Vintage 30 repair?

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Never let drummers touch your gear!

My Mesa cab hit the ground so hard that the magnet fell off of one of the speakers. I have a spare I can replace it with but it's not one of the British 70w V30s so I'd really like to get this one repaired. Is it salvageable?

 

[Sloan]

Not sure, but typically repairing a speaker isn't going to save you any money vs buying another one.

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Yeah, I guess I should probably just look for a Mesa V30 on eBay or something. My coworker recommended Orange County Speaker Repair... anyone have any experience with them?

 

[Terminus]

Gluing the magnet on might not cost as much as re-coning it. Try and send that pic to OCSR and ask for a price quote if they can give you one.

 

[Sloan]

Gluing the magnet on might not cost as much as re-coning it. Try and send that pic to OCSR and ask for a price quote if they can give you one.

Yeah, definitely check on that. I know reconing is the most common repair and not really worth it unless you have a $700 speaker or something (altec anyone??!!!).

 

[kev]

Is that not just a DIY job with some industrial strength glue? I have never seen that happen before lol

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Hi Chris,

Yes, we can Recone and Re-align the magnet on your Vintage 30 speaker for you. You would have to do both to fix it. The recone cost is $75 and the realignment is $55. Total cost is $130 per speaker plus shipping. It may not be worth it depending on what you can get a new speaker for. But, as you mentioned, it's one of the "original English models" rather than the new Chinese models. And we don't sell them, so I don't know what they cost. We generally run about 1 week on repairs. Shipping time can vary between 1 day and 8 days, each way, depending on where you live. The shipping cost would be about $20-$25 each depending on the weight and your shipping location. When we recone a speaker we replace all the parts including the Voice Coil, Cone, Surround Edge, Spider, Dome, Gaskets, Coil Wires, and Lead Wires. This process will make your speakers look and sound exactly like they did when they were brand new. We give a 1 year warranty on all our repairs.

I'm going to try to find a reliable place locally, and if that fails I'll probably just throw a Chinese V30 in there for now. I'm probably going to wait until I forget that this happened while playing a house party for free to cough up the money haha

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Celestion still makes the made in britain Vintage 30's. The standard Vintage 30s have always been 60W, there are also the 60W V30s that are made in china. The 70W V30s were special runs for some companies cabinets that had certain modifications to them. As far as I know those companies now use the standard 60W V30s. The way you can tell if a V30 is made in Britain is if there is a sticker on it saying made in Ipswitch England. If there is no sticker than it is Chinese. As far as I know, when you buy a new V30 from most big name warehouses and music stores, they are real v30s. The Chinese only tend to come in cheaper cabinets that have v30s in them (Crate etc.).

If it is worth noting, I personally prefer the 60W V30s over the 70W, it has been talked about around here before and that seems to be the consensus as well. Even though it is one speaker it will limit your cabinet to 240W, but even that is still overkill.

 

[Skaldir]

I'm going to try to find a reliable place locally, and if that fails I'll probably just throw a Chinese V30 in there for now. I'm probably going to wait until I forget that this happened while playing a house party for free to cough up the money haha

Don't worry about it made in china in this case. I made a test where cab and mic haven't been moved, I just changed the speaker. 1 British and 2 Chinese ones sounded pretty much identical. Hope this info helps

 

[drew_drummer]

There is nearly no difference between the British and Chinese V30's. They sound exactly the same. Just get a new one.

 

[decoy205]

The mesa V30's do sound different than the Chinese V30's Although I don't think the standard Marshall v30's sound much different from chinese counterpart. Can't you just order one speaker from Mesa directly? They are on their site. Make the drummer pay. shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

 

[drew_drummer]

The mesa V30's do sound different than the Chinese V30's Although I don't think the standard Marshall v30's sound much different from chinese counterpart. Can't you just order one speaker from Mesa directly? They are on their site. Make the drummer pay. shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

Ah yeah, good point actually. The Mesa ones are a slightly different spec AFAIK.

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Normally I wouldn't care about throwing a 60W V30 in but it's nice having a completely stock Mesa OS to use as a benchmark in the studio.

The mesa V30's do sound different than the Chinese V30's Although I don't think the standard Marshall v30's sound much different from chinese counterpart. Can't you just order one speaker from Mesa directly? They are on their site. Make the drummer pay. shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

Good call, $142.95 after shipping! Gonna do that

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Normally I wouldn't care about throwing a 60W V30 in but it's nice having a completely stock Mesa OS to use as a benchmark in the studio.

Acutally it would be cool to have one of every type of V30 for more tonal options. Say you want a V30 but the mix isn't working, you know a V30 will work, you just need something slightly different, you could have both a Marshall and Mesa version, an Original and a Chinese. I am actually thinking about doing that with my Avatar G412, if I don't end up getting a set of T-75s to do an X-pattern with.

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Acutally it would be cool to have one of every type of V30 for more tonal options. Say you want a V30 but the mix isn't working, you know a V30 will work, you just need something slightly different, you could have both a Marshall and Mesa version, an Original and a Chinese. I am actually thinking about doing that with my Avatar G412, if I don't end up getting a set of T-75s to do an X-pattern with.

That would be pretty rad. I've been wanting to bastardize my old carpeted Avatar cab and put in a V30, a CL80, a K100 and a Gold or something like that.

 

[decoy205]

Good luck man! For me i'd want my Mesa cab back to stock as well. Go crazy with the Avatar cab though!

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Thanks, I will!