Mesa Celestion Vintage 30 Shootout- '99 vs '00 vs '01 vs '02 vs '21.

In the Mix 0:02
Guitars Only 0:48
Lately I've been going down the rabbit hole of the SWEET SPOT V30s, which a number of other guys have backed up as being in the 2000-2004 era. I've been fortunate enough to get my hands on a number of examples from these years and wanted to see how they stacked up to each other. Of course even individual speakers from the same batch can sound a little different when testing in a controlled environment, and, there are trends. I can back up what other guys are seeing in their testing with my personal experiences in having a LOT of Mesa V30s over the years. IMO-
90s ones are a bit darker.
2000-2003?4? are freakin' amazing
2005- 2019ish are fizzy junk
2021 - current are awesome again. Is this a permanent fix or just another sweet spot in the making? Time will tell.
A number of other guys have been talking about how the newest V30s, starting somewhere around 2021, are now magically sounding like the old "sweet spot" ones. Time to find out for myself! I'm happy to report that with the examples I have here, the 2021 sounds VERY close to the 2001 & 2002 samples which are a bit brighter. (..Where the 99-00 samples are a bit darker (less fizz?), and also 1.5dB quieter.)
In this comparo we have different Mesa traditional straight cabs loaded with the various quads. The riff is from one of my band's songs, and it's reamped with my Mark IIC+, triple tracked with just an E609 in a measured precise location, and spliced together and level matched in the DAW.
What do you hear?

[@TheOtherJohnBrowne]

Great comparison! More evidence that current V30 sound has shifted back towards the early 2000s sound

[@nigel7880]

99 by a mile. ML Sound Lab said the frame stamped ones were the best and that's no cap. Seems like early 2K are the metal grail, and 90's are the rock grail.

[@exteriorhomeservices6458]

Thank you for another awesome video. I liked them all in the mix. Alone I found the 2001 to be brighter than the rest and liked it the least.

[@FedericoMK]

2000 V30s FTW!

[@xounlistedxox]

Excellent comparison! The newest soeaker seems like it has a slightly higher resonant frequency, but otherwise VERY similar! Now do T75's! 😁

[@chrisfoster5]

Where did you get rhe 2021 speakers from? Out of a cab or did you just buy the speaker?

[@TIGHTENmetal]

Purchased from Mesa.

[@elpelotero]

I have a 2005 V30 loaded Mesa Cab. One of the speaker cones got punctured. I'd like to keep the speaker as close to original as possible. Should I recone? And if so, where to get the correct cone?

[@TIGHTENmetal]

IMO if you want it to match, you'd be much better off buying a good used one from the 2005-2010 era.