Marshall 1960A

I bought this cabinet in 1991. It was new and I presume it was made somewhere close to that time - probably 1990 at the earliest.

It's extremely flexible for any setup - stereo or mono, with impedence selectors.

I've played a very wide range of musical styles through the years and this cabinet has always played it's part in delivering them all - no exceptions. It gives me exactly what I ask of it. When I want punch, I get it. When I want deep & chunky, it's there. When I want glissening highs, I have to duck.

I drive it in stereo, with a Marshall JMP1 Preamp, and a EL34 50/50 Power Amp. I also occasionally drive it in mono with a TSL100.

For those people who say this cabinet distorts, or doesn't sound good with clean sounds, or doesn't project the sound well, I would say check your other gear for problems. This cabinet will reproduce exactly whatever you feed it with - garbage-in, garbage-out. If you're using anything that's low-grade, either guitars or amps, then you'll hear it clearly from this cab.

In all the years I've had this cabinet, I've never once had to lower my eyebrows at it.

I've had this cabinet for 17 years and it's never given me a single bit of trouble. It's on it's original speakers and they still sound great. I've gone through 2 preamps and 3 power amps in the time I've had this cabinet. Now that I think of it, I believe it's actually the oldest piece of musical equipment I own.

I keep it in a custom-made flight case. The lid comes off at the start of a gig and goes back on at the end. I've played in several bands, and had several different sets of roadies wheeling it in and out of vans, and on and off stages, and there's hardly a single mark anywhere on it, and no tears on the front. The cabinet stays in the base unit of the flightcase all through a gig so is kept out of the range of stray heels. Also, any other rack that bumps into it hits the outer part of the flighcase first, and not the cab itself.

I keep reading reviews where people whine about how their cabs are all torn and beat up - well duuh! Take proper care of it! If you're a semi-pro or pro gigging musician then there's no excuse. My cabinet has been hauled across the UK and Europe for 17 years and still looks exactly like it did the day I bought it.

Never called them.

I've been playing semi-pro for 26 years. This cabinet has been with me for 17 of those.

I've said it all in the sections above - this cabinet is one of the best purchases I have ever made. If it were stolen, I would first try and find another one from the same period but, failing that, I'd get a new one.

This is a mid 90's 4x12. Just your basic 4x12. It gets a 10 because of the ohm switching options it has on the back. You can run mono at either 4 or 16 or stereo at 8 ohms a side.

I've been using this cab with my Soldano HR50 head and I can get a pretty chunky AC/DC type crunch out of them. I don't like the clean tones all that much and the cabinet has a tendency to be really beamy. If you stand right in front, the highs blow your ears apart...step a few feet to the left and you can't hear the thing at all. I do believe that this is a design flaw in the cab and not the speakers themselves.

I'm not sure why these cabs get such high ratings as far as reliability is concerned. Between my friends I've known 3 or 4 people with this same cab and every one has tolex tearing and curling up all over the place. Obviously very low grade material.

All of the "hardware" is made of cheap plastic. Both of the handles have broken off at different points (screws pulled right threw the plastic). The corner protectors are also made of cheap plastic. All of the speakers come loose and rattle around on a regular basis.

The only thing saving this is that it's never actually stopped working on me.

I've never dealt with Marshall's customer service, but I'm willing to guess that it might be a nightmare after working with people like Soldano, Weber Speakers, and Earcandy Cabs. This will probably be the last mass produced piece of equipment I'll ever use.

Overall, you most likely get your money's worth here. They are fairly inexpensive cabs and obviously were pinching pennies when it comes to the cab hardware. But all in all, it sounds good and has never quit for probably over 10 years. It's a good cab when you can't really stand to fork over a grand for a boutique 4x12 (Bogner/Orange).

It is a cab. Nothing special about it other than the great sounds it produces

I use an Epiphone Les Paul Custom plugged into a Marshall JCM-900 Dual Reverb. The combination of these three componants bring about the greatest tones that my hands have ever created. I play Hardcore music and a lot of distortion is needed for my style. This Cab delivers that sound 100%.

I gig with this set up all the time without a backup. The amp and cab have never let me down. I guess I must let it be known that I am a complete gear freak and take very special care of my equipment. It's so dear to me that I rarely let anyone else touch it and have only let one other person , a very close friend of mine, actually plug into it.

I personally have never had a need to deal with the costumer service so I cannot say I have a right to an opinion in this catagory.

