guitar cabinet

[pinky78]

I should start building guitar cabinet with 2x 12" celestion G12M70 speakers (70 w). what dimensions should it be? I want to use the marshall's 1960 cab. dimensions. It has 2x 12" G12T75 celestion spekers (75 w).

[grahamprie]

Hi,

There's nothing wrong with the dimensions of the old Marshall cabinet - as long as you don't expect to use it for anything other than guitar. It's not even that important what you make it from - MDF is as good as plywood - so is chipboard - it's only a box to mount the drive units and give them some back-pressure to work against.

You'll not get the same sound as the original Marshall gear with the speakers you have - they are completely different although they are sold as 'replacements' - the Marshall units were only rated at 30Watts and were much more sensitive than the newer ones as well as having a totally different frequency response. Hence the well-known 4x12 cabinet with a 100Watt head is now very valuable.

My brother was the Australian importer of Celestion products till recently, but he gave them up as a bad job after yet another change to the specification ( and an increase in the price ) as none of his customers liked them.

All the drive unit manufacturers have 'beefed up' their speakers so they can claim higher wattage ratings, but it always has a negative effect on the sound quality... Lots of old drivers is still the best way to get more volume with the sound you want.

By all means build your cabinet, but don't be surprised if it doesn't sound the way you hoped.

Graham