Best 1x12 Cab Pairing for GM40

Hey guys,

About to get my Gm40. Any recommendations on best Cab Pairing. Want a 1x12 for home and studio band practice....

JR

I can't offer any specific cabinet advice but I can say that this is probably one of the most important decisions you will have to make in terms of finding your sound.  It outranks valve choices by an order of magnitude.  The drivers are more important than the cabinet as long as it is reasonably well made.  Guitar speakers are not terribly reliant on large heavy cabinets for really deep bass - despite what the internet gurus and their disciples will tell you.  They are more mid and top end devices and our basic cabinet design does little to influence that greatly.

Finger joints and top notch ply will not hurt but are not necessary in any way to get a good sounding cab.  They are just tick box features.  I have a classic 1960s Marshall 4x12 which is great but, for gigging, I prefer to use my own home built Marshall lookalike 2x12".  It uses simpler braced dowelled corner joints for ease of build, easily as strong as finger joints, and is actually made from some offcuts of plain old roofing plywood which are doubled up in key places and well braced.  I've stuck a pic on this post to show what you can do with a little care.  It sounds great with both my GM36 and my range of Marshall amps.  Anyway, you must make up your own mind what you believe on that score.

The H&K amps are generally considered to be not happy with sharper more modern sounding speakers such as V30s.  That said, H&K use them in their own cabinets but they are specially voiced by Celestion so should be taken with a pinch of salt.  I use either modern G12M Greenbacks or my old 1960s original G12Hs and both sound good.  My advice is, just look into any cabinets you can afford and consider their drivers.  Above all, do not go by anyone's advice in any way other than as a starting point.  Rely entirely on your own ears and not your desire to be one of the pack.  If it sounds great to you and has the advantage of being cheap too why care if everyone is looking and commenting on how wrong your setup is?  Lots of auditioning before making a decision is the key here.

Definitely consider H&Ks own cabs, as bordenbert said they are voiced for their amps.

I tried a few cabs with the GM40 before buying the H&K 2x12. Marshall and Orange cabs sounded ok, Mesa cabs sounded awful. The H&K cab sounded better than any of them. I also used a Peavey cab at a gig and it sounded sweeeet (had random strangers complimenting my tone that day), but it was an outside stage and who knows how it would have sounded in a closed room.

This has just occurred to me. I would say that anyone advising on this could add their own range of musical genres to the post. Some cabs may sound great for say metal when they may be awful for classic rock. If we give Ray an idea of what we are playing along with our recommendations it may be of more use.

My own tastes are classic rock, mainly 60s/70s when rock was really ROCK! That may make anything I say of no use to a modern high gain player. Never had Spandex on in my life! (You just wouldn't want to see that.)

Fair point, bordonbert. My favourite tones are heavy rock/metal, so pretty distorted (but I don’t use the ultra channel). I tried the cabs with a wide range of sounds though, as versatility was one of the reasons I got the GM40.

I personally use a Traynor 1x12 with a v30. Solid plywood, well built and rather large for a 1x12. Although many say that this setup should be too crisp or sharp, revealing all your errors with an H&K amp, my ears like it. I play mostly clean and crunch for now. Just getting back into it after a long hiatus. Using Schecter C6 Pro or Schecter Banshee Extreme with DiMarzio's.