World's BIGGEST Celestion Vintage 30 Shootout? Old vs. New - UK vs Chinese - 8 vs 16 Ohms & More

I went down the Vintage 30 rabbit hole... Five years and over 50 V30s later, I’m here making a gigantic test trying to find out the differences between old and new V30s, UK made an Chinese made V30s, 8 and 16 Ohm V30s, OEM and regular V30s and so on…

Download the test files:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xo1v76bcnh...

Since several people have asked now, If you want to support me you can buy me coffee
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OR support me on Patreon:
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My friends that gave me advice on this:
Jakob K. Guitar    / @lordgraga  
Ed S    / @eds4754  

Check out Room EQ Wizard:
https://www.roomeqwizard.com/

Timestamps:

00:06 Introduction
01:47 What am I doing?
02:31 Meet the test setup
03:30 The signal chain
04:49 Meet the speakers and the planned tests
06:30 Glenn Fricker, the „new“ Vintage 30s and dust caps

09:07 The evaluation setup
10:27 The pair test – How different are speakers from the same batch?
18:49 The era test – How different do speakers sound from 1986 to 2021?
26:45 8 vs 16 Ohms Speakers
30:41 OEM and UK vs China
40:15 About the exotics

41:09 Summary, Conclusions & Speculation
41:15 #1 The Vintage 30 Tone Varies
41:35 #2 16 Ohms speakers are more scooped im the mids
42:00 #3 Nolly is right about the early 2000s V30s
42:20 #4 Speaker break-in is hard to quantify - further testing required
44:25 #5 Current V30 CAN sound like the golden age (early 2000s) but don't have to
45:11 #6 No obvious correlation between the dust caps used and tone
45:49 #7 There is greater tonal variance in the older speakers
47:09 #8 Mesa Boogie & Marshall V30s might sound the same as regular V30s
50:13 #9 UK and Chinese made V30s seem to sound the same if from the same era

50:58 My personal conclusion
52:55 Reamped high gain riff for every speaker
52:57 Speaker 01 T3896 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 12.02.86
53:20 Speaker 02 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 19.03.86
53:43 Speaker 03 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 19.03.86
54:06 Speaker 04 T3896 Marshall G12 Vintage 8 Ohms 01.05.89
54:29 Speaker 05 T3896 Marshall G12 Vintage 8 Ohms 01.05.89
54:52 Speaker 06 T3903 Vintage 30 8 8 Ohms 14.01.91
55:15 Speaker 07 T4139 Black Frame Vintage 30 8 Ohms 24.03.92
55:38 Speaker 08 T4139 Black Frame Vintage 30 8 Ohms 24.03.92
56:01 Speaker 09 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 09.05.95
56:24 Speaker 10 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 09.05.95
56:47 Speaker 11 T3904 Vintage 30 16 Ohms 12.03.98
57:10 Speaker 12 T3904 Vintage 30 16 Ohms 02.05.00
57:33 Speaker 13 T3904 Vintage 30 16 Ohms 02.05.00
57:56 Speaker 14 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 28.05.00
58:19 Speaker 15 T5225 H&K 1777 Cone Vintage 30 16 Ohms 10.01.01
58:42 Speaker 16 T5225 H&K 1777 Cone Vintage 30 16 Ohms 10.01.01
59:05 Speaker 17 T3897 Marshall G12 Vintage 16 Ohms 29.06.01
59:28 Speaker 18 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 09.08.02
59:51 Speaker 19 T5321 Marshall Vintage 30MF 16 Ohms 22.11.02
01:00:14 Speaker 20 T5321 Marshall Vintage 30MF 16 Ohms 22.11.02
01:00:37 Speaker 21 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 06.12.02 (MIC)
01:01:00 Speaker 22 T3904 Vintage 30 16 Ohms 20.12.02 (MIC)
01:01:23 Speaker 23 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 09.03.03 (MIC)
01:01:46 Speaker 24 T5273 H&K 1777 Cone Vintage 30 8 Ohms 09.05.03 (MIC)
01:02:09 Speaker 25 T5273 H&K 1777 Cone Vintage 30 8 Ohms 09.05.03 (MIC)
01:02:32 Speaker 26 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 16.05.03 (MIC)
01:02:55 Speaker 27 T4335 Mesa Vintage 30 8 Ohms 20.05.04
01:03:18 Speaker 28 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 22.10.04 (MIC)
01:03:41 Speaker 29 T3903 Vintage 30 8 Ohms 22.10.04 (MIC)
01:04:04 Speaker 30 T4335B Mesa Vintage 30 8 Ohms 24.07.08
01:04:27 Speaker 31 T3903A Vintage 30 8 Ohms 22.08.08 (MIC)
01:04:50 Speaker 32 T4335B Mesa Vintage 30 8 Ohms 25.09.08
01:05:13 Speaker 33 T5401B Bad Cat Vintage 30 8 Ohms 20.11.08
01:05:36 Speaker 34 T3897B Marshall G12 Vintage 16 Ohms 09.02.10
01:05:59 Speaker 35 T4335B Mesa Vintage 30 8 Ohms 30.04.10
01:06:22 Speaker 36 T3903A Vintage 30 8 Ohms 15.10.10 (MIC)
01:06:45 Speaker 37 T5731B TAD 25th Anniversary 16 Ohms 20.01.14
01:07:08 Speaker 38 T5731B TAD 25th Anniversary 16 Ohms 20.01.14
01:07:31 Speaker 39 T5731B TAD 25th Anniversary 16 Ohms 20.01.14
01:07:54 Speaker 40 T5401B Bad Cat Vintage 30 8 Ohms 23.01.14
01:08:17 Speaker 41 T3903B Vintage 30 8 Ohms 28.02.16
01:08:40 Speaker 42 T3903A Vintage 30 8 Ohms 26.08.16 (MIC)
01:09:03 Speaker 43 T3896B Marshall G12 Vintage 8 Ohms 28.04.17
01:09:26 Speaker 44 T4416B Mesa Vintage 30 16 Ohms 28.03.18
01:09:49 Speaker 45 T3903A Vintage 30 8 Ohms 10.07.18 (MIC)
01:10:12 Speaker 46 T3903A Vintage 30 8 Ohms 04.01.19 (MIC)
01:10:35 Speaker 47 T3903A Vintage 30 8 Ohms 07.05.19 (MIC)
01:10:58 Speaker 48 T4335B Mesa Vintage 30 8 Ohms 28.06.20
01:11:21 Speaker 49 T3903A Vintage 30 8 Ohms 13.08.21 (MIC)
01:11:44 Speaker 50 T3903A Vintage 30 8 Ohms 13.08.21 (MIC)
01:12:07 Speaker 51 T4335 Mesa Vintage 30 8 Ohms 08.03.01
01:12:30 Speaker 52 T3904A Vintage 30 16 Ohms 04.01.19 (MIC)
01:12:53 Speaker 53 T3904A Vintage 30 16 Ohms 11.07.08 (MIC)