I got my first guitar for over 8 years ago, and havn't stopped playing since. This set-up is my baby and if any piece of it were lost or stolen I wouldn't think twice about buying it again. Everything about it fits perfectly into my style where all others fail. Overall I am very pleased with this cab and I reccomend it to everyone who is considering purchasing this find piece of equipment

Bought this speaker cab new in 1990 as part of a Marshall JCM 800 2210 half stack for $2,634. I'm supposing it was made in 1990. Including the hefty finance charge, I probably paid about $1,000 for it. This speaker cab is great for anything you want to play through it, guitars, keyboards, even a P.A. It works for all my sytles of playing which are blues, rock, Contemporary Christian, gospel, Country Western, bluegrass. You can play acoustic guitar, rock, folk, blues, jazz, anything through this thing and it will sound good. It does 4 and 16 ohms in mono with all 4 speakers simultaneous. It does 8 ohms per side with two of the speakers per side in stereo. I wish it had an 8 ohm mono switch for using all 4 speakers simultaneous, but I accomplish that by putting switching it to stereo and plugging in a y-connector w/ a plug into each jack on the speaker box which is combined into one 1/4" jack. If I have it right (and I could be wrong) 8+8=16 divided by 2 = 8 ohms. It sounds like 8 ohms anyway! It was my main speaker cab for 7 years with the JCM 800 2210 head, but to reduce cartability hassles, my 1997 Fender 1965 Twin Reverb amp took its place as my main amp. The 65 lb. Twin was much easier to schlep around than the estimated 140 lbs. half stack. I use this speaker cab at home now for practice. I'm hoping it will be back on the stage in a couple of years for large venues, or venues in which I need to dominate and intimidate. When you roll one of these things in, heads turn. Marshall in the house!

This speaker cab can make any sound you want. It really sounds good with an amplified acoustic guitar. Variety is really unlimited, I'd say. I've never driven this cab to distortion using a clean amp channel. I think any jets in the vicinity would be blasted out of the sky into oblivion or worse. Well, I never needed to because the Marshall JCM 800 2210 has a great distortion channel allowing the pre-amp to easily be overdriven without crashing commercial aircraft in the vicinity. I play a 1994 Fender Eric Clapton signature stratocaster, a 1976 standard strat, 1976 Les Paul Custom, but mostly played my 1989 Gibson ES-335 through it, mostly blues/rock stuff. Also play Takamine and Esteban acoustic guitars with pickups through it. Everythang sounds great using this cab. It's not noisy. I've never played it louder than 7 on the Master volume without the Marshall Power Brake attenuator, which I recommend for lower volume playing. You can crank the amp as loud as you want but attenuate it down so it won't blast your ears out. It can make any sound you want. Has tremendous range. The only reason I'm not giving this a 10 is because I have a Seymour Duncan 4x12 speaker cab which I think sounds better than this. By comparison, the 1960A has a muddier, earthier sound. That is, the Seymour Duncan cab has a very clear and musical, airey sound.

This thing is a rock in terms of reliability. It's never let me down ever. I would and have used it without a backup because the only reason I could see for it failing is that I would blow it out. That would take over 300 watts, and I doubt I'd ever do that. My JCM 800 2210 was bench tested at 150 watts, and I can't imagine hooking an amp with more than 300 watts to this cab. Altough maybe I should try it just for the heck of it some day. For those who want to keep their Tolex in top shape for aound town gigs: Get a Tuki cover. They are tops. For $75 you can get one, put it on to keep dust off when not in use, and when schlepping, you can shove it around and pack it against your other gear with no worries. You won't get dings or tears or gashes. The only thing that needed doing was in 2000 I replaced the original 4 caster wheels for $10.73. The original ones just got worn out/chipped up from all the schlepping to gigs. Pretty good for 17 years of use.

Never a need for any customer support yet. Never needed repairs. And that's after having owned and used it for 17 years! Probably I've done about 1,000 gigs with this speaker cab so far. It's just so well made you'd really have to abuse it to need repairs. I guess the original warranty was a year, but that would have expired in

I've played guitar for 43 years now. I have piles of gear. A Crate PCMB 500 watt P.A. amp, a Carvin FET 401 monitor amp, Cerwin Vega 12" 2 way floor monitors, dbx 160 compressor, 2 Soundtech B2E 12" 2 way main speakers,Digitech 2101 studio tube pre-amp, Shure SM58 & SM57 mics, Yamaha 4 track cassette deck, Marshall 8008 Stereo Valvestate Power Amp, a 1997 '65 Fender Twin Reverb Reissue tube amp, 1977 Fender Vibro-Champ tube amp, Mesa-Boogie V-twin tube pre-amp pedal and Boss foot pedals.

