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Hey everyone i'm going to start my plexi v6 build in aug, and I was wondering what you are using for cabs. I play mostly strats and tele and I like the classic sound (obviously) and right now I am playing through a peavy classic 30 so this is a huge step in gear for me and I have only had combo amps to this point. I have done some research and it seems that a 10" will have more snap than a 12" but with that said the 12" will have better bass response. I was originally thinking 2X12 but now I'm thinking 2X10. And then what about open back, close back, and ported? I'm am leaning towards greenbacks but am definitely open to suggestions on that as well. I have my own woodshop so I will be building it myself and I am trying to keep the budget on the lower side seeing how the amp build is costing enough to get me strange looks from my wife:) Any and all info is greatly appreciated

Tim

A 2X10 is an excellent choice. If you split the back of the cab into two removable panels, you can try open, closed or semi-closed configurations. Ported cabs aren't recommended for guitar speaker use (in fact Celestion warns against using them), unless you're prepared to do all the math. Here's a known good 2X10 design you can use (note the dimensions are in mm).

Edit: here's the URL - http://www.award-session.com/pdfs/AS210A_Plans.pdf

There's lots of great 10" speakers you can use these days too. You can get 10" Tone Tubbys. Or 10" Celestion Greenbacks - http://professional.celestion.com/guita ... .asp?ID=33 (although true Greenbacks have only ever been 12") and 10" Celestion Gold Alnicos - http://professional.celestion.com/guita ... .asp?ID=33 Eminence has a big selection of 10" options, starting with the 10" alnico Red Fang and the Ram Rod. Or you can pair the brightness of a Ram Rod with the fatter tone of the hemp-cone Lil' Buddy. FYI Trinity is a dealer for Tone Tubby and Eminence.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

210 cabs are great and easier to lug around. What I have on mine is a pair of holes with screw in covers. It is a variable back with out removing panels.
I am using them on two cabs now. Just need some easy way of not losing the covers.

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Fantasy Noise is what my shop of dreams is called and was the only way to beat my addiction, like many here I suffer from G.A.S.


Tele's make the best noise

Zaphod, you wrote "Here's a known good 2X10 design you can use (note the dimensions are in mm)."

Didnt know if you meant to leave a link for the dimensions or not.

Also, you are saying, make the back using 2 different panels that I can either leave on or remove depending on what I like for sound? Sounds like a good idea, thanks

Taz, I am a little confused about your pics. Does this plug remove a panel or is it just the plug that gets removed?

Thanks

Tim

Just the cover comes out. There are multiple holes with covers.
By removing the covers you start changing the cab to a variable sized open back. All covers in, its a closed back.
The red cab cover is installed the brown cab is shown with an open cover. You can see the driver in this case an 8", cab is a 4x8.
For my purposes it works well. And like an open back, a convenient place to put things.
Nice place to mic the cab from as well.

_________________
Fantasy Noise is what my shop of dreams is called and was the only way to beat my addiction, like many here I suffer from G.A.S.


Tele's make the best noise

With all the vent holes open it will give a response like a semi-closed/open cab, but you can't replicate a fully open-backed cab.


Oops I've just gone back and edited the link into my previous post - http://www.award-session.com/pdfs/AS210A_Plans.pdf


Yes, that's right.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Taz- Thanks, where can a person pick up those vent holes?

Zaphod- thanks for the print, I was just at Lowes tonight scoping out some pine, my next month is going to be fun, 1st I get to build an amp and then make a cab for it, then I get to buy two new speakers and build a cab for them. Its better than going to disney land

taz - I also wanted to ask you about what you are using for an amp. I see in your signature that you like teles, well so do I brother. Is the plexi going to give me enough clean tone bite. Im looking for early page tone and also early john mellencamp (when he went by cougar) hurt so good, authority song, that sort of thing. Im not looking for country twang. I also want to be able to hit the bigger humbucker sound too. I have a 4 way in my tele that puts the pups in series, so it will grind like a sg, just not quite as full and round as a lp. Can the plexi do this or would I be better off with the sIII? fyi i am going to do the v6 kit regardless.

Thanks Tim

Birch ply is usually the recommended material.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Because the major differences between the Plexi and sIII are component changes you can tweak to your tone. Finding the tone you want just takes time and play. I think the plexi will do it.
The V6 is one of the reasons I bought the Egnater, you can blend the 6V6 and EL84 output.
Tramp combo with G10A WGS speaker and S210 VB with Veteran 10" WGS Speakers
Tramp head with any cab
Triwatt with S4x8 WGS speakers with variable back
Tweed with G12C WGS speaker
!8w Plexi cascade with S112 ET65 WGS speaker with closed back
Egnater Rebel 30 212 ( don't use internal speakers) with VB212 with Green Beret and Reaper WGS speakers
Peavey Windsor Studio with 16 ohm British Lead WGS speaker
Peavey Valve King Royal 8 with G8C WGS speaker
Fender Champ 600 Changed grill cloth and chucked the junk tubes that came with it.
Kona 40w SS with internal 2x10
Fender 250R bass amp
Fender B-Dec used as a modeling head for the 250R
Speaker cabs
Avatar cube with Hellatone 60 open back
Voltage S115 G15C WGS speaker in S112 size box open back
Peavey Combo cab with amp removed and Veteran 10" open back+
Guitars
Squire Custom Tele with Parson street P90s and Steinberger tuners
Fender Spalted Maple carved top Mahoghany back and neck. Seymour duncan h/buckrs With tone being a pull switch for coil cut.
Vintage Supermatic auto tuning guitar Strat style
Vintage 3 pick up tele
and way to many more to pick from.
Too much gear and always room for one more piece.

