I've never built a geetar cab, and I think I've run dry on anything that can help Honey'skewl. This timely though, because I have 4 guit cabs to build and need to get at least one done before the end of April for my wife's birthday. It's good to know about the drawback of an open back. Her existing combo (a bit heavy for her) is semi-open back with a removable panel to go full open. I'll be starting with the easiest, a small 30 Watt combo.
Generally my favorite cabs in the past have been 1x12” nearly closed, more vented than open, about the size of a Vox combo, so quite big. Usually about 24” by 18” by 10.25”. I like a Celestion Alnico speaker, which are very expensive, but have so much vibe. Unfortunately a cabinet as I have described is quite heavy. I generally don’t like more than one speaker in a cab because I feel like one speaker just sounds better, more immediate. I also like 1x10” cabinets with the right 10” speaker, Celestion Vintage G10 is one of my favorites. For weight and power handling, though, you can’t beat the Jensen Tornado, which is a 100 watt neo speaker that has tons of character and is available as 10” or 12”.
I think the biggest downside to most guitar cabs is you just can’t hear the darned things because they generally flap at the guitarist’s legs. When you build your cab, try to address that issue. A little built in angle goes a long way. The Quilters seem to have about a 12 degree built in angle. Most Fender tweed style cabinets have less of an angle but they do try, and every little bit counts. I don’t think it’s a good idea to go 45 degrees or anything, but something in that 10-20 range will be cool when you’re in front of the cabinet. It would be a woodworking challenge to make an angled baffle, though, which is probably why most people don’t bother.
Also, my experience with Quilter is letting me know that I like very hi-fi speakers, too. Lot of players swear by these EV12 speakers that are very popular and very accurate (and very heavy) with no cone cry or distortion. I think what Quilter decided is, if many players like EV12 speakers which are basically like PA speakers, why not just get an 8” speaker like the TF0818 and just put that in a closed back cabinet of appropriate size? So a lot of their combos are exactly that: an 8” midrange driver in a tiny angled closed back. And as you know from bass cabs, you know what that means: crazy dispersion. You can hear that thing anywhere on stage. Even my angled 12” combo disperses very well.
I think half stacks are absolutely overrated. I don’t think they sound as good as a well designed 1x12” and they don’t disperse well. And are heavy and uneconomical. They’re good at throwing sound waves out there on stage but that’s about it.
There’s something magical about a Celestion Alnico speaker in an open back that just gets lost when you put a PA speaker in a closed back. But you lose most of that magic at stage volume when there are cymbals eating up the higher frequencies and you only need the mids to push your tone through. I still insist on recording with Alnico, though, because they distort and compress magically.
I think my ideal cab would be a very light 1x12” with 1/2” ply, about 20”x16”x10”, give or take an inch, almost closed with maybe some narrow vents, or maybe just about 4” open so I can throw the speaker cable in the back of the cab. MojoTone makes a light cabinet with almost the right size that you can see what I’m talking about. Make sure the jack is not dead center in the back panel so that it doesn’t get in the way of the driver magnet. It would have an angled baffle for sure. I think I want the box to be straight, only the baffle angled. And as heavy as Alnico speakers tend to be, for me, it’s worth the extra 5 pounds to have a Celestion Alnico Cream. It’s the best speaker that money can buy, IMO.
That would be my dream cab for sure.
