marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

[ravendouglas]

View attachment 18121i have a 100 watt purple special edition mg half stack.i have been concidering 2 options.option number 1..sell the amp.option number 2..replace stock speakers with something else,like vintage 30s.but i am also not sure if you can improve the sound much of a 300 dollar cabinet. the problem i am having is at about half way up on the volume knob the signal and sound start to muddy and distort,but at way to low of a volume for my taste.i always run the amp on the clean channel with the gain at 9 o clock,the bass at 3 o clock,the mids at 11 o clock,and the highs at about 1 oclock.i use the clean channel because i use a digitech gnx 3000 guitar workstation .i play guitars with both active and passive p.u.s

 

[FuseG4]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

hmmm you may want to think about upgrading. I mean 4 vintage 30's is like, $580 retail... for a lil more, plus whatever you could hock the old rig for, you might be able to step things up a notch or two. It depends.
So what kind of music do you play? How loud do you need to go, and what do you like and dislike about you current rig?

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

i want monster volume with out speaker muddiness..i think its just the price level of the cabinet..you get what you pay for..i have to keep the cab,its a matched set in purple tolex,so again the question becomes how much can you improve a low price cab?i play metal and weird sabath mixed with floyd stuff.

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

no amp should break up at half way on the volume

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

the amp actually sounds great..untill the volume knob hits 5 or 6,then what my ears are telling me is the lows fade to the back,and the highs take over and start to distort and muddy.and not in a good way.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

no amp should break up at half way on the volume

Yeah it depends on the circuit and speaker I guess. Some tube amps (especially single-ended el84 amps!) are kinda meant for that. Go play a marshall class 5 for a few minutes and see what I mean.

But anyways, the cab itself does put a limit onto how much clarity you can get out of the speakers, but that's not to say that the right speakers wouldn't make a big difference over what you have.

If putting regular celestions vs. the "OEM celestions" in that cab is anything like when I swapped an Eminence OEM blackheart speaker with one from Eminence's retail line, you'll notice a big increase in clarity.

if you don't want speaker breakup you should go for higher wattage speakers. V30's each take 60W so...
right now you've got 100W of amp going into a speakers that take a combined wattage of 120.. I've got a 15W amp into a 25W speaker and I get breakup at about 2/3 volume. So you'd want speakers that when combined handle a good bit more power then what you give them. with 4 v30's you'd have power handling of 240W. You'd probably get a good bit less breakup.

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

fuse you seem to have a lot of helpfull insight..thanks..well as far as the sound i am after,my fave 4 guitarists are,pagey,frehley,iommi,and lynch

 

[FuseG4]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

fuse you seem to have a lot of helpfull insight..thanks..well as far as the sound i am after,my fave 4 guitarists are,pagey,frehley,iommi,and lynch

I've thought a lot about amps and speakers ever since i decided to ditch the crappy crate amp i had for like 6 years. Anyways there's a lot more knowledgeable people here, it's just that it's the wrong time of day for a lot of the people on the forum who hold "normal" schedules!

but man if you like page you need to experience what good speaker breakup sounds like. That's why I like my greenback speaker. The breakup takes a lil out of the low end, sure, but it adds this throaty growl that just seems to go with a cranked up british amp and a les paul.

if you wanna mess with that sort of thing I suggest mixing speakers. 2 v30's for less breakup and they provide the low end. 2 greenbacks that wont overload you with bass but have a smoother midrange than the v30 and will give you a very vintage kinda vibe. That's what I'd lean towards but if you really wanna play as loud and as clear as possible, maybe try that combo some other time.

also, try to lower the bass on your amp when you want to really push the sucker. I always knock the bass back a notch or two when I turn up. The speakers have a lot of movement goin on at louder volumes but too much from the amp just makes them work too hard and they fart out. less bass from the amp means they can produce the bass they're still getting with more clarity.

