Mixed custom guitar speakers

We've been getting a lot of enquiries about having two different speakers in our dual driver guitar cabs (Radical 212H, Uprising 212V and Usurper 210). Yes, this works from a sonic perspective and yes, you can order a cab like that through our website.

As with any custom speaker choice, you need to place both the cab and the custom drivers into your cart, so they're a separate product that you order in addition to the stock cab. You'll notice that we've set the custom driver pages up so it's easy to add a custom single or pair of matched speakers in the correct impedance to your order.

If you want two different speakers, please note the following:

1. The speakers need to be the right impedance. So if you want a 4 ohm dual driver cab you need two 8 ohm speakers. If you want an 8 ohm dual driver cab you need two 16 ohm speakers. If you want a 16 ohm dual driver cab you need two 8 ohm speakers.

2. To order the speaker, add them to the cart on their own, choosing the correct impedance. So for a 16 ohm mixed speaker 2x12", choose one single 8 ohm speaker and then choose a second single 8 ohm speaker. Yes, it says "8 ohm for 1x12" but it was too many words to add "or 8 ohm for a mixed speaker 16 ohm 2x12"!

3. Add in your order notes the total cab impedance you want and we'll wire it series or parallel as required (for series the total impedance is the sum of the two speaker impedances, for parallel it's half the impedance of one speaker).

4. The cab power rating in a dual mixed speaker cab will be twice that of the lowest rated speaker. So if you put (extreme example) a Blue (15W) and a Neo 250 Copperback (250W) in, it's not a 265W cab, it's a 30W cab.

5. Not only does the impedance need to match, it's advisable for the sensitivity to be pretty similar or one speaker is going to be moving more and generating more output than the other. This isn't a hard and fast rule because you could pair a bright speaker with a big magnet with a deeper speaker with a smaller magnet and the latter will add weight and fatness to the former, even though the simplistic dB sensitivity number will be lower (overlaying the response curves will show why this happens).

6. You don't need the power handling of the speakers to match but they do need to make sense for the amp you'll be using. And Celestion speakers with more power handling don't break up until they're pushed louder - you can use that to deliberate effect if you want (the motors are all similar, the break-up relates to the cone and suspension).

7. In any of our dual driver guitar cabs, you'll hear most of the highs from the speaker in front of the AVD (Radical/Usurper) or at the top of the cab (Uprising). You'll hear the mids and lows from both speakers. So the key thing to consider is, what do you want your highs to sound like? If you find a V30 too harsh but like its punch and weight then swap something similarly powerful and sensitive into the AVD or top position - maybe a Gold or Cream alnico for max smooth clarity or a Creamback variant for something warmer.