Vintone Circuits 112 Cabinet

At first, you might think that $485 is too much to pay for an unloaded 1x12 speaker cabinet, but read on....
Solid Oak 1x12 Cab with dove-tail joints, 18" x 20" x 11". Tilted baffle board with 2 circular ports in the lower corners with removable port covers on the inside of the Cab to support opened back and closed back operation. 3 piece removable back (again, solid oak) to support options: closed back, 1/3 open back, 2/3 open back. The 3 pieces have overlapping ledges with weather stripping - as a result there are no rattles and this supports true closed back operation. The speaker, port covers & rear panels are all secured with T-Nuts, so that you can install/remove components all you want without worrying about stripping out the wood. The lower 1/3 panel on the back has a very cool input jack plate on it with laser engraving. Recessed handle on the top so that you can put any
Amp on top of the Cab without the handle getting in the way. Gold plated V logo on the oxblood striped grill cloth. Beautiful satin finish inside & out. Very versatile - lots of configuration options with the port covers & 3 piece back. I can't imagine how the craftsmanship could be any better.

I assumed it would sound very good, but, I was not prepared for what my eyes & ears had in store for them. This is a very fine piece of furniture masquerading as a speaker cabinet. I spend almost as much time looking at it as I do playing it - it's that gorgeous! The sound is incredible! Another reviewer said that you can hear the wood in the tone & I concur. I tested lots of combinations to judge the sound of this Cab: Amps - Acoustic Image Clarus, 68 Deluxe Reverb, 62 Brown Super.
Speakers - JBL D120F (the orange one), 50s Jensen P12N, Eminence Gamma Pro. Guitars - 70s Tele, Anderson Hollow T, ES335, ES175, ES5, Johnny Smith. Everything worked extremely well, but the JBL...
I'm still shaking. I'm used to the JBL sounding kind of hard & bright, but not in this Cab - lush & beautiful. I took the port covers off & put all 3 pieces on the back & compared the Vintone
to my Raezer's Edge Stealth 12 (which I also like very much). The Stealth 12 has an Eminence Delta in it, so I put the Eminence Gamma in the Vintone for comparison purposes. I used the Acoustic Image
and Deluxe Reverb for the comparison. To my ears, the Vintone won. The midrange is more lush & it seems to fill the room with a cloud of sound. Maybe that's due to the fact that the Vintone does not
have tolex on it - I'm not sure. In contrast, the Stealth 12 sounded very focused, tight, and clean - also a great sounding cabinet! In terms of visual appeal & craftsmanship, no comparison! I can't
imagine anything beating the Vintone!

Built incredibly well. I don't see how anything could go wrong with it unless you throw it off the roof of your 2-story house onto the driveway.

Lifetime Warranty - Doug Stalters stands behind his work. He responds to emails in a timely manner. He really cares about customer satisfaction. He's always polite & I never felt rushed when I talked to him. As others have noted, he sent me pictures of my Cab at various stages of construction - how many companies do that?

What else can I say? My Vintone 1x12 Cab looks & sounds amazing. Sure, you can find somebody to build you a glued-together plywood Cab with Tolex on it for half the money, but as they say, you get what you pay for. For me - extra money well spent. In fact, I sent Doug a check yesterday to build me a 2nd matching Cab!
Visit www.vintone.com and you'll be very impressed with Doug's Amps & Cabinets.

It's a speaker cabinet with one twelve inch speaker, no parlor tricks, but the cab is beautifully crafted hardwood, and the speaker is a Weber alnico Blue Dog. No tolex or tweed here to get ripped or scuffed... if it takes a ding, it can be sanded out and re-finished. The dovetail-joined oak cabinet is larger than any 1-12 I've ever seen, in height and width as well as depth. The craftsmanship on this cabinet is second to none.

It sounds incredible. You can literally hear the wood in the tone, and the cabinet really brings out the best in the Blue Dog. I have a Rivera 55 12 (plus a Rivera 120 watt stereo EL34 power amp, which doesn't apply to this review), and about 9 different guitars, usually using Dimarzio Evolution Bridge pickups, and Texas Special necks and middle pickups. I use a Klon Centaur and several modified and custom built pedals from the likes of Mike Piera (analogman), and Robert Keeley. The 55 12 is a very powerful combo amp, and I play LOUD, and I get a lot of noise from tubes vibrating at stage volume, so I originally decided to run it like a head, and get my main speaker away from the tubes. Well it worked perfectly, but the whole sound improved beyond the mechanical noise stopping... the tone is improved 100% and I re-tweaked the amp to get more out of it than ever before. Awesome.

The cab is built like a piece of fine furniture. Solid as a rock, no buzzing. I don't know if the speaker can handle my kind of torture, so I asked for the 50 watt voice coil in 16 ohms (8 ohm output on the Rivera, in 2 parallel jacks), so it should hold up quite nicely.

Doug was quick to help with any questions I had, and even put up a page on his site to show me pictures of my cab as it came together in various stages... I don't know how he does it, because he is swamped with orders for his amps, but he pulled this one together in a very quick time frame. Folks, it doesn't get any better than that... not to mention the lifetime warranty... like that guy from Spinal Tap said, Dougs customer support "... goes to 11"

It was the best "move" I could possibly make to get my speaker away from my tube chassis. It sounds better than any I've ever heard, and it looks beatiful. Some points here definitely go to Weber for their speaker, but Doug Stalters knows that, and that's why a lot of Weber VST speakers go out in the gear he builds. I'm very curious about his amps; they've got to be phenominal.

Made in 2002. Slightly larger than most 1x12s. Makes good base for my TooTone head. Larger size gives nice open sound. Exta nice red oak cab with light stain & sealer. Dove tail joints. Very fine finish. Extra clean silver grill cloth. Very tight. Nice leather handel is recessed out of the way of my amp head. Weber Blue Dog speaker. Superb bass without a hint of flab or mud. Excellent frequency range. I have a lot of natural wood furniture. This cabinet looks nicer than some pieces I have that cost over $1000.

Using with Vintone Cirtuits TooTone head (see review) and Fender US Deluxe Strat with Noiseless pickups. Give the strat a nice bass punch. Tones range from Fender blackface to Marshall crunch. The hardwood projects sound well. Has half back to help bass projection.

Solid as a rock. Shipped well. Not as heavy as you would think oak would be. It is a good size to transport well. Had a small framed sampler fall off the wall and bounce off the cabinet. Didn't leave a mark. This finish is extra hard. Speaker wire is cloth insulated wire that is hand soldered in. Same wire used for cable to amp head. No room for a noisy connection. The whole thing is built better than my house!

Doug Stalter is the best. Good personal attention. Speedy e-mail replys. Deals with issues well. Keep in mind that Doug is operating small, producing exceptional quality. It will take a while to get your equipment, but you will not regret the wait. The man just plain knows tone. Tell him what you want it to sound like and he will make it.

I have been playing over 30 years. I also have a couple of Taylor accoustics. If this cabinet was lost or stolen, I would replace it immediately. I have bought and sold seven other amps. This is a keeper! NO, I am not related to Doug. He is just really that good!