Love in the Box - Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together! (Mixing speakers)

We WGS types just can’t ever leave well enough alone.  We love to tweak, re-tweak, and then tweak some more.  Our motto:  If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing!  That’s why we are sometimes not satisfied with simply loading up our 2x12 or 4x12 cab with a set of great sounding speakers; every now and then we tone tweak-heads like to do a little mix-n-matching.  We at WGS have long recommended the pairing of our ultra warm and smooth ET 65 with some of our more gutsy and/or touch-sensitive models.  I personally have gigged with a ET65-Vet 30 combo as well as a ET65-Retro 30 combo (my fav).  I decided it was time to put all of our favorite combos, and some experimental ones, to the test.  Video demos and comments follow.  Read on!

All the videos were done at Todd Tillemans’ Anything Audio and Music Tech in Hendersonville, Tennessee.  Anything audio is a boteque level guitar and amp shop that specializes in rare Gibson guitars, Marshall and Fender amps, and amp repair and mods.  Todd and his Amp repair guru Tinnin Martin were both on hand to lend their ears to the festivities.  The first demo we did was the ET65/Vet 30 combo that we often recommend.  The results were predictably good; well balanced tone that is both warm and touch-sensitive.  Here is the video:

Our next pairing is a personal fav of mine, the ET-65 with a Retro 30.  This combination is, in my opinion, even better than the ET65/Vet 30 combo.  It did not disappoint, either!  Here is that video:

Next we paired a Green Beret with the ET-65.  This one surprised us a little.  The Green Beret, like a vintage Green Back, sings with a very throaty, midrange heavy voice.  Pairing the ET-65 with the GB greatly smoothed out the overall texture; there was still a little bit of the GB’s raspy voice in there, but it was a lot smoother combination than we expected.  Here is the video:

Next we started having a little fun experimenting.  I’d always wanted to hear the ET65 paired with a Reaper, and I can now tell you that it is my very favorite WGS combo!  The tone was every tone-seekers dream.  It was huge and tight on the bottom, urgent and exciting in the midrange, velvety smooth on the top, and extremely touch-sensitive and responsive.  This combination was a real blast to play through, very, very rewarding.  This is how I’ll leave this 2x12 cab set up!  Here is the vid:

Last I decided to take the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup philosophy of "two great tastes that taste great together" into the speaker realm and pair the American G12C with the ET-65.  I’ve loved the G12 in several vintage Fender open-back combos, and I expected to really dig the fenderesque clean tones of this combo, and not the dirty tones.  I didn’t get what I expected ... hey, that’s why we’re doing this, right??!  Here is the video:

Wow, that was a real labor of love!  I hope you all appreciate it, doing it with that rear-loading cab was painfully slooooow!  After all that, Todd, Tinnin, and I sat down and discussed the results.  Surrfice it to say that it was quite educational for all three of us.  So, what the heck, here is that video, too!

See ya all next week.  I have a very unique low-wattage boutique amp we will be reviewing, crafted by one of the growing numbers of WGS loving amp builders.  It’s gonna be awesome!  See ya then.       emailvaughn     About Vaughn Skow