Help! choosing a 2x12 cab

Ash.J.Williams

Hi I am looking for a 2x12 cab on a budget and the Harley benton vintage is a tough one to beat. 195 euro for 2 celestion v30's in a cheap cab...

I was also looking at the laney GS212IE which comes in at 269 euro.

Has anyone used any of these?

My googling has shown that the HB is a cheap build with quality speakers and the laney is well built with inferior speakers (celestion 70 80's)...

what would you do?

I have a marshall DSL 100w head. Cab is for home use.

Squidgy Black

It all depends on what kind of speakers you want. V30's tend to be very midsy, they're amazing speakers for metal because of it. The Laney speakers would be more mellow, but inferior in sound quality.

If the cab's for home use only, build quality isn't really important. It'd be different if you were gigging etc, as then you'd need a more reliable and stronger cab.

Demeyes

I have one of the harley benton 2x12's and the older version of the Laney but my Laney is a 4x12 and I think the older one had different celestions in it. The Harley Benton sounds great and I have gigged mine a bit and it still looks good. It's not built super heavy duty but I can't see mine breaking. The plus side of it's construction is it's not super heavy to carry around. The Laney should also be a really nice cab but I don't know anything about those speakers s I can't comment on them.

Frusciante

Why not just get a cheap cab http://www.thomann.de/ie/vht_special_speakercabav_sp_212vht.htm
and put a new speaker/speakers in (depending on your budget)
http://www.thomann.de/ie/celestion_g_12_century_vintage_16_ohm.htm
I have one of these in my blues deluxe and it really makes a huge difference.
If i were gettin a cab i'd be more interested in the speakers than the build... although if you're gonna be spending a couple hundred euro, you might as well save up a little bit more and get a decent cab and great speakers.

68 lost souls

The cabnit has a lot to do with the sound as well. Also if he is going to get a cheap cab the Harley Benton one he is talking about already comes with 2 celestion v30s at a cheaper cost than the ones you are pointing out. If you try out a thick birch cab conpared to a thin generic plywood cab you will see the difference. The construction of the cabs also has a lot to do with.

While it is not as important as the speaker it does still have an effect.

They touch on it a bit here.

http://www.duncanamps.com/technical/speaker_cab.html

zafo

Afaik the Celestions in the HB cabs are not the same speakers as what you get when you buy the speakers seperately. The HB ones are basically licensed Chinese clones of the real V30s. Still great value for money and tehy sound really good.

Warehouse speakers in the states also do very good quality Celestion clones, I know a few people who are more than happy with their V30 and greenbacks.

spiderjazz

zafo wrote: »

Afaik the Celestions in the HB cabs are not the same speakers as what you get when you buy the speakers seperately. The HB ones are basically licensed Chinese clones of the real V30s. Still great value for money and tehy sound really good.

Warehouse speakers in the states also do very good quality Celestion clones, I know a few people who are more than happy with their V30 and greenbacks.

Not questioning you on the whether the speakers are clones or not, but all recent celestion production speakers, bar the top of the line models, are chinese made. By all accounts, very little to difference between them and the english made models.

dermo909

I had that HB cab for a couple of years and I thought it was great. It sounded fantastic for the money. I would'nt worry about the build quality either unless you are touring and it would get thrown around alot.

I only sold mine because it was 8Ohm mono and I needed one that was 16Ohm mono to match my marshall combo.

It sounded great with my orange head though and I'd buy one again if I wanted a great sounding cab for little cash.

Ash.J.Williams

UPDATE:
I ended buying an interesting old randall jaguar 4x12...very big and heavy, lots of low end and loud.