I thought I'd post my experience for any of you out there who have this amp or might be considering getting one.
I never had a big problem with the stock blue marvel speaker. I thought the amp sounded fine stock. I wanted to add an
extension cab after hearing a friend's 2x12 cab w/ his marshal head because of the difference in what I call "presence", ...so I bought one that is in the mail now. I went to a store and got a
celestion vintage 30 to go in the extension cab last night, and I thought it would be a good idea to pop it in the amp to work on getting it broke in while the cabinet is in transit. That job turned out to be a little more than I anticipated since the whole amp unit had to come out of the classic 30 to get the stock speaker out, lol. Not too bad though.
After playing the vintage 30 through the classic 30 I am amazed at how much the sound improved. It has an almost stereo sound quality about it and the sound has more depth and character to it, ...and just sounds bigger overall. The higher mids and treble frequencies are much more present but it doesn't sound bad because of it. It's really quite nice and balanced. There are tones there I just wasn't hearing at all before! It just opened the amp up, like it breathes a lot more now, and like it was being kinda choked down before. And that's my impression after about an hour or two of playing. I like the change so much that I'm going to leave it in there and just buy another one to go in the closed back extension cab!
I also found out while doing the speaker swap that my amp already has JJ tubes in it. One 12ax7 tube is a sovtek, ...which is weird unless the newer models come with jj's. Mine was a floor model (out of the box) but it was in mint perfect new condition so it wasn't used (and wasn't advertised at the store as used). That may be another part of why my classic 30 sounds so sweet to me. I've never heard it with all sovtek tubes so I don't know the difference, but everyone seems to like to switch out for JJ's.
Anyway, I have read a LOT of reviews and listened to sound clips before making a speaker choice ("guess" really, lol). Some people strongly argued that the vintage 30 was all wrong for the classic 30's voicing, ...others just hated the speaker in an open back application. Still, many others loved it. I just thought I'd post my 2-cents worth and say it wrocks! A most definite and noticeable improvement in tone! Hope that may be helpful for someone out there in jemsite land.
