Holy Shitballs (Again!) Port City OS 2x12

Robboman said:
Just thought I'd do a little review for the 'real guitar cab' guys.

I've been curious about these Port City Wave cabs for a while and read the rave reviews. I never had the opportunity to try one out myself.. til today. This week I came across a pretty fair local deal on a unloaded OS 2x12, so I went for it! Woohoooo... I've had this pair of vintage 1980 G12-65s on the shelf for a few years, just waiting for a nice cab to come along.

First impression - quite light for such a big 2x12, and the top handle is in the perfect spot. I pulled off the back panel to drop in my speakers.. nice, clean, perfect construction inside, nicely dressed in black paint (nice touch). In the pic you can see those two 1/2" ply panels mounted at 45 degree angle, one across the top and one at the bottom at the back of the cab. Supposed to reflect the back sound down and out the bottom front port. There's also an angled piece leading out the lip of the front port, ('ramped' port) . Seems this would kind of direct sound upward towards you from the floor.

I put it beside my Marshall 1960a to do a little tone shootout. About the Marshall - I'm really familiar with this old cab and it always sounded killer to me. It's an early 80's cab, the G12-65s I put in the PC came from this cab. The other two 65s are still in there, mixed with a pair of WGS Vet-30s, which I always thought was a nice combination. I re-covered this cab myself by the way, (that's why it's brown tolex and wheat grille. The original tolex was really beat to shit!). Around 8 months ago I did an A/B shootout between this and a stock Mesa OS 4x12 slant. The Marshall won. Mesa was louder/deeper but just didn't sound as good to me - I sold it :).

So with the Marshall and the Port City side-by-side I plugged in my Axe-Fx II, Matrix GT1000FX and ran two speaker cables from the A and B outputs of the Matrix, with the switch set to 'parallel'. This let me easily A/B the two cabs easily by turning the knobs on the Matrix.

Well Holy Shitballs Batman! Several cranked up hours later I have to declare - this PC cab sounds freakin fantastic in every way. It completely destroyed the Marshall. I mean completely. Not even close. This 2x12 sounds bigger, punchier and most importantly.. much, much smoother and sweeter.

Before hearing it I thought the PC might be too bassy or too dark (G12-65s can be pretty dark to begin with), but I found it nice and balanced, really punchy and full in the mids and smooth in the highs. When switching from Marshall to the PC, the overall EQ is a little different (in a good way) but it's more than that... the PC seems a lot 'looser' feeling and smoother somehow. I've read it described as how the speakers can 'breathe' - the cones can move more freely compared to a non-ported closed cab. Now I've heard what that means. By comparison the Marshall feels all tight and stuffy.. constricted. No character or 'bloom'. Despite this sweet looseness, I don't hear any lack of definition or muddiness or anything. It's solid and clear. It just plain sounds better.
Another great thing is that it seems to have much better dispersion off-axis than other cabs. There's no ice-pick beam and there's a really wide sweet spot, you can walk around and still hear detail. I assume the port is helping in that dept.

Two thumbs way up for Port City. Best cab I've ever heard!

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A long time ago I had a Valvestate small size 4x12, and I always felt it was sort of dark sounding. I don't recall what speakers I had in it, but I eventually sold it.

With my H&K Coreblade, and Switchblade, I decided to go with a PC OS Wave cab, and paired It with a Jensen Blackbird, and Tornado. I was down on my Blackbird/ Tornado combination because i was feeling like It was a little to hi def sounding, and i had issues with my 27" Agile Reaper with D Activators, was giving me way to much bass with the neck pickup. I was thinking the Black bird was a little harsh/ hi def sounding then the Tornado, so i started using the Tornado elusively. The tornado "was" really warm, smooth, and seemed to have much more bass. I eventually got a little to heavy handed on the master, and accidentally toasted the coils in the Tornado. I then had to go back to the Blackbird, and play it some on It's own. The Blackbird is pretty bright, and doesn't seem to go down as low frequency wise as the tornado, which allowed me sound less like a bass guitarist when i used my neck pickup. So with only one speaker I decided to do a search, for another speaker option. After listening to a bunch of youtube vides, I was digging the Vintage 30 (go figure), and WGS ET 90. I decided to go with the cheaper ET 90, to rule out the budget friendly speaker first, and the fact that it had a closer watt rating then the Vintage 30, I felt it be a better match.

So far it seems to be working pretty well, and I'm digging the sounds. I need to try the the cab with ET 90 in the cab solely since I bought two, so i can see what sounds it is producing with out the Blackbird.

I was also getting a itch to buy a 4x12 cab, but I think with your endorsement of the PC OS wave, and my ET90 improvement, I think i just need to get another PC 2x12 Os Wave instead.

I took a look at the Port City websight recently, and looked though the options that they had for speakers you could order with it, and they choose, to have a bunch of the speakers, I either had, or was considering for mine.
 
Holy resurrected thread, Batman! It was only a few months after this original post that I got an OS 212 courtesy of Daniel above. It was a demo model with WGS ET-65s that I got for $700. I have never regretted this purchase. This cab has some true balls, I love to use it via my Matrix GT1000 for my dry sound via the AxeFx loop and the wet AxeFx sound via FRFR. Killer combo. Definitely a keeper.
 
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