07/11/24 - Radical 212H w/Activier - UK

Your cab sounds great. The weight is very welcome, and the amp module is slick and convenient to “ready to go” installed in the cab. I liked the dispersion of frequencies, though I have a larging and acoustically lively living room, and so sound tends to disperse quite a bit and echo around the room anyway, so perhaps this wasn’t the best environment to gauge the effectiveness of this part of the cab design.

I was shocked by how much I liked the cab with the V30 speakers. We have an 80’s 1960B cab in the office, also with V30’s, and it sounds harsh in comparison. I’d say of all the speakers I tried, the V30’s just seemed to fit perfectly with the acoustics of the cab.

I tried installing some vintage G12H (55Hz) speakers and they also sounded very good. The JBL D120F speakers worked, but a little less well, as I think the LF tuning of the cab didn’t really match the drivers. The low end was lacking. The JBL speakers are more of a pro-audio design and so tuning plays a bigger role.

I really hated the Bluesbreaker cabinet since buying it around 5 years ago, and this was part of the motivation for wanting to try your cabinet, having watched you YouTube demos. I bought the pin stripe cloth a couple of months ago out of desperation. I’d experimented with some Laney 2X12 cabs that sound great, and having ruled out the acoustic properties of the cab, I decided that the Laney cloth was the thing that sounded good. Like the original Marshall pin stripe cloth, the 60’s/70’s Laney cloth is coated with a pattern of rubber, or similar material. The pin-stripe cloth has the effect of reducing harshness, as well as slightly boosting low end. In comparison to your cab, the pin-stripe equipped cab was softer on the top-end, and the low end was more consistent across the range of speakers.

This is all a very long-winded way of me saying that I love your cab, but that I’ve found something I really like in the time that’s passed since we first spoke. I guess more to the point, it works well with my favourite speakers and so there seems no reason to change. I really appreciate you giving me the chance to try out the cab.

Simon (Origin Effects)