Marshall 1960AV 412 Cabinet

This Cab was made in 2003. It has de new print on the gold plate. It says : 1960 Vintage. The cab has the Celestion Vintage 30 speakers. each speaker rated at 70 Watt. It is 280 Watt full Guns 'n Roses sound. You van switch between mono(4 or 16 ohm) and stereo(8 ohm's per side). This switch is also the reason I bought this Cab. Because for the moment I play with a Marshall 8280 Combo (wich is stereo 2x8 ohm). Im looking for an Orange AD140TC within e few months. The cab is very well and nice made out of 15 mm thick Birch Plywood and has a closed back. The casters are good. This cab is the best cab for his price.

The sound of the cab depends of wich amp an guitar you use. The first thing you should do is to by a good guitar if you don't have a guitar with good pickups. The pickups does sound the amp plus cab good. With an Epiphone or squier or whatever not out of the USA or canada; There isn't any amp and cab who sounds great. I play with a Godin G4000 and G1000. The pickups are really great and sounds very clean and clear. My marshall 8280 (the same as the 8200 head) sounds much better then a JCM900 4100.
With this cab I can go from Dire Straits to System Of A Down. We (my band) play grunge like ( nirvana, foo fighters, ...). The cab sounds great really great for old rock like( led zeppelin, ACDC, black sabbath, jimi hendrix, Iron Maiden). This cab is also the best for metal and punkrock because its warmth. The best for this cab is a good overdrive or distortion. then you hear the speakers sing.
The Cab really sounds much warmer and has much more buttom end than the normal 1960A cabs. If you choose; shure take the vintage 30 series. It's a little bit more expensive than a normal 1960 cab with the G12T75 speakers, but you will certainly have more joy about this cab then a normal or other cab.
If you want a Mesa cab and want to pay much money, then go for it but the sound is much the same and with a bad guitar, they al sound bad.

I can play all styles and the cab sounds great. I just love the closed back clean sounds. You can go so loud with this cab. Only the Orange cab sounds even more great. yeah!

I have it now for 3 months and ofcourse I haven't any problems with the cab:-)
This cabs are really built for a lifetime like the marshall slogans.

Support of Marshall is good because its from Europe, and I am from Belgium. When I've got problems with it, I go to my dealer (Piens musiccentre). and have a good support.

I've been playing 10 years now and this is my first 4x12 cab.
I play mostly grunge, hard rock and punk.
I have tested Mesa, peavey, LAney, rivera, and the usual 1960 marshalls.
My final decision was this 1960AV.
There are a million 1960A cabs but there are not that much 1960AV cabs, wich makes him a little bit unique:-)
the only cab who is also as good as the marshall is the Orange 4x12.
I just love this cab because its simplicity and warm feeling.

4x12" Vintage 30's at 60W a peice (even though the back of the amp says 280w R.M.S) 4, 8, 16 ohms

This Cab sounds amazing. Much better then the 1960a cab which is thin and harsh sounding. This cab gets great guns n roses lead sounds and had great mids. Nice bass responsiveness which i've never had it fart out on me even at high volumes

Very reliable, never broken down on me, never had a back up

never delt with them

Great sounding cab, would buy again if stolen, sounds awsome.

Mono/stereo; 4/16 ohms or 8 ohms if stereo. The cabinet comes with rolls, which can be removed, and two handles.
It is equipped with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers and is rated at 280 Watts.

What else could a cabinet need?

The cabinet has a lot of bass eventhough it the slant version. I heard the straight one and the Mesa/boogie boxes have even more bass. The sound however is already quite bassy and I turn the bass only to about 7 or 8. I use a 50-Watt JCM 900 with this box.
Clean sounds are ok but can't match an openback cabinet. They lack highs somewhat, but the dynamics are ok. If you use a strat or slpit pickups you'll get decent sounds, but humbuckers won't sound too good. I use a Ibanez RG (where I can split pickups) and a Gibson SG.

Crunchy sound cut through real well and display very well. The cab reacty quite sensitive to your playing style and has a lot of pressure. There's a lot of classic rock'n'roll feeling to be found here.
Looking at the distortion, at low volumes it sounds somehow strange, as if you'd had to crank up the highs and presence constantly, no matter what level they're set too. This is not dramatic, but the sound could clearly be better at low volumes. Turning the volume up, however, will improve the sound a lot, too: Fat distortion with a lot of pressure behind it. Rhythm sounds are chunky and cut through the mix, solos come out fat and round. Again, exceptional dynamic response with this cab. You can use this cab for a lot of styles. Since it has a lot of bass (the Celestion vintage 30 actually go lower than most other speakers, including the other Marshall used Celestions) this cabinet seems to be very popular among nu-metal players, but it's far more than just that.

This cabinet is probably best used for live and band rehearsals. Who needs a 4x12 cab for practice anyway.

The cab itself is well built and will probably hold up for aeons, but two things need to be critized:
The handles are made of plastic and use only 6 screws. Not only do most other cab builders put more than six screws in, they also use metal handles. The owner before me had to replace one of the handles already (against a metal one) and it seems that the other one will need replacement some time too.
The other thing I'll critize is the tolex wrap which seems to suck on all Marshall cab. They could just as well build their cabs without and paint them black, because the damn tolex doesn't hold up at all. This seems to be a common problem, because I've seen other cabs with the same duct tape makeup and torn tolex covers.

I bought this cab in good shape used and I'm quite happy with it. I considered getting a new Peavey or 1960A cab but decided to get the more expensive Vintage version after I read too many bad reviews on the 1960A series. If it broke, I'd probably get a similar cab with similar speakers (ENGL does have some similar cab in their program).