Speaker Shootout - V30 vs G12T-75

Richardj

For the speaker boffins, or in fact everyone that knows more than me - not difficult!

I hear less than favorable opinions about the V30 and now find myself finding the one fitted to my Roadhouse 30 a bit harsh and tiring.

I have the option to swap it out for a UK made G12T-75 and initial thoughts are that it could well be a bit smoother and easier on the ear.

Thoughts and opinions welcome and I do realise that it is a bit subjective and personal taste.

(@Camf - got the baffle off.  A combination of rocket science and brutality!)

samzadgan

my impression has always been that the G12T-75's are good in a 4x12 but not by themselves...i may be wrong though.

 

ICBM

The G12T-75 is not smoother than the V30, quite the opposite. It's much looser-sounding, has a boomy bottom-end, clearer/scooped mids and a buzzy top-end. It's also less efficient.

If you can try it without buying a new speaker it's worth a go as it's so much the opposite end of the spectrum it will give a good reference.

If you want to pick a speaker which will probably sound better than either of them in that amp I would go for the Creamback G12M-65 (slightly quieter, more middy) or Creamback G12H-75 (slightly louder, deeper).

Richardj

Cheers.  Well, it had to be worth a try and, to me anyway, it actually sounds a bit nicer.  'Looser' is definitely a good description, but in a good way.  It has a broader sound and a little less punch, but as I said I was finding the V30 a little too punchy and quite harsh in the RH30. The G12T seems to have rounded the tone in an agreeable way.  I'll leave it overnight and see how it sounds with fresh ears.

I wonder how the V30 would sound in my Koch Twintone II instead of the stock Seca/Jensen thing...........

gearaddict

I used to think I maybe preferred the G12T-75 to the V30, based on having bought a standard Marshall 1936 and then swapping the speakers for V30s...I wasn't all that convinced there was much, if any, improvement.

However, more recently I spent some time swapping different kinds of speaker around and it was really clear to me that the V30 is a much nicer sounding speaker. Smoother, deeper, more full-bodied...just nicer.

MDKV

G12H is my favorite. 

Voxman

I have a V30 in my Laney Cub 12R and a G12T75 in my Marshall Valvestate 8080 which has a much bigger cabinet. Both sound good in respective amps and I have never had any reason to change the G12T75.

ICBM

The 75 is a very good choice for a lot of solid-state amps, because the looser sound gets them a bit closer to the low damping character of a valve power amp.

samzadgan

ICBM;388710" said:

The 75 is a very good choice for a lot of solid-state amps, because the looser sound gets them a bit closer to the low damping character of a valve power amp.

Good to know...makes a lot of sense.

In the future I want to replace the 75's in my 4x12 with some creambacks...i think they would sound so much better with my superbass

siraxeman

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

The G12T-75 is not smoother than the V30, quite the opposite. It's much looser-sounding, has a boomy bottom-end, clearer/scooped mids and a buzzy top-end. It's also less efficient.

If you can try it without buying a new speaker it's worth a go as it's so much the opposite end of the spectrum it will give a good reference.

Agreed. The v30 is actually pretty smooth IMO (though it sort of depends on what you mean by "smooth").

(I haven't tried the creambacks yet, or the amp in question, so that's why I left out the last bit you wrote )

ICBM

Annoyingly I haven't had an excuse to either! Although I have tried a few Cornfords, and I thought V30s were almost the worst possible choice... the amps are already on the too-middy side, even without one.

The real problem was that until the Gold and the Creambacks came out, you couldn't really get more vintage-voiced speakers with higher power handling - the only real candidates were things like the G12-65 and Classic Lead, and they're pretty modern really. So V30s might have looked like the only option.

Although I still can't work out why anyone would put one in the little 5W Harlequin, it sounds *dreadful*. Literally almost any other speaker would be better! And as you know V30s are some of my favourite speakers .

ThePrettyDamned

samzadgan;388762" said:

[quote="ICBM;388710"]The 75 is a very good choice for a lot of solid-state amps, because the looser sound gets them a bit closer to the low damping character of a valve power amp.

Good to know...makes a lot of sense.

In the future I want to replace the 75's in my 4x12 with some creambacks...i think they would sound so much better with my superbass
[/quote]

Keep the 75s for a jcm800!

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

Annoyingly I haven't had an excuse to either! Although I have tried a few Cornfords, and I thought V30s were almost the worst possible choice... the amps are already on the too-middy side, even without one.

The real problem was that until the Gold and the Creambacks came out, you couldn't really get more vintage-voiced speakers with higher power handling - the only real candidates were things like the G12-65 and Classic Lead, and they're pretty modern really. So V30s might have looked like the only option.

Although I still can't work out why anyone would put one in the little 5W Harlequin, it sounds *dreadful*. Literally almost any other speaker would be better! And as you know V30s are some of my favourite speakers .

Agreed. I've tried a few of the cornfords too (and I agree, they're fairly dark/middy-sounding), just not the roadhouse Richardj has.

I haven't tried the Harlequin, but at one point I was sort of considering a Carrera (which as far as I'm aware is a Harlequin with more bells and whistles). No dealers here in NI, and I wasn't that far off ordering one without trying it, when (very luckily) a local shop got one in second hand. I wouldn't say it sounded horrendous, I did sort of like it... but nowhere near enough to buy it (and I agree with you, I don't think the V30 was helping). I think I sort of dodged a bullet with that one. )

Cirrus

Funnily enough though I've never had a Cornford amp I have had one of their closed back 2x12 V30 cabs. And that cab was so middy I was shocked - my ownership of it overlapped with a Zilla 2x12 also with V30s and the difference was incredible. That Cornford just threw gobs of upper mids at you with very little bass. And this was a front loaded, properly sealed back design with glue and everything. I actually checked the speaker phase and tried two Mesa brand V30s in it to see if the speakers were faulty, to no effect.

