I have used the Vet 30's in the past with great results and had a chance to trade for a unopened Retro 30 off of a board so i snagged it. the amp is a MINT 1990 Marshall MK III JCM 900 2501 Dual master 50 watt 1/12 combo. I had been running a 70/Eighty Celestion in it and had used a vet 30 WGS in the amp before that.
The Retro I expected to be brighter and have more mid punch but what surprises me is that it really right now lacks bottom CHUNK. It's brand new and has only a couple hours on it now. My question is how much will it warm up as it breaks in?? It was my understanding that the Retro had a stronger botom end response than the Vet with the added sizzle and mids so???
Running the combo on my Blackstar 1/12 with a Vet 30 is simply breathtaking at high volume high gain but running the combo alone with the Retro is pretty thin.
Well ... the Ret 30 is probably WGS's brightest speaker ... with lots of top end sparkle, which is a good thing if that's what your amp needs ... In my listening tests ... with several amps ... I have found the Ret 30 does also have a bit more on the bottom. It generally takes about 10-12 hours or so of good solid playing for the speaker to find it's ultimate Fs frequency ... or in other words, it will get a bit warmer. (see my blog: http://wgs4.com/truth-about-75hz-vs-55hz-guitar-speaker-cones)
Now, the Ret30 does not, generally, have as much midrange snarl as a Vet 30. Also, I tend to not like the Ret 30 nearly as much in an open back cab as closed.
Hope this helps, post back & let us know if the Ret does, in fact warm up ... it should, the question is: will it be enough for the open back 900.
I ran her hard for a while here at the house and it began loosening up nicely.
Yesterday I took the Marshall out on a gig. I am a worship player and was involved in a 12 hour IHOP (international House of Prayer) conference where teams all do 2 hour slots. I got tapped for guitar duty for 3 teams and did the 3 sets back to back with the amp and the Retro. By the end of the 6 straight hour set without a break it was loosening up and sounding pretty good. Here is a clip from the last set the song was a pure spontaneous jam and I recorded this with a nice Sony Stereo Digital recorder just sitting on a chair in the front row.
https://www.box.com/s/hi3so3xhrf4m758wxbvw
This is NOT your normal JCM 900 in that this is NOT the buzzy Dual Reverb but the much fatter and smoother sounding Dual Master. This speaker after it broke in a little actually sounds pretty good now in the amp. For now I think i will leave the Retro 30 in the Marshall combo and the Vet I have in my extension cab.