@Deleted member 380707 that's a good question. I started on my cab quest for 2 reasons a few years back, not finished either. I had a mesa powerhouse 212, absolutely awesome cab. Gave just the edge of that fridge/real big cab feel while being plenty Lou for any gig. The downside was that it was just as deep, as most old school 410s. It also with how much low mids I'd push, create slightly tense cone farting situations when using dirt and octave down (namely meatbox). Both gave me a sense of unease about gigging long term. So yeah I was looking for the same things.
What I ended up on, mostly due to local availability, but also from research and previous experience was a pf210he for smaller stuff, and a 610hlf for bigger gigs. My future goal is to build a sealed 610 and/or 412 that fits in the 70 (doubtful) to 90 lbs range.
The 210 fell in my lap, super cheap, loud, good sound, and not bad to move around. It's sealed so it definitely has some of the 810 sound, but not feel. I've wondered if two of them would get closer to that.
The 610 for me was also a cheap pick up. Its beat to poopie and works perfectly. I use it with an hpf to achieve some semblance of a sealed cab. The size for me is perfect. I drive a truck, so I can roll it to the bed, tilt it over the down tailgate and slide in. Stairs aren't bad either. Granted building my own, I'm sure I could shave off another 20-30lbs and make it much easier to move.
This is where I realized moreso that although I like the deep sound of ported, I like the punch of a sealed cab. Also, in my experience, when you put too much energy to the drivers of a ported cab below their tuned freq. (oct + dirt) you have a great chance of damaging them. For those here that know lots more than I, they can probably speak to it better.
What little I do understand is that ported can maintain the volume of lows down to its corner or tuned freq better. However, being ported, there is less to no physical pressure support to the driver below the tuned freq. and the speaker can move excessively erradically which can destroy it with very little power. Sealed cabs on the otherhand, have a much higher and gradual start to their low end roll off, but due to the sealed nature, the air pressure within the cab can help control excessively erradict cone movement when going way low on freq input to them. Realistically, that's why the 810 is so good. It's loud af because of the number of speakers and it can reach low notes (and impression of being deeper) without being ported because the sheer volume it can achieve in the low freq due to the number of drivers. But yeah they can be tough to move.
Anyway, enough in the weeds for me. I've heard (and experienced in music stores) nothing but great things about the volume and tone from the subway stuff, but I can't speak to the feel of a big cab. The user
@agedhorse was the engineer for Mesa who designed the cabs and can likely speak to which (if any) of the cabs were designed to have similar feel/response to what you're looking for. He is very approachable in my experience and very helpful with his insight. I believe there are quite a few threads discussing it as well, though your (and my) tonal/feel goals may not be specifically spoken to in those threads.
Outside of the subway cabs, I would recommend the pf210he for the sound and maybe with a pair of them you may achieve the feel of the fridge to some extent. Can't say on the feeling of how much air it can move, but the single 210 I have gets wicked loud and works great with my tube head to get the tone of a fridge.
That's where I'm struggling. I like to have a "backup" flavor for each of my dirts. I don't often use it, but it's nice to have. It's why I've held on to my Swollen Pickles so long, and they're currently my #1 muff. But as of right now, I believe I have 7 different muffs of some variety, with a few duplicates (because I play guitar and bass and needed some duplicates to avoid constantly changing settings even more than I already do...). I should probably downsize to a total of 3 different muff circuits between my bass and guitar rigs. Which I am trying to do, just not having any bites on my listings. I have decided that I have roughly twenty pedals to get rid of, so that's progress.
In related news, I've been jamming the heck out of my Swollen Pickle on guitar lately too. As versatile as it is on bass, it's even more so on guitar. The other day I got it about 90% of the way to the tones of my Pharaoh Supreme, Supercollider, Fat Sandwich, HM-2, and even somewhat close but a bit gainier to my OD Glove (EHX OCD clone). None of these pedals is 100% exactly what I'm wanting, but they could easily all do for what I need them to do. The Pickle was no worse than any of them for those tones, just slightly different. I could use a Pickle for each of those and likely be happy. To see such a variety of tones from a single FUZZ pedal blew my mind. It briefly crossed my mind to do an all Swollen Pickle board with all the various tones at my feet...
Finally, after all the guitar playing, I think I finally have to take at least one of my guitar amps in for some work. It's been sporadically cutting out for probably over a year now, and it's hit the point where it doesn't work much at all these days. Up until the past week twiddling a knob or two would "fix" it for a long time, but that's done. Had a scare today too, as my other guitar amp just up and died. That was a punch in the gut. I re-seated all of the connections and that seems good too, but considering they're both ~30 year old Peaveys, a little TLC is probably in order. Being Peaveys, I imagine they'll last another 30 years no problem once they're checked out.
I feel you, I'm definitely doing the same. Trying to get down to that same point. Good luck with the peavey's too, I imagine you're right about the longevity. My Ashdown finally had some preamp issues after 11 years. Tube looked fine, but almost immediately after replacing it yesterday (guessing once the new tube warmed up), all the volume came back. Probably not the tube and just opening it up and doing the swap helped shake loose whatever was afflicting it.
