I will most likely be buying a Traynor YBA-1 amp this week. The owner also has a Traynor YF-10 (4x10) cabinet that he is selling separately. Does anybody have any experience with this cab and know if it is any good or not? I've read elsewhere that the Marsland speakers used in them are not of the best quality.

I've only come across two Marslands and they were in fact crap. They sounded thin and literally appeared to be made out elementary school grade construction paper.

I had a VT cabinet, which was either very similar to Traynor or manufactured by Traynor during the TS-era in the 1970's. It was very well built, but its Marslands had already been switched out with Celestions. In fact, if the Traynor cabs of the late 60's or earlier 70's were built as well as the heads (designed to be thrown off a third story and survive impact- of course, after Traynor had replaced smashed tubes...) then you'll be good to go.

It's almost universally stated that the Marslands are no good. At the same time, Matt plays a Traynor 8x10" in the Chrome Robes and it seems to work out fine. His is actually a 7x10" in a sense, since one of the speakers is fucked up and we un-wired it if I remember right.

As far as whether or not the speakers are of good build quality, I have two of the 8x10" cabs and a 6x10" cab, and all of the drivers are still working, 30-something years after they were built, though one of the drivers in the 6x10" rattles a little. And one of the drivers in Matt's 8x10" cab is ripped, physically ripped like somebody put their foot throught it or something, but the rest of them work fine. So that's thirty 10" speakers, one was destroyed by getting ripped, and one of them is rattly, and the other 28 are just fine. So I would say that they're of reasonable build quality, to be that intact after more than three decades.

People usually seem to think that if you replace the Marslands with something else (maybe a Weber, or Eminence, or Avatar or whoever the kids are on about these days) that it'll sound better. I've never tried, but it may well be true. I don't think the Marslands were ever intended to be all fancy-pants or anything. Actually, if I remember right, Traynor made a cabinet with Norelco speakers that was supposed to be the fancy one, but I don't know if I remember right, and I certainly haven't heard one.

One characteristic the Traynor cabs in my experience is that they lean towards woofy or boomy in the low mids. This is probably due to the cabinet construction more than anything else. They're pretty compact cabs, relative to the speaker compliment, at least the 6x10" and 8x10" cabs are. And they're totally sealed.

If it's cheap enough, it's worth at least checking the cab out. I guess it'll depend whether you're looking to play bass or guitar through it, too, as far as whether or not it does what you need.

I don't think I'd pay more than about $150 for the cab, tops. You can get a pretty nice 2x12" or 1x15" on eBay for little more than that. I think I paid right around $200 for a Mesa 1x15" cab, and the same amount for my Sonic 2x12" with EV's, both of which I think I'd prefer to any Traynor cab I've heard yet.

Shit, now that I think about it, my TS-100 (that I sold to Tree) had the Marslands in it, too. I thought that amp sounded great, as-is. Maybe it could sound better with something fancier in it. But I'm pretty sure they were Marslands, and I did indeed dig them in that amp, so, FWIW...