Gear Review: EarCandy Sovereign 1x12 Guitar Cabinet

This won’t be the last you’ll hear about EarCandy speaker cabinets from me. With another cab to review on the way, I will soon sit down with Tim Paulsen, the man who couldn’t find a cab loud enough to keep up with his drummer, so he designed and built his own.

Each cab is built more like an acoustic instrument than just a box holding a speaker. The Sovereign 1x12 is made from ¾” thick AAA tone wood. EarCandy uses its own patent-pending Twin Ported Baffle technology on the closed and sealed cab. All of the hardware is steel and the ¼” Neutrik input jacks are hand-wired with 14 gauge Audio Research Speaker cable and silver solder.

If the Diablo finish isn’t for you, EarCandy offers 11 other shades of tolex from common black and tweed to wilder choices like purple, surf green and snakeskin. There are also different options for hardware, front and back finishes, handles, grills and input wiring.

EarCandy offers speakers from Eminence, Celestion and Organic Timbre or you can purchase a cab unloaded. If you ship them your own speakers, they’ll install them as well. Overwhelmed by options or can’t wait for the build time? EarCandy has a sizeable selection of already completed cabs for sale in their Reverb.com store.

Eminence sent out 2 very different speakers to demo; the Sovereign 1x12, a GA-SC64 Alessandro and a CV-65 speaker from its Red Coat series. Being a fan of old Fender amps, I thought I’d prefer the Alessandro, but I ended up preferring the punchy mids of the Red Coat.

The dimensions of the Sovereign 1x12 are 18” wide, 15” tall and 16” deep. Depending on speaker selection, the cab weighs about 40 pounds.

Clip One: First up is the Sovereign 1x12 with the Eminence Red Coat speaker. I used my Jet City 20-watt tube head to get as close to a British sound as I could. The clip starts with a Tele on the bridge pickup. Listen to that fullness! Next I cleaned things up and flipped the Tele to the neck pickup. To finish up I plugged in a Les Paul and added some gain.

Clip Two: Here’s the Sovereign 1x12 with the Alessandro speaker powered by my Fender Blues Junior amp. I started with the neck pickup of a Strat, then switched to the Seymour Duncan humbucker in the bridge with some gain courtesy of the infamous Boss DS-1. To finish up, I plugged my Phred Ernesto VH with flatwound strings into a Fender Bassman head for a nice, warm and clean tone.

For more on EarCandy and the Sovereign 1x12 ($349.99), head on over to earcandycabs.com.