trinityamps.com

The conundrum: I'd like to build a 2x12" cab for the TC-15-to-be, and I've more or less settled on a combo of an alnico and a ceramic - but I'm not sure which.

I can get a Celestion Blue + G12H for about 20% less (lower shipping, no duties to pay) here than I can find a Tone Tubby AlNiCo/Ceramic 12" pair, and I suspect the slightly lower watt rated Celestions are likely going to play nicer with 15 watts of tube power. However, my impression of most Vox-style amps is that they're quite bright, and the Tone Tubbies may tame that tendency slightly.

The other issue: I've got a Rivera TBR, which is (stereo) 60 watt tube power, ie too much to pump through a cab with a Blue and a G12H in it. Going a little over seems fine, but this is a lot over. The alternative: get a Gold instead of a Blue, which far as I can tell has similar breakup, but better power handling.

The main problem: I can't really try these combos out here without buying the speakers myself, so if anyone's used one or more of these speakers in some combination, please do share!

Mattia

A Recording Engineer who recently borrowed the original TC-15 did a real evaluation of speakers with the TC-15. I'll dig up his emails & get his OK to post them. Better yet, I'd like to get him to post them!

He really put them to the test with some very interesting results.

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Hi, I'm Brent - the engineer that Stephen's referring to... Stephen and I had extensive email correspondence during the time I was putting the TC-15 through it's paces. I'll try to compile all that and post it here, but in the meantime, thought I'd chime in on the question of speaker choice...

Now, I don't have a cab with either a Blue or a Gold (will soon though!) so I can't speak to those particular speakers, but I did run the TC-15 through a number of cabs with different speakers - the results were interesting, and somewhat surprising to me!

But first things first, these are the cabs I have in my studio

Orange PPC212 2x12 Cabinet (V30)
70's Hiwatt SE4123 4x12 Cabinet (Original Fanes)
Mesa Boogie "Oversize" Recto 4x12 Cabinet (V30)
Marshall 1960A 4X12 Cabinet (G12T-75)
Marshall 1960AX 4x12 Cabinet (G12M-25 "Greenbacks")
Marshall 1965A 4X10 Cabinet (G10)
60's Fender 2X12 Cabinet (Original Oxfords)
Peavey 1x12 Cabinet (G12 "Classic Lead")

Now, FWIW and for sake of comparison I also have an AC-30 (with Greenbacks). I LOVE this amp and it sounds GREAT with Greens (and obviously Blues too!!). I should also mention my favourite cab is my Hiwatt cab - those Fanes sound amazing with everything... well, almost everything... And for context, my testing was done during recording a young band I'm working with. The music is rock with everything from clean/slightly dirty tones right through to ripping high gain!

OK, so what did I anticipate would sound best? I thought for sure my Hiwatt would kill with the TC-15. I thought I would love the Greenbacks because they sound FANTASTIC in my AC-30, and with every other amp I own with a "vintage" voice. And I would expect my old Bassman 2x12 to sound amazing too (admittedly I haven't tried this cab with the Trinity yet - tomorrow!!). I expected I would hate the V30's and the Marshall G12T's...

OK, so what actually sounded the best?!? Drumroll please... for my tastes, the V30's!!! Both the Mesa cab and the Orange cab are PHENOMENAL with the TC-15. My favourite sounds of the bunch. I also loved my stock Marshall 1960 cab with the G12T's - I was very surprised by this - I usually only like this cab with my high gain amps. And the sleeper KILLER cab was the Marshall 4x10 - Wow! This was a special combination. I think the way I put it to Stephen was the TC-15 with the Marshall 4x10 was like the coolest combo amp I've ever heard!!! My least favourite cabs? The Hiwatt and the Marshall with Greenbacks...

OK, so why was I so surprised and what did I expect? Well, the TC-15 is a very bright amp... VERY bright! As Mattia has suggested, I expected I would want a speaker to tame the top end somewhat. But what I learned in my experimentation is that the majority of the very special character that the TC-15 possesses is in it's top end - taming that with a "warmer" speaker kind of killed the character of the amp for me - made the TC-15 sound somewhat blah and generic (which it is ABSOLUTELY NOT!). I found that the brighter speaker choices really enhanced what's special about the amp and brought out it's true character. Having said that, I did have to use the "cut" knob more to it's extremes, but the result was the top end was smooth and all the true character of the amp remained...

So my first post was a long one!! I'm going to get out of here before you folks get sick of me already! Hope someone finds this useful.

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

Hey Brent,

thanks for the roundup! Very interesting read, with a few unexpected conclusions, thanks! The upside: I should be able to find V30 and similar equipped cabs easily for test drive purposes come the time.

The 4x10 comment is intruiging, though. Don't laugh, but the 'speaker cab model' I tend to like most when noodling around with my guitarport is the 4x10, so I'm clearly going to have to try one of those out as well.

Oh yeah - I'm a real 4x10 guy as well! I think 10's are really underrated for guitar. Love the tightness and focus...

FWIW, I also had a chance to run the TC-15 through my 60's Fender Bassman 2x12 with Oxfords - It was pretty cool, made the Trinity sound like a "vintage" amp. Had that dark, thick, warm "old" thing going on... I can imagine this would be the first choice for someone that likes the sound of vintage amps. I also tried out the TC-15 with a 1x12 cab I forgot I had - a friend of mine gave me the shell of his first ever cheesy cheap Peavey combo loaded with a Celestion Classic Lead 80. The cab itself is pretty lo-fi, but the Classic Lead sounded pretty cool - not my favourite speaker by any means, but it gave the TC-15 a certain Marshally quality - it sounds very balanced from top to bottom and very "rock & roll". It might be the speaker of choice for a "Marshall guy" that's intrigued by the TC-15 but is afraid the amp might be too much of departure from his beloved Marshalls!!