2004 Marshall 1960A 4x12 cabinet - mono at 4 or 16ohms, stereo at 8ohms, 300w handling. I play mostly with a 70's/80's style guitar tone with a Goth-rock band. For the type of guitar tones I use in my setup, think Black Sabbath, John Christ (Danzig), Slash, Joe Perry, and Ace Frehley.

This cabinet produces a clear punchy tone without being too boomy which is absolutely perfect towards my needs. With two guitar players, a keyboardist, and a bass player in my band it sits right in the EQ settings I need.

My gear consists of a Gibson 1958 ReIssue Les Paul Standard, Marshall JCM800 2210 100w dual channel head, with my only effect being a Dunlop Crybaby pedal. This cab (although a newer model, as opposed to a JCM800 1960A) is a perfect match for my amp.

For years I had been slowly upgrading my gear towards what I really needed versus what was within my short range budget and was running through a Marshall Valvestate 4x12 cabinet. I finally succumbed to replacing it with a 1960A after doing a gig where another band loaned me a 1960A for the night. The punch I got from my tone that night finalized my decision that I needed to upgrade my cab.

Again, this cab is very punchy without being overly boomy, maximizing the most out of muted power chords and thumping rhythm parts. It makes the most out of my JCM800's potential.

Well, this is still a relatively new cabinet so the tolex hasn't gotten beaten up yet, although I expect it to over the years as all of my Marshall stuff has.

Aside from this, I would expect that this cab will function perfectly, after all the abuse I've given to my old Valvestate cab.

Never dealt with Marshall directly.

While anything with the Marshall name is going to be pricey, I was lucky to find this one used from a good friend. It's truly the missing ingredient in perfecting my tone, and if anyone were crafty enough to steal it - it's quite heavy - indeed I'd be on the market for a replacement.

2006 Marshall 4x12 cabinet. mono/stereo operation.

Came with Celestion G12T-75 speakers. Yuck. Marshall's upcharge to get into their better cabs is like $300 (if you can even find them). Uggh. Solution: Buy the stock 1960 cab and replace the speaks. :-)

Tried sets of Celestions ("Hellatone" label, from the awesome Avatar Speakers company) in the cab -- G12H30's and then Vintage 30's. Definitely an improvement to the tone and louder than the 75's. The 75's were inarticulate, generic, and guitar notes died away very quickly. But I had problems with the other speakers, too. The H's were VERY bass-heavy and quite trebly, while the V's were smooth but didn't have ENOUGH shimmer/treble. Great. :-(

My breakthrough came when I decided to try a combination of the two types. I first installed the H's on the left and the V's on the right and ran the cab stereo, 8 ohms, to compare them individually and then ran the cab mono, 16 ohms, to hear them combined. No doubt about it -- the combination was a winner for all-around Marshall sounds, though the two types each had great qualities. I finally installed the two Celestion Vintage 30's and two Celestion G12H30's in an "X" pattern, so the sound blended well. I feel this is the ultimate combination to go with my Marshall DSL 50 head. V30's are warm and full, H's are crunchy with more highs & lows. They are not drastically different and actually compliment one another well. Best of the old, best of the new. And all for less $$ than Marshall's Vintage and Classic cabinet.

Sound catagory gets a 5 before the surgery, 9.9 after.

Wonderful construction quality. Love the fingerlocked joints and rounded, protected corners.

Those who gripe about the tolex durability: You're right, it should be (and could easily be) tougher. So since it is what it is, do what I did and GET A COVER (or a case). I mean, if you just get a $30 cover and transport it with care, it should be in good shape for years and years.

2 points off for the tolex.

don't know yet.

Been playing for 24 years.

Compared it to the B-52 4x12 cab. 1960 was way better, even stock.

Love this cab -- it's the "bad boy".

2004 1960A CAB 16, 4 OHM MONO 8 OHM STEREO. USED FOR HARD FREAKING ROCK. HANDLES ANYTHING. CLUB GIGS ARE FUN WITH THIS.

