Cab/Speaker Advice - Hating Chinese V30s Thread

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vultures
vultures
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I picked up an Orange 4x12 slant recently. I'd never played a slanted Orange 4x12, but I've owned a few straight baffled ones, they sounded massive, but they were older. This cab sounds straight up weak to my ears and after I invited a buddy over and he jammed on it, he felt the same.

I popped off one of the handles and took a peak inside to see 4 16Ω Celestion V30's that were.. Made in China...
d2ba5fec0860441f6de1daf8a7b91e2c6ce50b9f.gifv



I've never owned a cab with such insultingly inferior speakers. This whole time I doubted the cabinet, I thought it must have been made out of particle board. It is not! It's solid birch plywood. It's a USA made cabinet. Why would they sully this quality construction with this disgusting excuse for speakers? I had planned to swap in 2 Creambacks I have in the cab to make an X Pattern V30/Creamback combo, but my Creambacks are 8Ω.

My options are:
- Trade it for a Mesa 4x12
- Sell the Chinese V30s and try out something different like WGS Veteran 30s?
- Sell the Chinese V30s, buy 2 8Ω UK V30s, pop em in with the creamboys
- Will the cab even sound good with good speakers in it? Man I'm all fucked up.

What are the V30s to look out for? They have codes telling what year and which manufacturer ordered them? I'd order a pair straight from Mesa but they're sold out. I'm weary about ordering from Sweetwater or another online store since they're non-refundable and I don't want to risk buying Chinese crap.
 
Don’t dump anymore money into it. Trade it for a Mesa cab.

The only orange cab I’d go for is a straight front. Slants seem to project and feel different and work best with a straight.
 
vultures said:
I picked up an Orange 4x12 slant recently. I'd never played a slanted Orange 4x12, but I've owned a few straight baffled ones, they sounded massive, but they were older. This cab sounds straight up weak to my ears and after I invited a buddy over and he jammed on it, he felt the same.

I popped off one of the handles and took a peak inside to see 4 16Ω Celestion V30's that were.. Made in China...
d2ba5fec0860441f6de1daf8a7b91e2c6ce50b9f.gifv



I've never owned a cab with such insultingly inferior speakers. This whole time I doubted the cabinet, I thought it must have been made out of particle board. It is not! It's solid birch plywood. It's a USA made cabinet. Why would they sully this quality construction with this disgusting excuse for speakers? I had planned to swap in 2 Creambacks I have in the cab to make an X Pattern V30/Creamback combo, but my Creambacks are 8Ω.

My options are:
- Trade it for a Mesa 4x12
- Sell the Chinese V30s and try out something different like WGS Veteran 30s?
- Sell the Chinese V30s, buy 2 8Ω UK V30s, pop em in with the creamboys
- Will the cab even sound good with good speakers in it? Man I'm all fucked up.

What are the V30s to look out for? They have codes telling what year and which manufacturer ordered them? I'd order a pair straight from Mesa but they're sold out. I'm weary about ordering from Sweetwater or another online store since they're non-refundable and I don't want to risk buying Chinese crap.
Click to expand...
I think in this case, it's simply a bad cab. Sometimes it happens...for whatever reason 9/10 cabs of the same build sound great, but 1 just sounds dead. I was looking forward to getting a Marshall MF 280B and talk about a dead sounding cab...just flat as hell.
Returned it quickly. Ten years ago I had a V30 cab comp...Had a Traditional Mesa B cab, with a Rivera slant and a Bogner slant. The Mesa has of course British made Mesa spec V30s, while the Rivera and Bogner had Chinese V30s. All 3 sounded killer, the Mesa and Rivera were very similar and the Bogner had a slightly brighter tone but equally awesome.
I'd bet in your case the cab itself is mostly to blame.
 
2nd to trade it for a Mesa.

Arguably and debatable but late 90s - 2004 ish V30s are the best. I went down the rabbit hole of hours of footage and graphs posted by TheotherJohnBrowne and Nolly, these guys have great videos with dozens upon dozens of V30s compared from many years and I highly suggest you check them out.

