Zilla Cabs’ Paul Gough puts the spotlight on Celestion’s G12T-75, a speaker that’s divided opinion over the years
As with many things these days, head to YouTube and you’ll find a reactionary video about almost any topic – and this is especially true when it comes to guitar speakers. You’ll hear stories about how a certain speaker from 1997 sounds best if it was made before lunch on a Tuesday, or that another speaker is the worst thing ever but only if it has the blue sticker, otherwise it’s amazing. Alot of this is generally just to get clicks, and even if there is a bit of truth somewhere, it tends to get lost beneath a million and one assumptions. To me, rarely has this been more true than for Celestion’s G12T-75. The T75 was released in the early 80s and soon became the go-to speaker for Marshall amplification. Not too long before and up until the late 70s, the Greenbacks (or more accurately Blackbacks at the time) were Marshall’s favoured speakers, but the lower power ratings of the Greenbacks of between 25 and 30 watts was seen as too low.
Therefore, and after a few alternatives, The G12T-75 speaker is as loud and out there as the opinions it generates the 75-watt G12T-75 was settled upon. The T75 was quite well received at the start and it’s easy to see why: it has a certain aggression and plenty of cut that can be useful for a lot of 80s guitar tones. However, somewhere between then and now, it seems to have become one of the more divisive speakers out there.
I spend a lot of time recording speakers, playing dozens of them each week, as well as listening to multiple speaker recordings and combinations in a studio setting. But over the years I really didn’t come across the T75 that much. Maybe guitarists looking for a custom cab moved away from the most common guitar speaker out there, which makes sense, but I just didn’t hear it too often. That said, when I heard murmurs of disappointment over the T75’s sound, it did prick my ears. At first, these video appraisals seemed to focus around heavier playing styles, but I have to say, for the few T75s that we use at Zilla, the majority were for heavier players, often mixed with a V30.
Horses For Courses
At this point, I decided to have a closer look at how the T75 varied through the ages. I’m sure you can imagine, the most-used speaker is also probably one of the mostreplaced speakers, too, and therefore, due to the T75 being so common, it’s quite cheap and easy to get hold of some good examples of
