Curtis P Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 Well, after a crazy weekend of jamming and fooling around, i ended up getting an older tube head (Traynor) for a case of beer and 20 bucks with a new set of tubes in it (slightly hotter set he said??) i would have got the matching cab as well, but he had his basement flood, the head was upstairs and the cab was downstairs, the cab got ruined and the head was fine, so i was pretty good with that deal. So, i still have my Peavey Bandit 112, I am probaly going to trade it in on a cab (hopefully i can find a used cab at a music store or something) but i dont even know what i should be looking for?!?! My local music store when i phoned them today recommended a 4x12 Marshall, but, like usual they dont have anything used so they start out at 650 for the lower end stuff, they also reccomended a Behringer 4x12 for about 425 (these are canadian prices) I dont really know much about this stuff, all I know is that the head is a Traynor Tube head, 200 watt x 8 ohms resistance (i think it said 8 ohms, it is sitting at my grandparents house right now as i am in the current stage of re painting my room and repairing my bed) It is a tube amp, with apparently hotter tubes in it because the one burnt out? (I dont know much about tube amps either) So, I am just basiclly looking for some recomendations on what to run for a Cab, I am guessing i should go with a 4x12 over a 2x10 because a 2x10 does not put the air movement out as a 4x12 thus not letting you get the full sound quality (so i am told) So, thats it lads, help a fellow guitarist out, you guys tell me what to buy and i will go lookin for it Curtis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidnightLamp Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 Sounds like a YBA-3 amp to me. I'd get it inspected by a tech first, and have the tubes and everything else tested. I'm a tube tech in Winnipeg, so if you pm my your area, I'm sure I can hook you up with someone close to you. Does it look like this? http://www.yorkville.com/images/archive/yba3.jpg For a cab, look at some of the steamco music stuff. http://www.steamcomusic.com/ It's the canadian distributor for Avatar cabs. They're good quality cabs with good speakers at a great price. Try looking in the used section. I think they have a nice 240Watt 4x12 (with celestion vintage 30's) for around $500 Canadian. Cheers, Nish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikhailgtrski Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 +1 An Avatar is a much, much better value than a Behringer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curtis P Posted April 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 Yes, it looks like that one you posted MidnightLamp My local music store can test the tubes and such there, their tech guy is brilliant, so i will just take it to him and let him have a hay day with it. I will look into those cabs and see what i can come up with Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Sorbera Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 I don't know what cab would sound good with it, but you made a good choice with that traynor. Those things sound really good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curtis P Posted April 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 Ya, i have played a few traynors before, so when i seen it was a traynor and for the price, i wasnt passin it up No luck (as of yet) on a cab, phoned a bunch of places today on lunch. Buddy at work said "just build one, you built the shelves and desk here, you should be able to build a box with 4 holes in it for speakers no problem" I pretty much said no right then and there, before he even finished. Curtis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidnightLamp Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 That was the route I took with my first cab. a 4x8 sheet and almost a month later, I kicked myself for being too cheap to just shell out... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 Why did you say no? It's not very difficult to build cabs. All you really need is jigsaw (or router and circular saw) and a drill. Then you can put in whatever speakers you want. There are tutorials all over the internet. There's some good stuff on construction here: http://colomar.com/Shavano/construction.html and some good stuff on covering with tolex here: http://thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=70200 . Incidentally, 2x10" cabs sound just fine. I built a copy of a Trainwreck Climax a while back - mine is a 2x10" combo with Fane Alnico 10's (like most of the originals). Last time I saw a real one for sale, it was about $4000. So somebody, at least, thinks 2x10's aren't useless . 2x10" speakers moves about 40% more air than one 12" speaker. 10's do sound a little different from 12's, but each type of 12" speaker sounds different from all the other 12" speakers, so that's not a big deal. In my experience, the main reason to go from a 2x cabinet to a 4x cabinet is volume. They do sound a little "fuller" but it's not a huge difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fookgub Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 That was the route I took with my first cab. a 4x8 sheet and almost a month later, I kicked myself for being too cheap to just shell out... Really? A 4x12" cab was one of my first woodworking projects. I still have it and use it basically everyday. Building a cab is dead simple compared to guitars. and with the right drivers you ought to be able to get just about any sound you want for much less than the price of most name brand cabs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidnightLamp Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 for me, it was an issue of stability. It was a 2x12 cab, and when I finished the first one (butt joints) I just wasn't satisfied with how strong the cab was (and I haul these cabs out to gigs all the time strapped to the back of a pickup. I decided to redo the cab with dovetails, and then it took me 2 tries to get the tolex and cab cloth right. For me, a place like avatar sells cabs for like $20 extra when compared to the cost of the drivers themselves....so I find (personally) that's it's better for me to just buy em instead of attempting to build them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fookgub Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 for me, it was an issue of stability. It was a 2x12 cab, and when I finished the first one (butt joints) I just wasn't satisfied with how strong the cab was (and I haul these cabs out to gigs all the time strapped to the back of a pickup. I decided to redo the cab with dovetails, and then it took me 2 tries to get the tolex and cab cloth right. For me, a place like avatar sells cabs for like $20 extra when compared to the cost of the drivers themselves....so I find (personally) that's it's better for me to just buy em instead of attempting to build them. True, it is tough to beat the economics of an Avatar cab. I guess my initial "build it yourself" reaction was fueled mostly by my own experience with cab building. Back when I built my cab, Avatar didn't exist yet (or if they did I didn't know about them). The name brand cabinets at the local stores seemed overpriced, and the cheaper ones were clearly inferior. I didn't have a lot of money, and I had not yet realized the advantages of buying used. So when Guitar Center had a sale on Celestion's, the choice was obvious. One nice thing about building your own cab, though, is the ability to customize. Mine used to have a removable piece to go from sealed to open-back, and I quickly found that I preferred the open back configuration. Not a ton of open back 4x12's out there to choose from... