Mixing Up Speakers

Status Quo

I think I have some really great speakers for my guitar amps.  I have a Celestion G12H Anniversary (8ohm), a Celestion Vintage 30 (16 ohm), a WGS HM75 (16 ohm) and a WGS ET65 (8ohm).

The Celestion G12H Anniversary has been in my Marshall DSL 15C combo, the WGS ET65 has been in my Marshall DSL 40C combo, and the Celestion Vintage 30 and WGS HM75 have been in a 2x12 cabinet that I used with my HEAT head (a point-to-point hand-wired 50watt head based on a Marshall JCM800 2204).

Changes in Amp Preferences

A while back, my preferred amp was my Marshall DSL 40C.  Lately, 
I've been using the Marshall DSL 15C combo a lot.  After some mods and changes in tube selection, the DSL 15C amp is dialed in.  

After I added a post phase inverter volume control the HEAT head and switched to JJ 6V6S power tubes, instead of EL34 power tubes, I have excellent control of volume levels and can drive that amp harder, which delivers clean to crunchy, with a little creaminess all around.

After some speaker comparisons between the Celestion G12H Anniversary and the Celestion Vintage 30, I decided that while the two speakers provide a similar tone, the Vintage 30 has more body.  So, I  moved the Vintage 30 to the DSL 15C amp.

Extension Speaker Cabinet

Now that the speaker in the DSL 15C is 16ohm instead of 8om, it is possible to plug a 16ohm extension speaker cabinet to the DSL 15C and run both the internal speaker and the extension cab together.  It is simple thing to plug two 16ohm speaker loads into the DSL 15C (the amp was built with that option).

To make my speaker cabinet a 16ohm load instead of an 8ohm load, I put the two 8ohm speakers in the cabinet and wired it in series.  Now the cabinet has the WGS ET65 and the Celestion G12H Anniversary speakers in it.  These two speakers compliment each other, with the tight lows and great mids of the WGS ET65, coupled with the Celestion G12H filling out the upper mids while adding a little sparkle.

One perk of the switching the speakers around and loading that way is that now the speaker cabinet will work with any of my amps: the DSL15C, the DSL40C and the HEAT head.

Leftovers!

The leftovers are the Marshall DSL 40C and the WGS HM75.  They pair up nicely.  The DSL40C is a great rock amp, and the WGS HM75 is great rock speaker.  If you don't know about the WGS HM75 speakers, they are a lot like the Celestion G12T-75, one of the most loved speakers for rock and hard-rock, but the WGS HM75 a bit smoother without the notorious high-end and not quite as scooped.  

If you read this entire blog entry, what is wrong with you?  I mean, sure, I wrote it, but you read it! 

Enjoy the Music!

Jimmy