GIBSON USA BUDDY ALL THE WAY!! IVE ALWAYS WANTED TONAL HAPPINESS. THIS IS IT.IF YOU DONT LIKE IT THEN YOUR GUITAR SUCKS, YOUR HEAD SUCKS, YOUR STRINGS MIGHT SUCK. MAYBE YOUR HEAD IS GOOD BUT TUBES ARE BAD. 2006 MARSHALL TUBES SUCK FROM WHAT I HEAR. BUY A NEW DSL AND GET A TUBE CHANGE RIGHT AWAY IS WHAT I HEAR AND YOULL BE FINE. DONT KNOW. I STOPPED GIGGING WITH TUBE AMPS BECAUSE THEY SEEM TO HAVE A MIND OF THIER OWN. SOLID STATE SOUNDS THE SAME EVERY NITE IN EVERY CLUB. ANY WAY ILOVE THIS CAB. CLEAR AS A BELL TO ME.

LAST FOREVER, VERY STRONG CABS. DONT BELIEVE REVIEWERS THAT ADMIT IN PUBLIC THEY ALSO OWN PEAVY GEAR. PLEASE, YEH PEAVY THE INDUSTRY STANDARD FOR 12YO KIDS. ANY TOLEX CAN TEAR. IF YOU TREAT YOUR GEAR LIKE $%^&, IT WILL LOOK LIKE $%^&.

@#$% SUPPORT

I OWN A FEW OF THESE. PLAN ON BUYING ONE MORE BEFORE THIER LOST OR STOLEN.WHAT EVER, IF YOU DONT LIKE IT, TRY SOMETHING ELSE. AS FOR ME, IM STICKING WITH MARSHALL ALL THE WAY!!!

Birch plywood fingerjoined caninet, backboard is chipboard.
Heavy walls, big sound.
I wish the corners were tougher as I imagine they will break easily.

I am using strats with HS-3 Dimarzio's
model 1987 50w Marshall top and a new handwired 1959 super lead.
I was running through a trace elliott 4x12 240 watt cab made of particle board for three years, It was probarbly manufactured about 12 years ago...
I never realised how bad it actually was untill I plugged into a Marshall cab.
I tried the 100w, 280w and finally the holy grail... 300w g12t-75.
Man.... This is the sound I have searched high and low for all these years.
It has great bottom end capabilities, I dont understand all the whinging on this subject, real sweet yet ballsy midrange and a singing high end.
Projection is real good, I think the people having problems with this dont understand you need to crank you Marshall to get projection.
These are really large venue boxes and tailored for them.

Man, If youre using a cab just because you picked it up cheap and couldnt afford a good one at the time like myself... get real with yourself..... get a good one!!

Bought new at guitar center, Owned for 1 year. 4 G12T 75 watt speakers. Mono/stereo 300 watt cab.
I use this for band rehearsals, can handle plenty of power

I use this for hi-gain metal. It is an improvement over a stock Peavey cab, but the speakers in this really hold it back. I think these speakers are inarticulate, they will give you a headache and ear fatigue real fast. There is always a mid-treble brightness present that cannot be EQ-ed out of the sound. I think replacing at least two of these speakers with a better sound might help. I replaced two of these with Weber Thames speakers with truly spectacular results.

Not impressed with the construction of these. Seems cheap and thrown together from a hi speed production line.

N/A

Not a good value, not good speakers. Save your money, get a empty cab and put some high quality speakers in it.

4 speakers, the end.

yes it does have less mids, but theres always a solution to that.........TURN UP YOUR MIDS! JESUS! i use a Peavey JSX, and the sound i get is BEYOND CRUNCH! outstanding tone! you dont NEED to dial out your mids to get a metal tone. its got enough bottom end. i actually have to take some lows out, its a really heavy cab. the straight cab has more mids if you really want it...if you own a mesa head, why are you buying a marshall cab? mesa heads are specifically made for mesa cabs. marshalls are GREAT with marshalls or peaveys. the next guy to complain about the lack of low end NEEDS to get a life and learn tone. otherwise, this is a GREAT angled cab.

it weighs a ton, so chances are some roadie is going to drop it, for the lack of muscle.

i hear theyre terrible...but IF i need anything, ill do it myself. im not a nerd, but i know my components left from right.

i plan on buying a straight cab for the full stack look...but i really dont NEED it...this thing is plenty loud enough. tom morello used his half stack for over a decade, and its still louder than any band with walls of stacks...you do know that they only mic one small amp in the back and run it through the pa? did you think PAs were just for vocals?

in summary

mesas are for posers...unless you own a lone star

marshalls are for the strong and half deaf

bogners are for the rich and far from famous

framus are for the emo kids

and krank are for most new metal heads...not that its a bad thing.


these cabs make up for musicians who have already lost some hearing. and if you havent yet, YOU WILL!