Marshall 1960A Hand-Wired Series Cabinet

[chrisom]

I just bought this on Craigslist for $395! It has some tatters on the tolex which are not shown in this picture, but it sounded incredible with the seller's JCM 2000 TSL head & Les Paul Custom Classic going through it.

It has the Celestion G12H (Resonance: 55) speakers in it, which actually say "MADE IN ENGLAND" on the stickers, as well as the cabinet tag. The speakers look perfect on the inside of the cabinet.

So have they actually made any of these G12H Celestions in England lately? I thought maybe the speakers would be the Chinese ones. But it really sounds excellent. Because he played many gigs with it, they are already broke in nicely. Came with steel handles and casters too...

[aside]

If you think it sound good now install some Scumbacks and strap yourself in !!

[chrisom]

I love their website & audio clips; Which ones are their greenback equivalent? Which ones are like a G12H30?

[shakti]

If you're a little bit handy and want to make that cab sound even better, you should improve the inside bracing and soundpost to correct vintage specs. The baffle on the old pinstripe and basketweave cabs was reinforced much more heavily than the reissues, so the baffle remains much more rigid. I know because I have a few old cabs and bought a Hendrix stack earlier this year, solely for the cabs. Much to my frustration, the new cabs simply didn't sound as good as the old ones - harsher, not as focused, not as round and woody in the mids and not as tight in the bass. Improving the bracing on the slanted cab brought it much, much closer to my older cabs. It still sounds different and a touch brighter, but that's OK...it's nice with some variety.

I don't say this to rain on your parade, as those cabs are very nice and sound very good, but you can bring out even that last little bit with just a little effort.

[chrisom]

No problem- I would be interested in doing that, I just need to know what the better specs are- cheers

[shakti]

Basically a solid pine 21mm x 75mm piece running vertically along the middle of the inside, both screwed and glued in, and a roughly 45mm x 95mm solid pine block for the soundpost.
Those two changes are pretty significant, as it basically divides the front baffle into four smaller panels, which are much tighter. Knocking on a baffle with and without that bracing reveals a completely different sound to each of them. The old ones are dry, woody and firm. The new ones with less bracing vibrate much more. In this case it is not a plus with more vibration.

The bracing along the front edge of the baffle, and horizontally along both sides of the "angle", are made of 12mm birch ply on the originals. Marshall uses 15mm MDF on the reissues (at least the Hendrix cabs). I don't know how much that has to say for the sound, as I haven't tried "upgrading" that on mine, but I probably will. Considering those pieces are what makes contact between the baffle and the rest of the shell, I would suspect them to have an effect. OTOH, the grille cloth goes between there, so I expect any difference to be minor.

I think you can see photos of the inside bracing on George's Plexireplicas.com cabs. George's cab repros are spot on in this respect. I also think someone on this board made up drawings of every dimension on the older cabs, but you'll have to search for that...

[chrisom]

Found both- the pics & the PDF file. Thank you my friend!

[shakti]

You're welcome! If you do go ahead with any changes, please let us know what you think!

[beaulieu]

u got a great deal on that cab..about half price!!!

[bill bokey]

After reading shakti's post I decided to upgrade my 1960AHW as it does not sound as good as my older cabs. I never took the time to compare it with my early '69 slant though the differences are pretty obvious :





I guess I never had both opened at the same time until today ! Or never even took a close look at those pictures...Anyway here are the dimensions :

The plywood strip at the bottom (11-ply /15mm) : 720 x 40 mm

The other three are solid pine :
- soundpost : 47 x 96 x 288 mm
- vertical piece : 21 x 71 x 660
- 2 horizontal pieces : 20 (17 at the thinnest) x 45 x 307

So there's no vertical piece in the AHW, like shakti said, and there's a single horizontal one. It's 15mm plywood (10 at the thinnest point) that's 50mm wide and 650mm long.

While I was at it I also had a look inside my JCM800 1960A and it's almost exactly like the 1960AHW. The two differences being the rear panel (JCM800 is particle board) and the small piece between the soundpost and the baffle is MDF on the 1960AHW. Why they used MDF there and not 15mm plywood like the rest of the cab is a mystery to me !

Making a bigger soundpost and the vertical piece won't be to much of a problem but I thought it'd be a good idea to change the horizontal one too. I took the screws off but now the glue is holding it in place. What's the best way to remove it without damaging the baffle ? Or should I just leave it there ?

Thanks for starting this thread, it will help me make the handwired cab (and the JCM800) sound better. And $395 is definitely a great deal, well done chrisom !

