Stallings U.S.A. Testimonial

I am the owner of Stallings USA Custom Shop here in California. And although we do service and repair on any guitar or bass, we specialize in building custom shop guitars and basses. Many of our customers specifically play low tuned guitars, as well as the normal tuning gurus.

Michael from Red Star Audio contacted me awhile back and wanted to know if we would be interested in testing out one of his cabs with our low tuning guitars. Well, of coarse we said YES, and not too long afterwards we received our first prototype of the 4x12 Havoc cab. I must say, these things are built solid. Very nice outside sprayed on texture coating rather than tolex, and very nice rollers on the back for movability when the wheels are removed. The interior of the cab has a very nice sprayed on foam that solidifies the joint construction. These things are literally solid from the inside out!

After testing it I found that this cab had bottom end like you wouldn't believe, and a punch to match. I am running a Strategy 400 in stereo through this cab wired to stereo inputs at 4ohm. The speakers are Eminence Delta Pro 200w times four. So you can easily see that I can barely come close to bumping these speakers beyond their power handling capacity.

Well, we gave it a test run and I then spoke with Michael to voice a few concerns about guitar tone. It would seem that the first cabs made by this company were primarily Bass cabs. So we made some adjustments and he quickly sent out another cab with the alterations! This company has far exceeded my expectations! First of all I would like to say that dealing directly with the owner Michael was a real pleasure. He is very cordial and polite! Something that is lost these days with some of the bigger companies is delightful customer service, and these guys have it. He was very open to some of my concerns and needs for a cab designed with my specs in mind. He actually worked with me on it and delivered just what I wanted. In the end was a cab that allowed for me to get the tonal characteristics that I was looking for. It was a little off from his standard models, but he did it for me anyway, and it sounded great when I got it from him. I wouldn't expect such service from any other company.

I would like to ad that dealing with this company has been a great experience from the start. The guys at Redstar have put their company together with the customers needs in mind. There are a lot of players out there who are just not getting what they need from the popular brands. When a company starts out, they are usually on a path of innovation and prototypes as they make them into available models. Once the "models" are fine tuned, they usually never change. So it is a great thing to get in at the ground floor of a company that is still listening to what the customers want.

Although it is not always the case, many brand name companies could really care less about the customer than they care about the profits. Of coarse it takes money to stay in business, so it is always going to be an issue to some extent. But there seems to be a fine line between making loads of money at the cost of customer satisfaction. This is where integrity comes into play. A company that is willing to make a high quality product that can proudly boast "Made in the USA" is a company that stands for the best of the best in the minds of those who utter the name.

It would seem that just as we at Stallings U.S.A. saw a need out there and chose a path of guitar manufacturing a little off from the beaten path, and that keeps quality and innovation as our focus, so also were the Guys at Redstar looking at it from the same angle. Two different geographical locations, yet the same philosophy of manufacturing and business practices. As it is with many companies that are starting out, servicing the customer is a top priority because they want the business. But sadly to say, once some of these companies get popular, money becomes the only focus. I can truly say that Michael and the Redstar product is the result of integrity, the cutting edge of innovation, and excellence in customer service.

American made baby! Yes, they are a U.S.A. company that is a pleasure to do business with! And very much deserving of your inquiries and your patronage. Buy U.S.A. made products! Buy a Redstar and you won't regret it. They simply blow doors....literally! If you mention Stallings U.S.A. you will get a bro discount just for the mention. So what are you waiting for?

Spirit

Our company is a small manufacturer and we typically serve about 70% of our orders direct, with the other 30% coming from custom orders. We started out building bass cabs and then also added guitar cabs. About 6 months ago we began the design process for a guitar speaker cabinet that was purpose-built for players with an aggressive, detuned playing style. In talking with players we felt that there was an under-served market that would be interested in a speaker cabinet that was built from the ground up for the demands, both sonically and environmentally, of this genre of style. The result is our HK412 Havok 4x12 guitar speaker cabinet. Here's a list of a partial set of it's features:

Uses Eminence Delta Pro 12A drivers for unparalleled power handling and performance. The drivers extend down to 50 Hz which gives the extra low end needed to accurately reproduce the first-order fundamentals of detuned playing. Also, they use massive magnets (twice the size of normal guitar speakers) which results in extremely good cone control and gives tight, accurate bass notes. The low-mid and bass reproduction on these drivers, even at extremely high volumes, is exceptional.
Cabinet is massively braced, far beyond what is found in other guitar cabs. This makes the cabinet very stable, so the tone is not colored by unwanted return vibrations and harmonic noise.
The wiring is all 12-gauge oxygen free for the highest sonic performance and power capacity
Cabinet is coated in a high pressure, high temperature polyurethane bedliner spray coating. This is a professional coating and it is the most durable exterior system that can be applied today.
All metal hardware, and we include metal corners unlike other manufacturers who use spray on coatings
Each cabinet is coated internally with a unique and proprietary sprayed resin that seals the cabinet from air leaks, reinforces the bracing and cabinet shell and lowers vibration.
Large, 3-inch removable casters are far more durable than the standard 2-inch low capacity casters
True powder coated pro sound metal grill
Terminal cup with one pair each of 1/4" and speakon connectors
1200W @ 8 ohms
27" x 27" x 16"
99 lbs
We believe that this is the best performing cab of its kind and that it is unmatched for aggressive, deeply detuned playing styles.