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

yea i havnt played around with my settings very much,ya know once ya get a sound ya like it can be scary to start blazing new trails with settings.i have to not only dial my amp in ,but my pedal board equalization as well.i have over 100 presets to play with and they all have their own eq paramiters.i even write settings down in my book

 

[FuseG4]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

That's cool. I've taken the oposite approach recently. Guitar, compressor, drive pedal, amp. It's a pretty simple amp, too. Vol, B/M/T Eq, gain, and a bright/thick switch. I miss channel switching and reverb, but I've got a pretty good setup for the blues rock kinda stuff I play.
I'd say focus on just dialing the amp in first. If you can't get the cab to play a lil cleaner no matter what you do, then you're pretty much locked into some kind of upgrades. It's hard to say exactly what sticking 4 v30's into a MDF cab will do. In all honesty the v30's would supremely benefit from a cab made of higher quality stuff, but maybe the speakers can keep you satisfied until you can get an expensive custom amp/cab combo hand-covered in purple tolex!

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

unfourtanatley,i am one of those guys who just cant afford a 1500 dollar amp so i play solid state stuff.although i looked at carvin x100 b real hard.

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

i wonder how much it would cost to get a better cab covered in purple
,say 800 bucks into a marshall 1960 lead,then how much more to cover it?sounds cheaper to go with speaker replacement.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

unfourtanatley,i am one of those guys who just cant afford a 1500 dollar amp so i play solid state stuff.although i looked at carvin x100 b real hard.

I can't afford a $1500 amp but I'm surprised at what I gave up to get a $750 amp. I started crunching my food budget and working more, and blew off one of my creditor's phone calls, but damn when I've had a rough day at school I can just go home and rock out and feel kinda recharged.

patience is a biatch, but like I said a played a crappy crate amp for 5 or 6 years before getting a rather cheap tube amp, and later finally getting what I have now. If you like the tone of your amp, play what you have, maybe a few upgrades here and there, and sometime down the line some opportunity will open up for you to get something different if thats what you want.
Celestions are expensive, though. you could save a lil dough buy patronizing eminence. They do their sort of spin on some eminence speakers and I think it's the one called "the governer" that's their spin on the v30. $85 compared to $145? Sweet I'd do it. Eminence makes good stuff, IMO.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

The plain, ugly truth is this. The MG series cabinet is built from something known variously as MDF, chipboard, particle board or, in my home, s**t. It has zero tone. IMO, it will always disappoint.

The sound that most people expect to hear from a Marshall amplifier requires loudspeaker enclosures built from marine Birch ply.

In your situation, I would sell the entire MG rig. Alternatively, commision a new cabinet in marine birch ply and have that covered in purple levant. Your original loudspeakers should sould okay in something like that.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

i wonder how much it would cost to get a better cab covered in purple
,say 800 bucks into a marshall 1960 lead,then how much more to cover it?sounds cheaper to go with speaker replacement.

what you do is get a custom cab built by weber or avatar. No marshall name on it, but it's a quality cab and it's nowhere near as expensive as recovering an $800 cab. It's more like 285 for the cab plus 580 bucks for speakers, so like 865 plus shipping for a killer custom cab.

 

[astrozombie]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

The plain, ugly truth is this. The MG series cabinet is built from something known variously as MDF, chipboard, particle board or, in my home, s**t. It has zero tone. IMO, it will always disappoint.

The sound that most people expect to hear from a Marshall amplifier requires loudspeaker enclosures built from marine Birch ply.

In your situation, I would sell the entire MG rig. Alternatively, commision a new cabinet in marine birch ply and have that covered in purple levant. Your original loudspeakers should sould okay in something like that.

I concur.

I own one.

Sounds like ass.

Sounds like a lizard on a frying pan.

Sound like Baby Dinosaurs playing with themselves.

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

well if i sell the rig,there isnt much improvement outthere concidering my budget,ya got line 6,ya got a solidstate randall,which i am very interested in,ya got crate which i have no intrest in and i refuse to even look at fender.

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

my cabinet dooesnt say marshall right now..lol the cab logo snapped in half when it caught on my shirt.

 

[astrozombie]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

i refuse to even look at fender.

You do know the original Marshall amp was based on a Fender right...?

 

[ravendouglas]

Re: marshall mg 4x12 speaker upgrade

another thing i dont like about it is you cant get a matching bottom cab.they only make those in black.so no full stack