what speakers suit the stiletto stage 2 the best?

I just ran my new (used) purple stiletto deuce stage 2 into my 412 mesa cab loaded with 150 watt MS12s.

the crunch was not there.

do you need something like a marshall cab loaded with greenback 25 watt spkrs to get the crunch out of this amp?

what spkrs does this amp like best with humbuckers (les paul)?

apparently the answer is V30 spkrs:

http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Guitar Cabinets/StilettoCabs/Stiletto4x12TRsl-LG.htm

but i see that mesa sells celestion 25 watt reissues as well:

http://mesa.stores.yahoo.net/12ingusp.html

so what is the basic difference b/n a 25 watt spkr vs. a 150 watt spkr?

25 watters breakup a lot earlier (i.e. more crunch?)

I get a great 80's tone putting my stiletto through a JCM800 with 75 watters.
Presense 11
Bass 3
Mid 11
Treble 9 or 10
Gain 1
Half Power (marshall cab is 16 ohms so just leave it on the 8 ohm tap coming out of back of amp)
Recto Tubes Engauged
Loop active with G-major in loop giving me delays and chorus and reverbs.
I push the front with a tube screamer with the leval all the way up, drive all the way down and tone around 11.

For Rock Tone I use the same settings but put the stiletto through my 1978 cab loaded with black backs. With this setup I use less delays and reverb or none.

This past week I used the Stiletto Deuce II with:
Bogner Cube 1-12" w/ Celestion Classic 80
Mesa Boogie 1-12" Thiele EVM
Avatar Premier 2-12" with two "aged" Celestion Classics (ported back)
It hit more than one Marshall tone with some tweaking, and then took it beyond that as well.
In the lead channel: using "tite" with SS rectifier switch makes it get into the "territory" easily.
Using a guitar w/ buckers is another important factor.

These three speakers have worked for me: Celestion V30s, Celestion H30s, Celestion 75T...

so today I tried my Gflex 212 (based on V30s) and a Marshall JCM 900 412 cab at the studio with the stiletto.

doesn't have the marshall crunch at all. not sure why they call that mode "crunch". still think it's pretty good in a band setting for cutting through and for leads.

i'm going to run it next time with my marshall vm2266 or the rivera. see what happens.
btw, this amp has no balls or bass.

it's really designed for leads in a band setting, bottom line.

one of the best (if not the best) clean channels of any EL34-based amp i've ever played thru.

I love my Stiletto 2, but I don't get the crunch mode. They ought to call it neutered. :lol:

I tend to live in Ch2/Fluid Drive, with a Mesa traditional (now Stiletto) cab with C90s. C90s don't have the upper mid spike of V30s, and the low end is much tighter. You can run the presence and treble higher, which is where you're getting your Marshall-esque sizzle from, and the bass won't fart out at higher settings. In my experience, the bass starts farting out about 11:00 with V30s, and above 9:30-10:00 with G12T-75s.

All these guys running the treble down around 9:00 are compensating for the bright nature of most Celestions. You can get a nice wall of sound thickness that way, but it just doesn't have that searing top that you need for metal. I can understand it, though, since running bright speakers with the treble around 11:00 is a good way to peel the paint off the walls.

I picked up a Marshall vintage modern cab with the Hendrix reissue greenbacks that really completed my stilleto. And it dosent have to be cranked to sound good.

In a vertical 2x12 half open back Mesa cab I have one V30 in the bottom (closed) and a C90 up top (open). The sound is good and seems cover a pretty good tonal range. The high end is a bit tamer this way, too.

Jak0lantern01 said:

In a vertical 2x12 half open back Mesa cab I have one V30 in the bottom (closed) and a C90 up top (open). The sound is good and seems cover a pretty good tonal range. The high end is a bit tamer this way, too.

Click to expand...

When I played Rectos in my band, I had two Recto 2x12 cabs, one with V30s and one with C90s. They sound awesome together, but I never felt they worked well in the same air space. I'm also not a big fan of open back cabs for anything but clean.

I've now had several rehearsals and a gig with the ASW KTS-60 installed and am very pleased with the upgrade. This speaker did not radically change the voicing of the amp, but the highs are smoothed out and the bottom is noticeably tighter and fuller. Also, the KTS is rated closer to 97db sensitivity (while the V-30 that it replaced is rated at 100db), so now the amp can be cranked a bit more without shattering windows!

No doubt the Scumback M75-LHDC or the WGS ET-65 / WGS Reaper would have also been good choices, but anyone out there looking for a speaker upgrade in a British voiced 1x12 combo should give the ASW KTS-60 a serious look.

I'm not familiar with ASW. I'm not looking for a change but I'd like to check them out.
I hated the V30s with my Stiletto. To me they added to the brightness. They sound great with my band mates Shiva though.
I heard a guy with an Ace playing through a Cannabis Rex and that sounded pretty good to me also but I think Greenback types are a great fit for these amps.

Love mine through G12K-100s. A rounder, fatter, less scooped, less sizzling G12T-75.

no balls or bass? I don't want to come off harsh...but either your amp is defective or you just aren't dialing it in correctly... I have the ace 50 watt combo, and I've had to dial the bass back (I've got it at about 1:00) because every time I played the bottom strings or palm muted it peaked out the recording levels....