EMPEROR CABINETS
Birch 4x12 Cabinet
Rating:
The poplar front baffle seems to enhance
the pristine high frequencies thrown from
the C1265s. In theory, sharp edges on
the front of a cabinet will cause sound
waves to diffract at sharp angles, causing the waves to arrive at your ears with
unnatural timing, resulting in a sound that
is subtly garbled by confusing artifacts.
High and mid frequencies are particularly
vulnerable to the horrors of diffraction
and, though the problem goes unnoticed
to most, Emperor’s efforts to address the
issue seems to make their cabs perfect for
conveying the detail of complex chords
and capturing the full-spectrum voice of a
good pickup/guitar/amp combination.
judge the sound of a cabinet because it
really stands apart in high-volume environments where a sub-standard cab creates
a muck of confused, clashing frequencies.
When I heard unprocessed tracks that
featured an Emperor cab played back on a
professional monitor system, I noticed an
inherent studio quality and dynamic punch
that’s hard to achieve without EQ and
compressor tweaks.
you want a beautiful, boutique
cabinet designed to your specs
that truly captures the voice of your
guitar and amp.
Buy If...
Skip If...
light weight is more important than
perfect tone.
Overall there is a solid clarity to the
Emperor sound that seems tied to expert
woodworking and construction. The aural
experience reminded me how easy it is
to forget a cabinet’s enormous role in the
tone equation, and it demonstrates just
how well Emperor understands this piece
of the sonic puzzle.
Emperor Cabinets
Street $825
emperorcabs.com
The Emperor could well be the best sounding guitar cabinet I’ve ever played through.
It’s also drop-dead gorgeous and it might
be the heaviest I’ve played through as
well. It is sometimes difficult to accurately
or use a mobile
device to read
this QR code to
download audio
clips of the
guitar at
premierguitar.com/dec2010
