A friend of mine who is an amp designer once told me that his great sadness was that the most important part of guitar sound apart from the player was the speaker(s).
I’ve now had a chance to test my new Ceriatone Overtone Special through a variety of speakers : modern and vintage EV12L; Fane Alnico Blue; Eminence Deltalite neodymium; Celestion Vintage 30’s and a VHT Eminence.
The clear winner for clean and overdrive is the vintage EV in the CCC ported/closed-back Thiele cab, though you sometimes have to watch the thump. My other vintage EV in an open-back 1×12 is nearly, but not quite, as good and there’s less thump. The modern EV is really good, too, probably the best of what is available today for this purpose.
The Deltalite is great and being Neodymium it’s much lighter, though it lacks the depth and texture of the EV’s. The Fane is also very good, especially on overdrive. Quite creamy.
The little VHT Sounds boxy, but to be fair it was bundled with their excellent Special 6 amp and the whole package was just over £200. The big surprise disappointment is the Celestion Vintage 30’s, which I have mounted in a pair of really sturdy Blackstar 1×12 cabs – both examples sound really gnarly and add an unpleasant grind, even to clean sounds.
Hopefully my next post will be abut how my various stompboxes interact with the Ceriatone….