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Last night I played a Lightning. I have played it a few times before and have been able to play it next to my amps and my neighbors’ collection. This includes a Bandmaster, a Mesa Maverick, a Top Hat Club Deluxe, and a m@z 18 Jr.

The Lightning does not keep up -it flat out kills, no - slays all the rest IMHO.

I am completely enamored with this little 1x12 combo.

Question: how much of the throaty, woody tone comes from the cab?

I have a very nice 2x12 cab and wonder if a head would lose all of the mojo? Will it retain that hollow mid range that I hear? I seem to "hear" the cab and wonder how much of what I like comes from the wood and the baffle or if it is from the amps circuit?

NONE of the other amps has that glorious tone (though some have the same speaker). I will try to run the amp through something else next time.

I'm going to jump out on a limb and say that as long as keep with the oversize cab philosophy, you should be alright.

The sound that comes out of the cab comes from the speakers. How it resonates will be more the responsibility of the cab....but the overall texture/timbre is still the responsibility of the speaker.

I'm building a head for maximum flexibility. I've got one oversized 1X12 with a G12H30 in it...and I'm probably going to build another with the exact same dimensions, sporting a red fang. I'm not worried at all that the lightning wouldn't do those two speakers justice...

the resonance too depends on the wood too.
From recently making a 1x12 (see pics in other thread), I discovered that untolexed solid pine cabinet sounds alot more alive , woody and resonant than tolexed ply. I don't think I'll use ply in a cab anymore after hearing the difference. tolex deadens the sound as it is (which is why some custom cab builders refuse to tolex their cabs, only stain and lacquer them).
In order of most resonant:
1. Solid timber (untolexed)
2. Solid timber (tolexed)
3. ply (untolexed)
4. Ply (tolexed)
5. particleboard / mdf.
I also learnt when tolexing and overlapping the edges for the baffle not to sit on / touch the tolex , this deadens the sound too. Also for the baffle to be "floating" ie. bolted to the supports but not touching the sides of the cab.

What was the baffle on the originals made from?

For that matter, what was the cab made from?

Well, that's what I meant when I said "How it resonates will be more the responsibility of the cab"


I will say this. I feel this particular aspect is way too often over thought, over analyzed and over blown.

There's a certain amount of deadening that can be desirable, depending on your style of play. If you're a rocker and you play with alot of gain...it's probably better off if you play through a tolex covered cab made with ply....and if you're one of these slacker rockers that play the detuned crap that you hear on mtv these days....then you might just benefit from a 4X12 made from mdf....because having the cab resonate might just result in alot of unwanted overtones (and worse case, feedback).

Granted, those overtones in more civilized rock, blues, etc is a desirable thing...and you might want to build a cab with some nice straight pine (if you can find it. Every time I'm buying wood, I look for straight pine, and all the stuff is warped)...

But regardless....how the cabinet resonates is only one part of the equation. I'm not saying you shouldn't worry about it....but often times I find this subject to be saddled with a little too much importance.

Personally, I find the speaker to set the stage for how the cab is going to sound....and its a far more important ingredient than the cab construction.

The other day, I played through a cabinet that was mdf...sounded great. Could it have sounded better with ply? maybe....But I wasn't complaining about this cab.

I've got an unfinished mdf 1X12 in my garage. Im mighty tempted to slap a baffle on it and mount 2 10 inchers in it....

IMHO, with no supporting empirical data, in order of effect on tone:

Most of the tone comes from the speaker.

Most of the cabinet tone comes from the cab design. Open Back, Closed back, Ported etc.

Final ingredient is cabinet materials:
Thin material resonates more than thick so will be more live sounding and add some of it's own (not necessarily great) tone.
The more dense the cabinet material, the deader the cabinet
Cabinet construction and
Coverings will dampen somewhat.

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Oh I agree will all of the above, speaker most important. I was just listing the order just based on what wood you use. I only mentioned it because prior to learning to make a cab, I thought what wood/tolex didn't matter until I heard it with my own ears.

besides if you're playing live with a band, 99% of the crowd isn't going to hear a difference b/w pine and ply and mdf. And most of them won't care. Most of these explorations are done for own personal satisfaction- our quest for tone! Hmm it's almost a disease!

I knew you had drilled down to the cab and were focusing on that. No doubt it makes a difference. But just as you say, how much and how audible?

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

See thats the thing....

I remember a quote from the Les Paul forum where the guys were arguing between a long tenon vs a short/normal tenon....

and one guy piped in with a great statement:

"Long Tenon, Short Tenon...no one knows the difference when the damn drum comes in"

Seriously, I think the big difference is Pine vs Ply vs Birch....in that order for resonance.

Good quote!

So where should it end? As gear nerds we examine every type and brand of capacitor, resistor, transformer tube, knob, speaker , wood etc etc trying to discern minute differences. When we take our amp out in the real world to gigs those differences become even more minute - with the band playing, the crowd screaming & yelling and then your amp being miked up to a P.A which probably doesn't even accurately translate the true tone of the amp.

I guess there's great in reward and satisfaction in knowing you personally built the best possible sounding amp from the best components that no mass produced amp manufacturer could do without charging a mint.
Imagine how much better guitar players we'd be if we didn't spend so much time tweaking building etc!


After all that being said, I do sincerely appreciate all the knowledge and information people here have contributed.

I agree, thanks for all of the input. However, there are, in my opinion, some valid reasons why we obsess over the "minute details".

When you are recording or playing live and you are in the zone and you stuff sounds like an extension of you expression and you don't think "I wish I had a tad more ...dirt, sustain, or whatever" you are left to think about you expression and not your tone.

This happens on occasion, and when I played the lightning for the first time, I recognized the tone as the one I had heard in my head. Now to decide if I should sell my children into indentured servitude or can I get that sound buy building a head version and running it through my custom slant front 2x12?

I think I am hearing the combo working as a a whole rather than just a circuit.

In other amps, such as Boogie combos, I think there is very little of the cabinet working for the tone; whereas in an old deluxe you can hear the whole thing "givin it up".