Which guitar cab?

When you come to choose a Barefaced AVD guitar cab there are quite a few things to consider:

1. How much power does the cab need to handle?

2. How loud does the cab need to go?

3. How big does the cab need to be for your amp to sit on and look cool?

4. How small/light would you prefer the cab to be?

5. WHAT TONE DO YOU WANT? (caps because v important!)

All these five criteria interact and many choices will require a degree of compromise. I haven't mentioned price because compared to what you might be spending on guitars, amps or collections of pedals, the cost of getting a really really REALLY good cab which you can use for decades really shouldn't matter - save up and buy The One.

Power handling

When it comes to power handling, if you're going for really clean guitar sounds all the time then the power rating hardly matters - you'll hear the speaker getting dirty well before thermal death. But for most guitar sounds it's wise to have a cab that can handle more power than your amp can put out.

As we offer lots of different speaker choices, then even a 1x12" cab can handle loads of power. A Reformer 112 can be rated at 20W all the way up to 250W, with the Radical and Uprising 212 cabs at twice that (40-500W).

The choice of 10" speakers is much more limited. The Upsetter 110 can be rated at 30W up to 60W, the Usurper 210 twice as much (60-120W).

Loudness

How loud the cab can go will depend on two things - the sensitivity and the power handling. These criteria depend upon speaker and also the enclosure it's in, so an AVD enclosure will be more audible (better mids/highs and dispersion) than an open-backed cab, which itself will be more audible than a closed cab. At lower frequencies an AVD enclosure will have a bigger weightier sound than a closed cab which will be fatter and heavier sounding than an open-backed cab.

With bass guitar when you go from one speaker to two speakers (assuming they're identical) you get quite a bit more output because you gain efficiency at lower frequencies and because solidstate amps put out twice as much power into two parallel speakers (until they run out of current delivery). With guitar guitar you're usually using valve (aka tube) amps so the output transformer's impedance matching will mean you get the same power into one speaker as into two speakers. And with guitar guitar, the increase in efficiency due to acoustic coupling at lower frequencies will mean you get a bigger sound with a 212 vs a 112 but not really a louder sound.

The greater the power handling of the speakers vs your amp, the cleaner they'll sound as you push your amp harder. The lower the power handling, the sooner they'll start to compress and overdrive as you crank the amp - what you prefer is very much your own choice.

Size

This is rock 'n roll (or any other subsequent genre - or maybe one of its jazz ancestors) so gear needs to look cool! That will remain true as long as people talk about going to SEE a band. So please, buy a Barefaced cab that looks good sitting under your amp head(s). Here's the widths:

Upsetter 110 = 38cm / 15"

Reformer 112 = 45cm / 18"

Uprising 212V = 48cm / 19"

Usurper 210 / Reformer Wide 112W = 61cm / 24"

Radical 212H = 74cm / 29"

Smallness/Lightness

All our Barefaced AVD guitar cabs are much much lighter than conventional guitar cabs and also more audible on the gig, so you're already well ahead of the game. You may be able to go from a 412 down to a 212 or a 212 down to a 112 when switching to Barefaced.

And some of the custom Celestion choices offer even more output, from the 90W Cream giving a similar vibe to the alnico Blue but with six times the power handling (so that'll make it almost twice as loud at full blast), the 150W Redback giving a similar vibe to a 30W Greenback but with five times the power handling or the Neo 250 Copperback with a crazy 250W handling in a single twelve.

If a 10kg / 22lbs 1x12" isn't light enough for you then you can go with a neodymium magnet Creamback, Copperback or V-Type and make your Reformer 112 only 7kg / 15lbs. Or drop a Radical 212H from 16kg / 35lbs to 11kg / 24lbs. (Obviously you can do this with any of the 12" guitar cabs).

TONE! IT'S ALL ABOUT THE SOUND!!!

This is very much about you. It's not so much about the music you're playing or matching things to your other gear, it's far more complex than that. The best way to approach it is to let us know the exact gear you're currently using (ESPECIALLY THE SPEAKER CAB) and what you both like and dislike about it. Downsides are particularly important, what you don't like is far more informative than what you do.

Email us (direct or using the form on the contact us page) and we'll start the process (please don't message us via social media, we'll just ask for an email if we even notice it)