Anyone else directly compared the Marshall 'Vintage' and other V30 types?

Until I stopped using V30s a few years ago, I had two Marshall G12 Vintage as my "main" speakers. I had the opportunity to compare them to a Harley Benton 412 with V30s and a Mesa 2x12 (Rectifier?) with their UK made "version".

I liked the G12 Vintage better, because they didn't sound as dark and muffled (in comparison!) as the other V30s. From a gut feeling, this means the 4kHz - and above - region, but I didn't do any measurements.
I also considered the Marshall G12 Vintage to not be as prominent and as harsh in the upper mids as the others, as well as being a bit more tight in the lows and low mids. But this could be due to masking effects due to the more prominent hi end treble. Also we should take evaluating bass and low mids of speakers a) in different cabinets and/or b) in acoustically untreated environments with a HUGE grain of salt, so...

Interestingly enough I considered the Mesa V30s just a tiny little bit less harsh in the upper mids, than the standard Chinese ones.

With all that said, I have no idea how old both speaker sets were, and how worn in.

 

[headcrash]

Yeah! I had two 16 Ohms Marshall G12 Vintages in my test that I ran out of contention because both got damaged sadly. One had a fixed hole in the cone and one had a repair job done to the suspension. Although I have to say, their frequency response curves looked pretty much like the other V30s from their years though the one where the suspension had been fixed had its low end shifted quite a bit- the mids and highs did not seem affected. The one with the hole in the cone behaved pretty normally. I just didn't feel comfortable putting them in the analysis as they had been compromised, strictly speaking.
A fact that I didn't mention is, I ruined the one with the hole in the cone. Kids, if you're changing out speakers, don't leave your screwdriver on a surface above the speaker you've just removed!

I recently picked up a Marshall cab with 2021 G12 Vintages in it. I'm going to do a quick comparison with those too but probably won't make a dedicated video for that.

....would love to hear your evaluation concerning V30s vs. G12 Vintage !

 

[Cirrus]

... the one where the suspension had been fixed had its low end shifted quite a bit- the mids and highs did not seem affected. ...

It's interesting that fairly large tears to cones can have little tonal impact if properly repaired, given how cosmetically extreme the damage looks, but small repairs in certain places can have quite big impact on the sound.

I had a Celestion Silver that looked like it'd had the dust cap off and re-glued. Couldn't see what was under the cap, but I have a feeling something had been done to the coil former/cone join, and that something involved PVA glue as that's what was round the edge of the dust cap. The result was that the speaker worked fine, was loud, clean, but sounded like it was missing the bottom octave. I guess that the interface between the former and the cone is critical in that way.

For some things it sounded really cool, spanky tight but thick Strat neck pickup distorted riffs etc...

 

[Deadpan]

@MirrorProfiles

What's your opinion on the Marshall 4x12 with their 'G12 Vintage' speakers in comparison to a standard chinese V30?

Anyone else directly compared the Marshall 'Vintage' and other V30 types?

I put a 2004 Marshall V30 in a 2005 Mesa 2x12 to compare.

The Mesa and Marshall V30s sounded slightly different but still like good V30s.

 

[James Freeman]

Somehow Line 6 have the worst sounding Marshall V30 cab ever though.

I hate when companies add shit for the sake of adding shit.
If it doesn't sound good or operates like it should DON'T ADD IT, that's just useless bloatware.
Just look at NDSP's Global EQ implementation on the QC, a bad joke.