G10 Gold in my Ac4tv

[terrapin]

Just installed the Celestion G10 Gold Alnico in my Ac4tv today, and while the speaker cost about 75% of the amp cost I am very happy. With this speaker and the NOS tubes in the amp there was a rather dramatic change.

It bought me noticeable headroom and certainly much warmer and more Ac15 like overdrive.

So now my inexpensive little Ac4tv is upgraded to a $510.00 amp, but I know I will use it alot more than if I had left it stock!!!

[Trotter]

I'm tempted to invest some money in my AC4. Seems like the stock speaker is really holding it back.

[terrapin]

I felt TOTALLY the same, and some said, "Give the stock Celestion some time"!!! I am NOT good with delayed gratification so I pulled the trigger.

If you have NOT upgraded the tubes yet, do that first. That will be BIG! Then think about the speaker!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DS88]

Yeah I play mine with two Golds. Sounds WAY better than the stock speaker..

I haven't fooled around with many tubes though.. Any recommendations?

[terrapin]

I'm running NOS Westinghouse.................Sounds WAY better!


Yeah I play mine with two Golds. Sounds WAY better than the stock speaker..

I haven't fooled around with many tubes though.. Any recommendations?

[tele_phil]

I'm tempted to invest some money in my AC4. Seems like the stock speaker is really holding it back.

Buy the head and a separate 1x10 or 1x12 cab with a Blue or Gold speaker. Personally I think that's the way to go. The head is cheap enough to remove any guilt of buying a damn good stand alone cab.

[blackba]

Do you have any clips with the Alnico gold installed?

Will the Ac4TV get any AC30 type tones? Thinking of picking one up so I can rev it up, not able to do that with my Vox AC50.

[tedm]

haven't messed with the tubes yet, I have the head, sounds great through a 1x12 sealed cab w/ V30

[terrapin]

I would bet that the head version driving a 2X12 cab with the right speakers could give some respectable AC30 Grind. I have doubts that it could reproduce the clean, chime quality of bigger Vox's.

Even with the Gold installed I have to rely alot on my JangleBox to get close to the Beatles, T. Petty...sound.



Do you have any clips with the Alnico gold installed?

Will the Ac4TV get any AC30 type tones? Thinking of picking one up so I can rev it up, not able to do that with my Vox AC50.

[Trotter]

Ok, so this thread inspired me a bit to get off my butt and make my AC4 Combo more usable as a living room combo amp. To this point I've just been plugging it into a bigger speaker cab rather than actually using it as a combo.

So I pulled the stock tubes and like I expected, they were cheapos. I replaced them with a JJ EL84 and a NOS 12AU7 preamp tube.

This made the amp really sing at the 4 watt setting with the volume and tone controls about 1/2 way up. It didn't distort really like the 12AX7, but I expected that. So for added gain I introduced the AC4 to a Ross compressor clone and my OCD overdrive pedal. Now I can get the cleans I want from just the amp and use the pedals for the perfect amount of compression and gain... much better! The 1 watt and 1/4 watt settings are now smoother as well and don't sound quite and grainy and muffled.

My final change will be the speaker. I'm going to attempt to get a Gold or other Alnico of some sort, but long story short, I'm much happier with the combo capabilities now!