[chrisom]

Thanks- There was a Marshall Handwired bottom cab on K.C. Craigslist around the middle of June for $495, but I didn't have the cash to grab it at the time. Don't know if it's still available, but it would've been nice to have the full HW stack. I keep looking at Jimmy Page's rig on The Song Remains The Same and drooling... full Marshall stack plus another half-stack plus two Orange cabinets and an Orange head...

But I'm up to four Marshall 4x12 cabs myself now and don't even play in a band, so I shouldn't complain.
The 1960AHW top cab with British-made Celestion G12-30H (55Hz) speakers,
A nice condition JCM800 top cab with British-made Celestion Vintage 30's that I scored for $350,
And a pair of JCM900 bottom cabs with G12-75's,

plus a Vox 412BN (vintage-style brown grille & classic-black tolex) bottom cab. The Vox has the 16-ohm GSH12-30 Vox/Wharfdale's (30-watters) on celestion-style frames, but I have some Chinese Celestion greenbacks I might load it with. The Wharfdales aren't really that bad though for cheaper knock-offs...

[shakti]

Nice to see this followed-up by others!

I only put in the vertical bracing and a larger pine soundpost on mine, I didn't go to the length of replacing the horizontal bracing. So I had to make a cutout in the vertical piece to fit it over the horizontal piece, which is glued in. It's not exactly the same as the vintage cabs, but it should perform more or less the same function, which is to reinforce the baffle and transfer the pressure from the soundpost over a larger area of the baffle.

While it did make a very distinct improvement, it's still lacking a little in low mids compared to my vintage ones. It's also noticeably lighter - the metal handles on the older ones probably add a little bit of weight though. I'm down to the front bracing being the one very notable difference, and I may have to break down and replace that as well. On the older ones, both the upper and lower part of the baffle are completely framed by pieces of 12mm plywood. On the new Hendrix HW angled cab, at least, the outer bracing is made of 15mm MDF, and the lower part of the baffle is not supported along the upper edge (got that?). Minor differences, perhaps, but they all add up. Having 3mm less bracing would of course also increase the inside volume of the box, but should be a miniscule difference.

Finally, I get the feeling that the bracing for the rear panel (which the rear panel attaches to) is not as substantial as on the older ones, but I haven't measured.

[neikeel]

Finally, I get the feeling that the bracing for the rear panel (which the rear panel attaches to) is not as substantial as on the older ones, but I haven't measured.

The strips are wider only at the bottom on pre 70 cabs to give support to the castors, when the triangular plate ones and homa alloy boss type were introduced late 70/71 the bottom strip was made same size as the vertical and top strips.

One thing you have not factored in is that the wood ages and dries - same as your guitars

[shakti]

I thought Homa casters came in sometime in '69 or maybe '70? I have two '69 cabs which have the push-in type casters (Revvo?), and two mid-'70 cabs which have (or had) the later type (Homa?). I know the support strip for the casters directly behind the baffle (seen above) was one long strip of wood in '67 and probably '68, then changed to just triangular pieces sometime in '68 or early '69. Similarly the rear support was wider in '67, '68 and early '69, for as long as the push-in casters were used. I need to check my tw '70 cabs with the later type casters to see if the rear support is wider on those.

Regardless of that, the old ones just feel "denser" overall...can't quite put my finger on it. Aging of the wood could of course be a factor, but that would only make it lighter, wouldn't it?

[neikeel]

I have a collection of transition cabs in my possession at the moment. My both my 67/68 pinstripes have narrow flange handles and the bottom baffle support strips, both of my 68/69 basketweaves have bottom triangles but wider flange metal handles. Obviously all have 6" logos and large centre posts and plybacks and pop-in revvo tubes.

My tall 196B has 9" logo and triangles with pop-inb revvo tubes, it was basket weave and I guess to be late 69 with this spec as I do not have the original speakers. This has screw in metal handles.

A 1960A with Dec 70 T1221 speakers has the three threaded holes for the large diameter plate mounted revvos (ply back and narrow rear panel supports). This has rivetted metal handles.

A slightly later 1935A cab with original T1511s it has check cloth, narrow rear panel supports again 9" logo but bronze homa bosses with fine thread and particle board back and again rivetted metal handles.

All of the cabs have the large rectangular baffle supports.

My other cabs are much later (1976 and 78) with narrow supports, narrow sound posts, plastic castor bosses etc. I have to say these cabs sound pretty good too (the one I put a ply back on particularly). To me the particle baord back 1971 1935A sounded excellent despite the particle board back - why other than the pulsonics and old wood?