I do agree with them in the early 2000s are the best sounding V30s. I went on a quest, took a few weeks but I found a used mesa OS cab dated on my Birthday of 2000. It was destiny I swear but seriously it's the best cab I've had. Maybe next to the Mills acoustics. Also made in the same era if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway a side opinion TLDR. It isn't that they're made in China perhaps but the year the V30s were made. Id be curious to see the date codes.

My 2nd best sounding cab was a cheap MDF Peavey MS412 with Chinese V30s X 75s. Wish I kept that cab to see the year those speakers were made.


Anyway long ass post and I could certainly be wrong, it's all a matter of opinion but I'd check the date on those speakers/and trade it for a Mesa from early 2000s.
 
i thought the conclusion with v30s was there are good and bad ones from every time period and place of origin, at least that has been my conclusion in the endless comparisons out there. i know ive actually liked the chinese ones the most in some comparisons
 
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vultures said:
I picked up an Orange 4x12 slant recently. I'd never played a slanted Orange 4x12, but I've owned a few straight baffled ones, they sounded massive, but they were older. This cab sounds straight up weak to my ears and after I invited a buddy over and he jammed on it, he felt the same.

I popped off one of the handles and took a peak inside to see 4 16Ω Celestion V30's that were.. Made in China...
d2ba5fec0860441f6de1daf8a7b91e2c6ce50b9f.gifv



I've never owned a cab with such insultingly inferior speakers. This whole time I doubted the cabinet, I thought it must have been made out of particle board. It is not! It's solid birch plywood. It's a USA made cabinet. Why would they sully this quality construction with this disgusting excuse for speakers? I had planned to swap in 2 Creambacks I have in the cab to make an X Pattern V30/Creamback combo, but my Creambacks are 8Ω.

My options are:
- Trade it for a Mesa 4x12
- Sell the Chinese V30s and try out something different like WGS Veteran 30s?
- Sell the Chinese V30s, buy 2 8Ω UK V30s, pop em in with the creamboys
- Will the cab even sound good with good speakers in it? Man I'm all fucked up.

What are the V30s to look out for? They have codes telling what year and which manufacturer ordered them? I'd order a pair straight from Mesa but they're sold out. I'm weary about ordering from Sweetwater or another online store since they're non-refundable and I don't want to risk buying Chinese crap.
Click to expand...
You do not want Veteran 30s! I had them in all sorts of combinations. No. Go to Avatar speakers and get those. I would mix 2 of the AV60s with 2 of the Fane M65s. Will test out AV75s soon and let you know what I think of those mixed as well. Yeah, the Avatar speakers are the best I've tried and heard. I have sold off my WGS speakers.
 
What amp do you plan on using? You could always listen to each v30 individually and pick your favorite two and then run each one in parallel with one of the 8ohm creambacks in a stereo config (5.3ohms per side).
 
EyesOfTheSouth! said:
The new Avatar AV60’s will fix that.
Click to expand...
This guy right here is the only reason I even heard of Avatar speakers. I feel like the years long searching for the tones in my head are finally over. Each variant they have is like the perfect version of that speaker, whether is a Creamback or V30 - Avatar kills it!!!
 
Avatar is great. Outside of the Mesa and Marshall branded V30s, haven’t all V30s been assembled in China since the late 90s?
 
i remember my old bandmate long ago buying a randall XL 4x12 with v30s which people loved then and still do now, this cab though was just awful in every way, i cant help but think something had to be fucked up and it was out of phase or something cause theres no way with any v30 it could have been as bad as it was if everything else was functioning properly.
 
I should mention, the cab dates to 2018, should be pretty well broken in. The more I'm thinking about it and reading these suggestions, the more I'm agreeing with @Racerxrated and I think the cab itself is just not right. I'm definitely curious about the Avatar AV60s and Fane F70's, but I think I'd be even more cheesed off if I got great speakers in this thing and it still didn't bring the beefy low end.

I should also mention that I'm just playing straight death metal on this thing.

PXL_20240823_222606217.jpg


PXL_20240803_185253005.jpg


glpg80 said:
Yeah I have to agree with this.

Is this even a legit orange cab?
Click to expand...

PXL_20240824_004531956-s.jpg
 
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