UPDATE: Replaced the 'Gold Back' speaker in my Marshall DSL 401 with a Celestion Classic Lead 80

Voxman

Would have been a lot easier with a power-screwdriver, but job done and didn't need to take any tubes out.  Had to clean off a bit of solder and prise open and re-pinch the speaker connection callipers so that they are nice and tight, but other than that it was nice and easy.  

So, first impressions are very good.  Played with my 2010 USA Strat and Gibson SG.  The 'muddiness and fuzziness' has gone completely even without jumping the FX loop.  There is a lot more bottom end which is now giving that sought after 'chunk' the stock speaker didn't give, and it sounds much more 'open'.  Top end is a lot brighter and both chords and leads are way more articulate, and the clean channel is, well -cleaner!  

What's interesting is that both the the on-board EQ and reverb are much more responsive.  I no longer have to max out the reverb, and I have much better EQ control and response, and much more top-end.  Because I've got to experiment with my EQ settings, I haven't yet found the optimum settings, but suffice it to say this speaker is a HUGE improvement.

However, I'll have to see how I get on with it because there is a slight downside, and that's the mids which are not as warm as the stock Gold-Back.  I bought the speaker used, so it's already well played in.

I've only played it for half an hour so these are my first impressions.  Once I've had more time to get acclimatised to it, I'm sure I'll find a more optimum EQ balance.

timmysoft

The cl80 is a great speaker, it's always my choice for open back combos and cabs. If I wasn't running a neo cream (due to weight!), I'd definitely be running the CL.

Voxman

Been playing it more this afternoon. Because the CL80 has a brighter top end, I've had to raise the mids and lower the treble in order to get a warmer mids tone, which I wasn't used to doing with the Gold Back because it was darker tonally. 

But the overall tighter feel and punchier tone makes a big difference.  The amp sounds good now even without the fx loop jumped, which was impossible before.  I've still jumped it as it adds volume and fullness, but haven't yet tried it with an EQ and BBE Sonic Stomp in the loop, which I'll do tomorrow.  

The CL80 is not heavy and seems to be the same weight as the Gold Back.  The V30 in my Cub 12R is a much heavier and deeper speaker. The magnet on that can pull your fillings out! 

Volume wise, there's a noticeable uplift in volume.  On paper the CL80 is 99db and I suspect the Gold Back is 97dB, so that's to be expected.  

Its a good speaker swap and I'm very pleased with it.  Of course this is the honeymoon period but in a few weeks if I remain happy with it  I might think about putting in a different set of tubes so that I'm getting the best out of my 401. I'll probably go for JJ power tubes, but different pre-amp tubes.  I'd like a combination that provide warmth and bring out that Marshall crunchy tone with rich harmonics, whilst maintaining good definition.  I'm open to suggestions!

ICBM

Voxman said:

Been playing it more this afternoon. Because the CL80 has a brighter top end, I've had to raise the mids and lower the treble in order to get a warmer mids tone, which I wasn't used to doing with the Gold Back because it was darker tonally.

I would still like to know what a Creamback G12H-75 would sound like in one - it's fairly similar to the CL80, but more 'vintage' sounding with warmer mids and a smoother top-end, as far as I can tell.

Voxman said:

The CL80 is not heavy and seems to be the same weight as the Gold Back.  The V30 in my Cub 12R is a much heavier and deeper speaker. The magnet on that can pull your fillings out!

? The V30 and CL80 are the same weight and have the same size magnet, both much larger than the Gold Back which has a smaller, thinner magnet with an angled rear cover plate.

Voxman

ICBM said:

Voxman said:

Been playing it more this afternoon. Because the CL80 has a brighter top end, I've had to raise the mids and lower the treble in order to get a warmer mids tone, which I wasn't used to doing with the Gold Back because it was darker tonally.

I would still like to know what a Creamback G12H-75 would sound like in one - it's fairly similar to the CL80, but more 'vintage' sounding with warmer mids and a smoother top-end, as far as I can tell.

Voxman said:

The CL80 is not heavy and seems to be the same weight as the Gold Back.  The V30 in my Cub 12R is a much heavier and deeper speaker. The magnet on that can pull your fillings out!

? The V30 and CL80 are the same weight and have the same size magnet, both much larger than the Gold Back which has a smaller, thinner magnet with an angled rear cover plate.

You're absoloutely right..for some reason I thought the V30 was heavier.  Maybe its because I'm doing regular pushups that I remembered the V30 as heavier and the CL80 seemed lighter! 

p90fool

I love the CL80 will choose one over anything else in isolation, but I prefer to combine it with a G12T-75 to add a little midrange back for gigging. 

I'm currently gigging two identical combos apart from the two different speakers, but always grab the CL80 version for recording. 

