Mesa 4x12 Cab V30's

I bought this cab used and unplayed. At low volumes it sounds fine but as soon as I crank it up a bit it sounds WRONG! Almost sounds like the speakers are blown but I am 99% sure they are not. It sounds VERY trebly, harsh, crumbly and static sounding. It is much worse playing high gain stuff.

Could it be the solder joints? A bum back jack plate? I have a crappy camera but I took some pics - maybe you guys will see something that I don't.

This cab is unplayable at the present and is driving me nuts, I have to get this sucker fixed!

If the cab is unplayed, those speakers need to wear in...new V30s are thin and stiff as heck.

Adding volume really requires re-EQing IMO. Mess with your settings for the additional volume.

I'd say it's more the first point though.

Eric

If everything is OK with your amp, then I will agree with Eric.

My Recto cab sounded TERRIBLE when I got. And it did take about 2 full weeks playing at band volume to break it in. Just dial in a really fat, warm clean tone and use you neck pickup and you will get there in no time.

That's the thing though, I bought this cab almost a year ago. For the first while I thought it was just the speakers needing a good work over but they have to be broken in by this point. Now granted I play mainly in my basement at low to moderate volume levels but after a year these V30's should be broken in right?

My buddy brought over his DR head the other day and hooked it up to my cab and after 30 sec he stopped playing and said "dude your cab sounds like crap!" Really trebly and harsh.

In the last pic, it looks to me like the negative tab on the speaker is broken off. If this is the case, it's likely that 2 of the speakers are not running, and there will be a load mismatch on the head as well.

Hey, I had a problem with my ENGL Pro V30's cab last week. The moment I cranked it up, the volume wasn't going exponentially up. You know, like a lot of power got lost. So I looked inside the cab and found that the switch was fucked, but you couldn't see it immediately. After I bypassed the stereo-switch I was good to go, with a smile on my face Looks like you have a switching jack plug, which could be the problem.
I would suggest you double check all the solder work and rewire it if necessary.
Good luck!

Try the stereo jacks, and hear which side is giving the trebly harshness problem. If it's a tad more harsh and bright than usual, the speakers might need to be broken in. If it is the latter, dial in a tone with a lot of bass and mids, then choose the middle position of a twin humbucker pickup guitar...