Demeter SSC-1L 112 Soundproof Cabinet

Isolation cabinet w/ Demeter-installed 12" Celestion 30/60.
Internally mounted gooseneck for mic hardwired to XLR jack on the outside of the cabinet. Standard road-case type butterfly latch on access door to the inside of the cabinet.

Works really well for my purposes. Mostly medium-gain application using an old Sovtek 60 head. I dig the tone; note that your tone will depend to a large degree on your choice of speaker.

As a reference for those of you that may be familiar with the Sovtek heads, I set the Sovtek master to roughly 9 o'clock, the preamp anywhere from 9 to 1 o'clock and use the high input. The reduction in db is enough to safely play in a bottom-floor apartment w/ no complaints so far. To my ears, this setting produces roughly the same SPL as an acoustic guitar being leaned into pretty heavily.

I dimed the head for a very brief couple of notes just for kicks and as expected, the 60-watt-rated speaker started to complain, so use common sense in this area!

Build quality seems top-notch. Protected corners all around. Jacks, mike gooseneck, speaker mountings, and door hardware all overbuilt and very reliable so far.

Adam was very patient and helpful in explaining the features and limits, as well as ensuring the transaction went smoothly before and after delivery. It is worth noting that it would have been very easy for them to exaggerate the SPL that a device like this is capable of decreasing, and Adam gave me a very realistic set of expectations to make my decision on; I appreciate this kind of candor, especially in mail-order situations. Very pleased.

Overall, a 9

SSC stands for "silent speaker chamber". The idea is to put a mic and a speaker inside a soundproof box, so you can record the top volume tone of your amp without legal entanglements.

The "1L" is "loaded"; it comes with a 12" 80 watt Eminence speaker installed. It's also available with no speaker, so you can use your own. The speaker is held by hefty clamps; pretty easy to install with a screwdriver.

The speaker mounts inside, in a wall that divides the box in half. The back half is a closed speaker cab. The front half has a short mic stand and an access door. On the back, there's a "speaker in" jack and a "mic out" jack. No knobs.

Me: amateur, home studio. Guitar: '95 American Standard Tele routed for neck P-90. Amp: Mesa/Boogie DC-5 (50 watts; two 6L6's).

The Sound? I guess it depends on your amp--obviously it has to have a tube power section. The first tones I got sounded like the solo from "Good Times, Bad Times". From what I read, that violin-body tone comes from the restricted frequency response of the output transformer when it's overdriven. I love this box. I'm still trying new stuff.

But--after a while I noticed that there were some pretty strong resonances inside the box. There were a few notes that would scream out every time. Stuffing it with insulation didn't help; neither did adding angled wood inside the box. Nady has a $99 5-band parameteric equalizer, which does the trick. I put narrow cuts at about 500, 750 and 1,000 Hz and a medium-narrow boost at about 625. There's also a broad resonance at about 130 Hz, but cutting it too much takes out the meat.

Is it silent? That's a matter of degree. My amp is supposed to be a loud 50 watts, and my wife can still hear it on the second floor when I really crank it in the basement. No complaints from the neighbors, though. (Without the box, I'd guess 20 minutes before the police showed up.) It would probably work for an apartment with a smaller wattage amp, if you isolated it from the floor a bit.

What's to break?

The door handle may rattle if you fold it flat against the door; no big deal.

Friendly, took some time on the phone.

The power tube fanatics are right! Especially if you want "classic rock" or "alternative" tones (whatever), but really for anything with life in it.