Measure Up

Once dismissed as the preserve of bass players, 10and 15-inch speakers have a valid place in guitarists’ amps, says Paul Gough of Zilla Cabs

We’re all used to seeing and hearing 12-inch speakers (drivers) in guitar combos and cabinets, but these days 15s are quite rare to find and 10s can often wrongly be considered as cheap alternatives to their big brother the 12. In this article we’re going to have a brief look into situations where these speakers can really work.

Ironically, I seem to spend as much time trying to convince bassists that 12-inch bass speakers can sound great as I do pointing out to guitarists that there are other sized speakers than the usual 12s. Maybe we have become so familiar with seeing 8x10s, 4x10s and 1x15 cabs behind bass players that we have forgotten how common it was to see 4x12 rigs being used by bassists the world over. Perhaps it was the simplicity of these rigs that made us see 10s and 15s as a more progressive solution. This could be the reason that we guitarists have come to focus on the 12-inch format, a reaction of sorts to 12s not being for bass. Jim Marshall making the first 4x12s in the early 1960s surely had a big impact on guitarists, too, but let’s not forget how common it was to see 10- and 15-inch speakers in early combos and, crucially, how good those amps sounded.