ICBM

p90fool said:

I love the CL80 will choose one over anything else in isolation, but I prefer to combine it with a G12T-75 to add a little midrange back for gigging.

That's odd! The G12T-75 has *less* midrange than the CL80, in isolation - it's really quite a loose hollow tone. Combinations can sometimes do strange things though, and you may well get that effect by making the mids of the slightly louder 80 seem more prominent. I've never tried that combination though.

Mixing a 75 with a V30 also gives an unexpected result - before I heard it I thought the much louder V30 would dominate with its big mid peak and you would just hear the buzzy top-end of the 75, but that's not what happens at all - you seem to get a more even sound than either speaker alone and the volumes match quite well.

Even more surprising was that mixing a Classic Lead with a Creamback G12M-65 - which I expected to sound great, with the big clear sound of the 80 and the warm rich 65 - was terrible! It accentuated the differences and made the 80 sound shrill at the top-end and the 65 fuzzy in the mids, and the sounds seemed not to blend properly... you could very clearly hear it as two separate speakers.

So I swapped the 80 for a Creamback H75 - which is not that far from the same voicing - and it was perfect... completely the opposite. Why?!!

rico

@Voxman glad to hear it! My 401 is locked away in the rehearsal studio and I can't wait to use it again on Saturday. 

Last practice I used the clean channel with the gain on 3, treble on 4, Middle on 7 and bass on 7 and master no more than about 7 with an OCD in front and it just sounded perfect for me. 

I have new JJ power tubes in mine and similarly to yourself I am looking to investigate different pre amp valves...

p90fool

ICBM said:

p90fool said:

I love the CL80 will choose one over anything else in isolation, but I prefer to combine it with a G12T-75 to add a little midrange back for gigging.

That's odd! The G12T-75 has *less* midrange than the CL80, in isolation - it's really quite a loose hollow tone. Combinations can sometimes do strange things though, and you may well get that effect by making the mids of the slightly louder 80 seem more prominent. I've never tried that combination though.

Mixing a 75 with a V30 also gives an unexpected result - before I heard it I thought the much louder V30 would dominate with its big mid peak and you would just hear the buzzy top-end of the 75, but that's not what happens at all - you seem to get a more even sound than either speaker alone and the volumes match quite well.

Even more surprising was that mixing a Classic Lead with a Creamback G12M-65 - which I expected to sound great, with the big clear sound of the 80 and the warm rich 65 - was terrible! It accentuated the differences and made the 80 sound shrill at the top-end and the 65 fuzzy in the mids, and the sounds seemed not to blend properly... you could very clearly hear it as two separate speakers.

So I swapped the 80 for a Creamback H75 - which is not that far from the same voicing - and it was perfect... completely the opposite. Why?!!

I think that's exactly what's happening, the top and bottom of the CL80 are slightly suppressed or masked in the mix of the two speakers, so adding an even more scooped but quieter speaker seems to round it all out. 

It's a great combination though. 

ICBM

It's interesting that the G12T-75 - which is far from my favourite speaker on its own or in multiples - actually seems to be almost a 'universal improver' when mixed with other speakers. I can't think of a combination I've heard, or heard of, where it doesn't work.

(It is actually also very good in solid-state amps like the Marshall Valvestates and Trace Elliot Tramps, its looseness seems to offset the typical stiffness of a solid-state output section.)

Voxman

rico said:

@Voxman glad to hear it! My 401 is locked away in the rehearsal studio and I can't wait to use it again on Saturday. 

Last practice I used the clean channel with the gain on 3, treble on 4, Middle on 7 and bass on 7 and master no more than about 7 with an OCD in front and it just sounded perfect for me. 

I have new JJ power tubes in mine and similarly to yourself I am looking to investigate different pre amp valves...

I think we use our amps differently @rico - you're using only the clean green channel, whereas I'm mainly using OD1 and OD2 for classic rock and blues.  

I've played it again today and have been playing around with the EQ.  I was finding the CL80 too toppy and even with a darker humbucker guitar like my LP Custom, couldn't understand why I couldn't dial it out with the on-board EQ and bring in more warmth.  On OD1, even with the Treble at 0 and the Mids & Bass at 10, there was just too much top end.  

And then I realised something that just didn't occur to me before because the voicing of the gold Back was so much muddier - the 401 EQ is very interactive and raising the mids actually adds more treble.  So, to get warmer mids, I actually have to lower the mids on the 401 to half or less.  Now that I'm better understanding how the 401 EQ interacts, I'm much happier with the tones I'm getting from the CL80 and finding some warmer bluesy tones.  

chromatuna

If you have an effects loop then a simple 6 band graphic In the loop is a great asset for tuning the mids, I always found the Marshall mid control to be at too high a frequency to get what I wanted, a graphic used in this way can save a lot of faffing with speaker and valve changes trying to get things right

rico

@Voxman Yeah you're right. However for many years (when I was younger and couldn't afford pedals/wasn't really aware of them!) I just went straight in to the front at solely used the od1 & od2 channels. Since then i've made the transition to solely using pedals for drive/distortion. I find it easier to dial in different tones directly from the pedals rather than faffing too much with the eq - the amp settings are pretty much set and forget for me.

