New cab day

danban · October 2023

So I’ve finally bitten the bullet on a 2x12 cabinet.

It’s a Zilla vertical fat boy loaded with an alnico goldback and a creamback H75.

I’m liking the creamback but the jury is still out on the gold alnico.

Hopefully this’ll be me weined off 4x12 cabs for good.

Also my rocker 30 head fits perfectly on top.

fretmeister · October 2023

Nice.

I had a Zilla Studio Pro for a while and it was very nice. Good quality cabs.

In hindsight I should have kept it and loaded it with G12-65 cones and bought a(nother) Marshall to go on it!

mrkb · October 2023

Was that the one on eBay? I was tempted by that.

ecc83 · October 2023

I am pleased to see more 2x12 cabs 'going vertical'. This makes acoustic sense because you get the horizontal dispersion of a single 12 but reduced vertical spread. That keeps sound from hitting the ceiling a bit and gives you a dB or two greater sensitivity.

Elevating one speaker unit also helps clean up the bottom end. Cabs close to the floor are rather 'tubby' and it is always good idea to put them on a chair or stacked beer cartes.

Dave.

danban · October 2023

mrkb said:

Was that the one on eBay? I was tempted by that.

It certainly was, it popped on Facebook marketplace shortly after it was put on eBay.

The cab is pretty much as new.

danban · October 2023

Same here, it’s tricky to find good vertical 2x12 that your guitar head fits on without looking silly.

The Marshall vertical ones have this issue by being too skinny in width and depth.

I also wanted to avoid basically having a 2x12 config in a 4x12 enclosure.

DartmoorHedgehog · October 2023

Nice cab. I think if I was in the market for a cab now I'd go for a vertical one as well - I've got an Orange compact "diagonal" 2x12 that sounds really good (also with a Rocker 30 head) so I've got no reason to change really, but sometimes I think a vertical one would be nice.

As for being too narrow for the head, Orange heads are a fair bit narrower than most Marshalls anyway so I'm surprised you say the R30 is too wide for the Marshall vertical 2x12. I wouldn't have thought you could go much narrower than a R30 head and still fit a 12" speaker in sensibly! Head wider than the cab is a bad look though definitely.

Nerine · October 2023

Vertical 2x12's should in theory (and in practice in my experience) sound superior to horizontal ones.

It's a similar thing with PA subwoofers. I often cringe when you see a LR stack of subs. Deploying them in the centre is a much better solution, sonically. You will run into less power alleys and valleys than with an LR setup.

It's to do with speaker coupling. You can have subs (speakers) side by side, but the dispersion pattern will alter. Vertically stacked speakers will not suffer this as much. I think for a pair of subwoofers, you calculate the wavelength of your crossover frequency and can deploy them a quarter of that wavelength distance away from each other and be ok (if not literally next to each other), but just chucking them about the place is a big no no. I would even advocate one sub in a room has the potential to sound more even than a pair in a "stereo" LR format in a typical bins and tops scenario.

Vertical speakers disperse better horizontally as has been said. It's why Line Array systems are commonplace nowadays.

I'm not saying a pair of 12's in a horizontal cab aren't going to be coupled or they'll sound shit, (they won't), but there will be an element of horizontal smearing and cancellation that simply doesn't exist in the vertical configuration. Theoretically, a vertical 2x12 should sound more consistent across the room.

This dude is pretty good at going through all this stuff if anyone is curious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2GJ77IpjjA&list=PLqLfCybtxh0H7gaGak2Gfe3ogiyogc6bX&index=2

danban · October 2023

DartmoorHedgehog said:

Nice cab. I think if I was in the market for a cab now I'd go for a vertical one as well - I've got an Orange compact "diagonal" 2x12 that sounds really good (also with a Rocker 30 head) so I've got no reason to change really, but sometimes I think a vertical one would be nice.

As for being too narrow for the head, Orange heads are a fair bit narrower than most Marshalls anyway so I'm surprised you say the R30 is too wide for the Marshall vertical 2x12. I wouldn't have thought you could go much narrower than a R30 head and still fit a 12" speaker in sensibly! Head wider than the cab is a bad look though definitely.

I had to use one of those new jubilee 2x12 vertical slanted cabs at a gig and found my head overhanging in all directions and it also made the rig feel top heavy - ready to topple over.

I tried the orange vertical 2x12 cab but didn’t like the neo speakers or the open back nature of it either.

DartmoorHedgehog · October 2023

danban said:

I tried the orange vertical 2x12 cab but didn’t like the neo speakers or the open back nature of it either.

I haven't seen one of the Orange vertical cabs, but I do like open-back. Mine's one of the compact open-back 2x12s with the speakers in a slightly diagonal layout, currently with an H75 and a V30. I don't know if the "diagonalness" is enough to help with the sonic problems of a horizontal 2x12, but I reckon it sounds pretty good (if you like open-back cabs).

Anyway, that Zilla looks superb.

Moe_Zambeek · October 2023

I just bought an orange ppc212v, the vertical open back one. I also have a closed back horizontal H&K 2x12 with neos in - I think i prefer the vertical, but I do prefer an open back cab generally.

The neos have grown on me and work well with the orange. The weight saving is really nice too…

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