New Speaker Cabinet, Limited Edition Matamp Series 2000 Anniversary

SG John

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I can't believe it finally arrived. The tracking still said it was in transit at 5pm. When I got home, it was on the porch.

It is a 2005 Matamp Series 2000 Anniversary 2x12 cabinet. It was originally sold with a series 2000 head and a reverb unit. It has two 12" Celestions that are voiced to the specs of the Fanes originally offered in the sixties. It is a recreation of one of Peter Green's early amps. Before building guitar amps, Matamp made High Fidelity amplifiers for home sound systems. Once they started with guitar amplifiers, they made the early Orange amps.

Here's some history on the Anniversary Series.

Series 2000 60th Anniversary : matamp.de – Custum Tube Amplification since 1946 – Service Deutschland


I just unboxed it, and brought it in the house. It needs to get warmed up after it's trip here from Quebec. I'll check out the inside, and plug it in tomorrow. I'll report back later. But, for now... Here are a couple of teasers.


I can't wait to try this out.



Series 2000 Anniversary Cabinet Shipping Box Home.jpg






Series 2000 Anniversary Cabinet.jpg
 
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I opened up the back, and moved it to it's temporary home. It has the Celestion Hot 100 speakers that have extra doping to produce a more Fane sound than Celestion. It's about an inch narrower than my Series 3000 head. I was hoping it would be a perfect fit, so now I'll probably be out of my OCD mind.

More fun stuff to read about this model.

guitarnerd.com.au » Matamp SERIES 2000 [sold]




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So, I have found three different sources that state 2005, 2006, and 2008 for this amp. There were only 60 made. I'm surprised someone broke up the set so that this speaker would be a straggler. Still happy that I was able to get it.


**Edit** Looks like RadioCraft (Huddersfield) Ltd was founded in 1945/1946. So, 2005 or 2006 would be correct for this.
 
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I can't believe it finally arrived. The tracking still said it was in transit at 5pm. When I got home, it was on the porch.

It is a 2008 Matamp Series 2000 Anniversary 2x12 cabinet. It was originally sold with a series 2000 head and a reverb unit. It has two 12" Celestions that are voiced to the specs of the Fanes originally offered in the sixties. It is a recreation of one of Peter Green's early amps. Before building guitar amps, Matamp made High Fidelity amplifiers for home sound systems. Once they started with guitar amplifiers, they made the early Orange amps.

Here's some history on the Anniversary Series.

Series 2000 60th Anniversary : matamp.de – Custum Tube Amplification since 1946 – Service Deutschland


I just unboxed it, and brought it in the house. It needs to get warmed up after it's trip here from Quebec. I'll check out the inside, and plug it in tomorrow. I'll report back later. But, for now... Here are a couple of teasers.


I can't wait to try this out.



View attachment 96655






View attachment 96656
Nice!!!
 
First report on how it sounds. I played with it earlier today, and then again just now. I'm using just the ES-335 without pedals. I also have to be careful with my punctured ear drum, and not cause any extra damage.

So far, I really like the vertical 2x12 arrangement, and how tall the cabinet and head are. I can see this being my main rig just for comfort's sake. When I was sitting down playing earlier today, it seemed a bit ice-picky. I think a lot of that is how responsive the amp is, and it is picking up extra overtones. The ES-335 is also not very forgiving in this regard. I think I need to use thinner picks from now on. Even though I am trying to play with a light touch, it is picking up pick noises when hitting the strings. Playing with right hand fingers, it smoothed out the overall tone very nicely.

When I plugged in tonight and played standing up, it seemed as if the sound opened up. Also, the semi-hollow guitar was not so close to the speakers. I was a good six feet away from the speaker, and the sound quality was much better. Again, no pedals. Had the Gain about 2 o'clock and Boost about 12 o'clock, with the Volume about 2'oclock. Zero is about 7 o'clock for reference. It sounded really full across all three pickup selections, but I preferred the neck pick up.

I'm not sure if it really sounds like the Fanes in my '71 Hiwatt cab. I don't know what Fanes were used by Matamp in the sixties, so the Hot 100s could be sounding as expected. Tomorrow and Sunday, I'm going to try to A-B the Matamp and Hiwatt cabinets to see how they compare. Then, I may try to compare it to the DST 2x12 that I have been using with the Matamp head, just for curiosity sake. I will probably also switch to a solid body, maybe an SG and then a Strat to compare how the different pickups sound. I have some headphones that I used to wear at work for extreme noise. I may dig those out, as I don't want to do any further damage to my ear. It will still be a few weeks before it is healed.
 
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