Having said that, the CL80 has definitely opened up the scope of the EQ - I agree!

Voxman

chromatuna said:

If you have an effects loop then a simple 6 band graphic In the loop is a great asset for tuning the mids, I always found the Marshall mid control to be at too high a frequency to get what I wanted, a graphic used in this way can save a lot of faffing with speaker and valve changes trying to get things right

Yup, I'm well familiar with the advantages of an EQ - you may have missed my earlier thread re using both an EQ and a BBE Sonic Stomp Maximiser in the EQ (top post): http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/95186/speaker-upgrade-are-there-other-speakers-that-will-just-drop-fit-into-celestion-bolt-spacings/p2 ;

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

p90fool said:

I love the CL80 will choose one over anything else in isolation, but I prefer to combine it with a G12T-75 to add a little midrange back for gigging.

That's odd! The G12T-75 has *less* midrange than the CL80, in isolation - it's really quite a loose hollow tone. Combinations can sometimes do strange things though, and you may well get that effect by making the mids of the slightly louder 80 seem more prominent. I've never tried that combination though.

Mixing a 75 with a V30 also gives an unexpected result - before I heard it I thought the much louder V30 would dominate with its big mid peak and you would just hear the buzzy top-end of the 75, but that's not what happens at all - you seem to get a more even sound than either speaker alone and the volumes match quite well.

Even more surprising was that mixing a Classic Lead with a Creamback G12M-65 - which I expected to sound great, with the big clear sound of the 80 and the warm rich 65 - was terrible! It accentuated the differences and made the 80 sound shrill at the top-end and the 65 fuzzy in the mids, and the sounds seemed not to blend properly... you could very clearly hear it as two separate speakers.

So I swapped the 80 for a Creamback H75 - which is not that far from the same voicing - and it was perfect... completely the opposite. Why?!!

I think I tried that combo, but I don't remember much about it and I lost my notes

I suspect it sounded at least decent, though.

ICBM

For what it's worth the research went like this… (cab belonging to the guitarist in my band)

Start with a Harley Benton G212V with two V30s. Great for the money, but a bit "V30-ish", ie overly prominent upper mids and quite tight-sounding.

Replace one V30 with a Classic Lead 80 - much better, a great chunky modern rock tone and a perfect balance between the two speakers, but still a little upper-middy and tight for him.

Replace the other V30 with a Creamback G12M-65 - dreadful as said above!

Replace the CL80 with a Creamback G12H-75 - perfect. Probably the best combination of two speakers I've ever heard.

Replace cabinet with a tatty old Marshall 2045, transferring the Creambacks to it. I think he's finally happy…

Dave_Mc

He's not called Trigger, is he?

Voxman

OK, I'm now a couple of weeks on and past the honeymoon period.  Having lived with the Classic Lead 80 for a while I think its a good speaker, its a definite improvement on the GoldBack, & ts louder...but it's not what I'm looking for.  

I find it too 'edgy' and too toppy.  Yes, the mudd and fuzz has gone, and it has good definition - which are the up side.  The down side it that it lacks warmth and I would prefer something that gives me that warmer tone for blues and classic rock.

The speaker was bought used and already broken in plus I've been giving it some serious welly, so it won't change greatly now.

I had a feeling this is probably what I'd find, that ithe CL80 is a bit too 'hi-fi' if that makes sense.  There's no rush but I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for something else second-hand.     

ICBM

I think you're definitely looking for a Creamback - the question is which one. The H75 is like a warmer CL80 - loud, still with the big bottom end and clear mids, but softer and not metallic-sounding at the top end. The M65 is slightly quieter, with less bottom and top but richer, jangly and slightly fuzzy mids. Although that's heading back into the direction of the Gold Back a bit…

Or maybe still a V30, which is quite a lot darker at the top end than the CL80, but with a big upper-mid peak and tight bottom end rather than deep, and is marginally the loudest of the lot.

Voxman

@ICBM    I'm not yet convinced about the Creamback and its an expensive speaker to make a mistake on.  The WGS Veteran might be the right type of thing - its like a V30 but without the upper mid 'spike'.  The search for spock continues! 

Bridgehouse

Voxman said:

@ICBM    I'm not yet convinced about the Creamback and its an expensive speaker to make a mistake on.  The WGS Veteran might be the right type of thing - its like a V30 but without the 'spike'.  The search for spock continues! 

Give in. Get a head and a nice 2x12 cab and spend six months trying to work out the best combo of speakers..