ICBM

Cirrus said:

Funnily enough though I've never had a Cornford amp I have had one of their closed back 2x12 V30 cabs. And that cab was so middy I was shocked - my ownership of it overlapped with a Zilla 2x12 also with V30s and the difference was incredible. That Cornford just threw gobs of upper mids at you with very little bass. And this was a front loaded, properly sealed back design with glue and everything. I actually checked the speaker phase and tried two Mesa brand V30s in it to see if the speakers were faulty, to no effect.

Front-loading seems to exaggerate the mids on V30s and make them harsher. They're a very 'touchy' speaker - don't like front loading, don't like small cabs, don't like being single, don't like middy amps…! Lots of things that make them sound bad, but if you get them with the right amp and cab they're fantastic.

I can totally understand why almost as many people hate them as like them. I have no idea why they've become the 'one size fits all' premium speaker, they're really not the best choice for that at all. The only thing I can really think of is that they're very loud, so they make an amp sound impressive when compared to one without a V30 in a shop.

Cirrus

I wonder if they'd be as ubiquitous if instead of being called "vintage 30" they were called "modern 60"?

A rose by any other name...

Richardj

Interesting what you say about front and rear loading.  I really thought that the G12T sounded pretty good front loaded into the Cornford cab.  The thing is built like an outhouse and maybe it doesn't help with making the speaker sound harsh.  Perhaps it helped to tighten up the sound of the G12T.  If I choose to eventually sell the Cornford will people see the G12T as a downgrade, even if it might sound a bit better?

ICBM

Well after reading this thread last night I had the bright idea to swap out the V30 in the shop's Cornford Harlequin and see if I could make it sound better and maybe help sell it...

What a total pain in the arse!

First, getting the grille out is so difficult that I almost began to suspect it was glued in. First you have to remove the four screws (easy) and take the corner protectors off (easy), and then you have to try to get the grille out, without damaging either it or the cabinet. It's jammed in so tightly that at one point I seriously considered just leaving it... but there is a way: if you put oversized wood screws in the four holes so they grip the frame and don't go through into the cabinet, you can pull the grille out - it still wasn't easy, I had to lever it out by gripping the screws under their heads with pliers and levering against pieces of scrap wood on the edge of the cab, and slowly working it out by going round and round one corner at a time. Ten minutes! No I am not kidding.

Then I undid the speaker bolts, and tried to take it out... and found that it actually *was* glued to the baffle with a double-sided sticky gasket. WTF?!! There is absolutely no need for this in an open-back cab. More careful levering with flat screwdrivers under the edge trying to avoid indenting the wood... another five minutes, but again no damage. (Lever upwards only, so the indents are well under the rim of the speaker and hidden.)

I had a spare cheap Eminence to hand I wanted to try, so I put it in... and discovered that they've made the mounting circle at the upper limit for a Celestion, which is very slightly larger than an Eminence, so the bolts won't fit!!! I really wished I'd never started this now.

But the good news is that I managed to wedge the Eminence in just well enough to test the amp, and it sounds *miles* better. The horrible nasal middyness is gone and the amp now has some bottom-end - and that's not even with a good speaker. So I hope all I need to do now is find a different Celestion...

Sorry for the essay! I just needed to vent a bit about the utter bloody-mindedness of whoever thought it was a good idea to build an amp like this .

Richardj

ICBM said:

Well after reading this thread last night I had the bright idea to swap out the V30 in the shop's Cornford Harlequin and see if I could make it sound better and maybe help sell it...

What a total pain in the arse!

First, getting the grille out is so difficult that I almost began to suspect it was glued in. First you have to remove the four screws (easy) and take the corner protectors off (easy), and then you have to try to get the grille out, without damaging either it or the cabinet. It's jammed in so tightly that at one point I seriously considered just leaving it... but there is a way: if you put oversized wood screws in the four holes so they grip the frame and don't go through into the cabinet, you can pull the grille out - it still wasn't easy, I had to lever it out by gripping the screws under their heads with pliers and levering against pieces of scrap wood on the edge of the cab, and slowly working it out by going round and round one corner at a time. Ten minutes! No I am not kidding.

Then I undid the speaker bolts, and tried to take it out... and found that it actually *was* glued to the baffle with a double-sided sticky gasket. WTF?!! There is absolutely no need for this in an open-back cab. More careful levering with flat screwdrivers under the edge trying to avoid indenting the wood... another five minutes, but again no damage. (Lever upwards only, so the indents are well under the rim of the speaker and hidden.)

Exactly what I found I had to do, except I used a thin piece of wood on the edge of the cab and a claw hammer to ease up on the over sized screws heads. It took a lot of gradual levering moving from corner to corner until I could get enough clear to lever it out by hand.  To then find the speaker effectively glued in by the double sided foam was a real 'aaarg' moment, but just as you found, a screwdriver and another block to lever against eventually brought it out.

So, are we saying V30s are bad in the Cornfords and the G12T really could be an improvement?

Cirrus

Yes, I did exactly the same thing with the speaker swap I did! Unfortunately my first idea was to use the logo plate as leverage which bent it irrevocably...  ">

I couldn't believe how hard it was and when I got to the double sided sticky tape part I admit I nearly gave up.