But again, I went around the room plugging into all my cabs and the best to my ears are still the V30 cabs, followed by the Marshalls - the 4x10 and the 1960 cab with G12T-75's... Then I went to Stephen's and played through his cab with Tone Tubby's - I LOVED the Alnico Tone Tubby's - not more than the V30's, but they were different. The TT has a real detailed hi-fi thing going on - the V30 has this tight, focused, balanced, cool kind of rock&roll thing going on...

Hope this helps!

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

I play my T15 and TC 15 through the following:

-Orange 4x12 straight front with 4 Vintage 30's
-Home made 2x12 with G12H-30's (closed back, same size as an Orange 2x12)
-Home made closed back vertical 2x12 with Tubby 12" Alnico and 12" ceramic
-Home made 1x12 with single Celestion lead 80 (open back)
-Home made 1x12 with single Celestion V30 (open back)

My favorite cab by far is the 4x12. Big sound, lots of bottom end and still shimmery and clear.

The lead 80 sounds surprisingly great for harder rock tones, and the G12H-30's also sound excellent. I find the Tubby cab a bit bright VS the V30's and prefer that cab with my Trinity 18 watter...

If I had one cab only, I would keep the 4x12, as much a pain in the bum it is to haul around.

AJC

Well it's unanimous then! 4x12's with V30's all around!!

And yeah, that Classic Lead 80 surprised me (and Stephen!) too!! That Tone Tubby Alnico really is brilliant (as in great, not trebly!) also...

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

Given the V30 & Classic lead 80 are close to the same price, I'd be opting for the V30 - were I going to use the Celestion speakers.

Brent, you had a Mesa 212 cab [I think] that you liked with V30s in it. What model, dimensions & design [closed/open].

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Stephen - I don't have the Mesa 2x12... The only Mesa cab I own is the oversized Recto 4x12. The TC-15 with the Mesa 4x12 is MASSIVE - probably too much for guys that play at home most of the time. What I was suggesting is that the Mesa Recto 2x12 might be the "perfect" cab for the TC-15 in environments that aren't appropriate for a 4x12... My Orange 2x12 does indeed have the V30's in it, is oversized as well and sounds amazing with the TC-15, but the Orange cab is a little darker and focused sounding than the Mesa stuff. There's an openness to the Mesa stuff that I think is great with your amp. So, while I didn't in fact test the Recto 2x12, I suspect it would be GREAT.... Here's the scoop:

2x12 Rectifier® Horizontal
Guitar Cabinet

Performance Features:

* 120 Watt
* V30 Speakers
* Closed Back
* 8 Ohm

Finish & Construction:

* Marine Grade Baltic Birch Cabinet
* Black Taurus Vinyl Covering
* Black Twisted Jute Grille
* Black Piping
* Trak-Loc™ Removable Casters
* Slip Cover

*DIMENSIONS:

17-1/2in H
30-1/8in W
14--1/4in D

44.45cm H
76.52cm W
36.20cm D

*WEIGHT:

61 lbs

27.67 kg

FWIW, my Recto 4x12 is significantly larger physically and sonically compared to all my other 4x12 cabs...

Hope this helps!!

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

Wow, I would have guessed the Fanes would be the winer. The V30's, however, do have the midrange quality that the TC might like.

_________________
Guitologist at Large
"How does that feel?"

Yeah, I was surprised too! That Hiwatt cab is my "goto" cab for almost EVERYTHING! It ALWAYS works... until now... and the last thing I expected was the Mesa, which built its reputation in high gain music, would be my favourite... But man, it really sounds GREAT.

Stephen's going to build me a cab to go with my TC-15. I'm contemplating the Tone Tubby Alnico's for that one, so it'll be interesting to see if this changes once I get the TT's in the mix...

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

Coco, here's another question I've long meant to ask someone, related to testing various speakers with the same amp. Is it safe to use a good quality ABY switch pedal, or does the split-second open circuit as the switch operates endanger the output transformer? If this is not advisable practice, is there another way to A-B different speakers without the delay of powering down, reconnecting, and powering back up (during which time one forgets what he heard)?

I truly appreciate BGroup's very helpful comparisons, but by the very nature of testing, it is impossible to cover all the settings/inputs/etc. that most of us will want to compare.

Thanks!
Jim

would not damage an OT.

I agree on the timing issue so I load up all the clips I want to test, and then click from one to the other really quickly.

Works well for me anyway.

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Hey Jim - I can't speak to the AB switch, I'll let Stephen answer that one - and when I was doing those clips, I just hit standby and unpatched/repatched... I wanted to keep the speaker cable consistent so that the results were not influenced by two or more different sounding speaker cables (geeky I know, but I think different cables sound different!!)

And I would certainly encourage you to do your own round of testing, but fwiw, I found that the cabs I liked best, particularly with the TC, I liked best regardless of the channel, input, crunch/munch setting, amount of gain or whatever (I did a lot of play testing with a number of different guitars/tones outside of just doing the clips ). Not to say that you wouldn't find differently, but I'm confident that if I plug in my Mesa 4x12 with my TC it's going to sound GREAT regardless of the tone or guitar I use...

In any case, if you do some testing, let us know what you find!!!!

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com