First pic is the different ways I use for variable back cabs



Problem with the Green VB212 is you need a powered driver with that many long screws. Hard/pricey to replace if you lose it.
The screw caps need no tools to remove and they go in a bag that hangs off the speaker cable.

Current upstairs set up is as follows:





It changes often, but the Squire and Fender are always there.
And to make it worse I just tried a Fender Squier Classic Vibe Telecaster Thinline Semi-Hollow Electric Guitar wth Mahogany Body and Maple Fretboard includes Alnico V Pickups - Natural Finish for under $400 delivered taxes included.

Do I have too much Gear? Probably, but there is more to come.

_________________
Fantasy Noise is what my shop of dreams is called and was the only way to beat my addiction, like many here I suffer from G.A.S.


Tele's make the best noise

I guess my question is, will the plexi give me a good tone, being right on the edge of breaking up, into disttortion at a decent, stage volume. Or would I be better off with the s111 to get that?

All the 18W amps are highly touch-sensitive and will do the just on the edge of breaking up sound real well. Basically, you just roll back the guitar volume a little. I use a passive volume pedal for the purpose. However, if you want lots of clean range with that, then the sIII version is the better choice. The sIII's "Normal" channel is based on the classic Marshall 18W, so you can still get the definitive 18W/Plexi low-headroom grind, if you want.

Are you aiming to get the purely 6V6 version or the EL84/6V6 switchable version?

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

El84/6v6 version, I play a tele for the most part and I have a strat clone where I have it set up to switch the pups in series with eachother to get the lp sound. I also have a 4 way switch in the tele that puts the pups in series also. So with that said I'm looking for some clean headroom but I also like the grind that the humbuckerss will allow. The sound I'm after is early zep (when he was playing the tele) but be able to roll up the vol and get a nice overdriven sound. I just don't want to be in full overdriven land at too low of a volume. I hope all of my rambeling makes sense. Thaanks for all the help. Tim

Hmmm, you really only need the 6V6s for what you want to do. The sIII version will give you the extra clean range. You can add the switchable boost option to the sIII as well.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

thanks zaphod, i do like the flexibility of both the 84's and the 6v6 though. and I always wanted a plexi so i guess im having a hard time deciding against it, I know that sounds real dumb:) There is no difference with the 6v6 side of the amp, whether its with the 84's or built alone is there? And one other question that is a bit off the topic, as far as footswitching goes. I understand that as kit form, no footswitches are included. I found the topic for the soft switch, my confusion is do you use the soft switch for the boost or the 84 to 6v6, or both?

thanks again for your help

Tim

There are some resistor values that need to be changed when using 6v6s instead of EL84s. I have been discussing with Stephen a simple way to optimise the 6V6/EL84 to run both kinds of tubes optimally, as currently the 6V6s are being under-driven.

You should also note the the Trinity Plexi isn't a true Plexi. It's an 18W TMB with more Plexi-like resistor and vcap values, giving a bit more gain and breakup, and a Normal channel that's voiced darker, somewhat like the dark channel of a Metalface or late Plexi era Marshall JMP. However all the Trinity 18W amps have some of that Plexi DNA, which you can hear in their tone. Just that the sIII has a later breakup (when not running in boosted mode).


It's normally used for the boost. Also IMO it's risky to switch between power tubes in a live working amp.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Thanks for all your info zaphod, I decided to go with a sIII v6. I do have a question for you about a mod to the v6. You wrote: [quote="zaphod"]There are some resistor values that need to be changed when using 6v6s instead of EL84s. I have been discussing with Stephen a simple way to optimise the 6V6/EL84 to run both kinds of tubes optimally, as currently the 6V6s are being under-driven.

Then I found this that you wrote:

Just purely for the 6V6s, the PI's tail and cathode resistors need to be changed from 56k/820 too 20k/470. This will help get more drive to the 6V6s, which have a lot less gain than EL84s. If your amp is a more recent Trinity Plexi, it may already have the 470 ohm in there, rather than the more usual Marshall 18W's 820 ohms.

The question then is how to reduce the drivel level for the EL84s, so they don't start crapping out tone-wise. So here's what you end up doing, if you want to run both 6V6s and EL84s optimally. Instead of both sets of tubes using 470k grid reference resistors, you split each 470k into a 220k and a 250k, connected in series. So you end up with a 220k+250k (=470k) on each side. You connect each EL84's grid to the junction of it's respective 220k/250k pair, so that it's fed an attenuated version of the PI drive signal. The 6V6s are connected as before, to the top of the 220k+250k pair, via an 8.2k grid blocking resistor, just as if it was a regular 18W amp. I hope that makes some sense. It's actually simpler to do than to describe.

So my question is, does the kit come with this setup and if not is this a mod that I would want to do to get better use out of the v6 tubes?