mesa oversized dimensions lolwaut.

Crate has a handful of shit that wasn't that bad

crate made some awesome shit way back in the day

then they got way too into making cheap shit to sell to 15 year old kids, and it was all downhill from there...
 
If both cabs have same speakers and same dimensions but one is tighter it's down to build quality and materials. I think you could get your Crate tighter simply by opening it up and tightening all the screws inside it. Try it if you're interested. :)

The two cabs being talked about in this thread have neither the same dimensions nor the same speakers. He said the Mesa is an inch or so taller. It's both larger and tighter. Also, the Mesa V30s are definitely not the same speakers as the WGS Veteran 30s.

I noticed a massive difference between my Mesa cab and the other V30 cabs I've owned (Bogner, Orange, Mills Acoustics). The mesa simply sounded smoother and more polished. You can crank the presence on the recto cab to really get an aggressive, cutting tone without it becoming harsh or having any weird mid frequencies sticking out like you get with a lot of V30 cabs. This translates to it being easier to record aggressive, yet polished high gain tones with than other cabs.
 
The two cabs being talked about in this thread have neither the same dimensions nor the same speakers. He said the Mesa is an inch or so taller. It's both larger and tighter. Also, the Mesa V30s are definitely not the same speakers as the WGS Veteran 30s.

I noticed a massive difference between my Mesa cab and the other V30 cabs I've owned (Bogner, Orange, Mills Acoustics). The mesa simply sounded smoother and more polished. You can crank the presence on the recto cab to really get an aggressive, cutting tone without it becoming harsh or having any weird mid frequencies sticking out like you get with a lot of V30 cabs. This translates to it being easier to record aggressive, yet polished high gain tones with than other cabs.

this is the reason i bought one of these cabs, i haven't had time to really put it to the test yet, but soon i will.
 
just a quick blamp. i spent about two weeks messing with the crate cab recently experimenting with reamping on this dudes album i've been working on for too long now and i have not been satisfied. i just spent some time after work yesterday and simply threw a 57 on the mesa cab and it immediately got equal or better results than the two weeks worth of previous work. the tightness makes the guitar tone much more defined/intelligible.

i'll report back and hopefully be able to do kind of a side by side comparison with each type of speaker in each cabinet...





Don't take this as THE INFALLIBLE HOLY WORD on these cabinets, this is a first impression and besides it's on the fucking internet - everything here should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm in no way saying the Crate is better or worse than the mesa, it's been my go-to cab since like 2004 and has far exceeded what I ever thought of it, so please don't let this devolve into some 'this gear's better than that gear' internet bullshit. If you want to do that, go to Gearslutz.
 
1. Crate Blue Voodoo 4x12 / WGS Veteran 30's
2. Mesa Oversized / Vintage 30's

SM57

The guy had the mesa cab for 25 years so i'm assuming the v30's are not Chinese.
Mic placement/amp settings is not exactly the same, i just threw it up on the mesa and went with it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17514020/SloanZone/Audio/crateveteran30_mesavintage30.mp3
If it's 25 years old it dates to 1987. I think Mesa used Electro-Voice Black Shadows back then and the cabs had a metal grille with the old Boogie or Mesa/Boogie logo.
 
If it's 25 years old it dates to 1987. I think Mesa used Electro-Voice Black Shadows back then and the cabs had a metal grille with the old Boogie or Mesa/Boogie logo.

+1, those cabs aren't even remotely representative of the tone of the Recto Standard (AKA oversized, as opposed to the traditional) which debuted in '94.