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curtis P Posted April 4, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 OK, so, building a cab is not totally out of the question as of right now, but heres a few questions to those who have actually built them. What exactly did you do to wire it into the head (i know, sounds like a total nooooooobie question, but i have never done one or really looked at one to see how it is set up, ) Has anyone ever had any luck using something to cover it other then Tolex? Thats about it for now, anxiously waiting for replies. Curtis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 (edited) Well, basically, you wire the speakers up in the cab to get the impedance you want. With a 4x12" cab, you would usually wire either two pairs of speakers in series, then put the pairs in parallel, or wire two pairs of speakers in parallel, then put the pairs in series. They sound a little different because they have different branch inductance. Marshall tends to do it one way, Fender the other (sorry, I can't remember which is which). Either of these ways gives you a total impedance for the cab the same as a single one of the speakers, which is good because usually you would be using 8 ohm or 16 ohm speakers, which are also the most common impedance taps for guitar amp outputs (Your amp probably has 8 and 16 ohm taps, either with separate jacks or with a switch, but you should check to make sure before you build a cab. You can use a 16ohm cab with an 8 ohm tap safely with minor reduction in volume, and if you have to you can use an 8 ohm cab with a 16 ohm tap, but it's not really a good idea. You should NEVER use a cab with more than twice or less than half of the impedance tap of your amp). You should take some care to make sure that the speakers are all in phase with each other (i.e. all move forward at the same time). Gerald Weber's advice for testing this is to touch your speaker wires to a 9V battery, which will cause the speakers to move to one end of their travel. They should all move the same way. If not, swap the leads on the terminals to the speakers that move the wrong direction. Then you are left with some speakers all wired up, and two speaker wire leads coming off of the whole group of speakers. You wire these leads to a 1/4" jack on the back of the cabinet. Then you use a speaker cable, which is two wires with a mono 1/4" jack on each end, and plug one end into the cab and one end into the speaker output of the head. DO NOT USE A GUITAR INSTRUMENT CABLE FOR THIS. EVER. I use speaker cable to do both the internal wiring and make the cable that goes between the head and the cab (you know, the stuff you buy for running from a power amp to hi-fi speakers). Edited April 4, 2007 by jnewman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fookgub Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 OK, so, building a cab is not totally out of the question as of right now, but heres a few questions to those who have actually built them. What exactly did you do to wire it into the head (i know, sounds like a total nooooooobie question, but i have never done one or really looked at one to see how it is set up, ) I've used standard 1/4" connectors on a couple different cabs. Nothing fancy, just decent quality Switchcraft ones like you might find on a guitar. High current ones are available, but I never felt like I needed them. I've also used the Neutrik connectors. They seemed like such a great idea on paper, but in practice I don't like how expensive the cables and connectors are (I make my own cables and it's still expensive). Also, you can't expect to be able to borrow a replacement cable if one craps out on a gig. Even if you find a replacement, it may have the wrong number of conductors. I installed a 4-pin Neutrik on one of my bass cabs so I could bi-amp it, and it occasionally worries me that I only have one spare cable and I probably wouldn't be able find it if I needed it. As far as coverings, I've used black carpet and truckbed liner. Both are easy to apply, very durable, and very ugly. If you don't care about looks, use truckbed liner. I've never tried it, but some of the vinyl laminates at Parts Express look promising. A lot of them are peel-and-stick, which might make application easier. You could also veneer the cab, or just use good looking wood and stain and clear it. Neither of the last two options seem particularly durable, but imagine your bandmates' faces when you show up for rehersal with a cab completely covered in dyed flame maple! Chicks would dig it, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curtis P Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Ok, i took a look at the amp again, it is not 8 ohm, it is a switchable 2 or 4 ohm application. So, this made it a little trickier to find speakes, Carvin sells a set of 4 ohm 300 watt speakers at 69.97 each plus tax and shipping, I have not yet called any music stores to price just celestion speakers, i am waiting to hear back from my uncle who is the owner and manager for Walters Music in Oshawa Ontario, he thought he had a lead on a Marshall 4x12 cab with a few scratches in it and the front was ripped a bit, he was looking into it for me. Curtis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted April 5, 2007 Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 (edited) Well, you can put four 16ohm speakers all in parallel to get a 4ohm cab, or four 8ohm speakers all in parallel to get a 2ohm cab. Edited April 5, 2007 by jnewman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komodo Posted April 10, 2007 Report Share Posted April 10, 2007 FYI-Carvin cabs are nice. The Vai Legacy 2x12 is only $399 loaded with two Celestian Vintage 30's. I just don't see how you can beat that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted April 10, 2007 Report Share Posted April 10, 2007 The only problem with that is that his amp would blow the speakers in record time . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curtis P Posted April 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2007 Well, I finally have a day off work so i am takin a little road trip to Oshawa first thing in the morning, have to sort out my passport in Whitby Ontario (just a little further then Oshawa) so, on my way back, I am stopping in at my uncles music store and tryin to strike up a deal. Curtis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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