Hey all. I've been looking into purchasing another cab; JCM 800 1960B lead series.

The cab itself has 4x12 - g12-65's at 8 ohms.

I've been doing some reading into speaker properties and I've found, with respect to celestion, that the 75's are geared more toward metal and the smaller the wattage, the worse it is for distortion type music.

The 65's in the earlier JCM 800's are somewhat desirable but I plan on playing the heavy stuff.

The overall consensus is that the 75's have a 'scooped' mid and that the low and high end are more evident, which is good for metal.

Reading up on the vintage 30's, people say that they are good for overall tone because they have alot of mids in them.

What are the types and characteristics that you guys go for/have? Do you guys have a way of determining/comparing what a scooped sound is?

I do have a 2x12 with 75's and I think they sound pretty good when I start to chug away.

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Theres really no set rules, just plug that son of a bitch in and play it and see if you like it!

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I agree.

But what I'm really getting at is what do you dudes have/use/look for?

Do you guys go for a particular set of speakers? I have friends that buy cabs and then sell the speakers and buy say vintage 30's and greenbacks. There are others who will only use tone tubbys. They will re-wire to get the desired ohmage out of them.

I mean, pickups, amps are important but it's the speakers that project the sound! They gotta be on everyone's mind.

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With speakers, if you have a lower wattage model such as the vintage 30's, or a 25watt speaker, you will get 'breakup' at a lower volume. Breakup is something that some people desire, because alongside with some good high gain tube distortion, it sounds nice. However, this also means you don't have a lot of headroom, because even if you're playing clean with a 100w Fender head, you'll get speaker breakup at a fairly low(ish) volume. If you went for say, a 50 or 75w speaker, you'd be able to drive your amp harder without the speakers 'breaking up' (not actually breaking you realise, but just where the speaker can't handle the power, so it distorts itself).

Ergo:

A lower rated speaker will give you earlier breakup, but less headroom.
A higher rated speaker won't break up as early, and you'll have more headroom, which makes it a little more versatile

Hope that helps somewhat

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Well, the speaker itself has certain qualities. The stock celestion 75's have a scooped mid on them with the low and high being prominent. That's just the way it was made. The breakup of a speaker, I don't believe I would want that kind of characteristic from them, especially when you want to drive them by the amps distortion, not by the speakers distortion.

The headroom of say, a 75, is desireable because you're not limited by 'breakup' you can change your amp settings to reflect what you want to play. I believe that guitars are naturally equalised as 'mids'. The lower wattage produces mids more than the higher wattage. When you have the lower, you can't help but have the mids. You can't even get rid of them by scooping the mids on the amp. They are just there.

My buddy was saying that it makes it more difficult to stand out say, for a lead, because of the mids being present in the lower wattage speakers. Even for bends, the notes have a harder time cutting through.

The lower wattage is geared more towards the blues and jazz type playing. It gives the classic rock sound of pre-rola celestions (IE pre 70's).

Does anyone have this kind of experience? Do you really notice a difference?

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afaik, the vintage 30's can handle 60 watts..?