My first experience with these speakers was in 2007. Since then they've been in a lot of amps and have become the industry standard speaker for high gain applications. And I can see why! It's a great sounding speaker with a specific midrange character to it that a lot of metal or high gain players can work with. However, there is some fizziness to it in the high mids and trebles that I sometimes HATE, but that's also the same character that adds to that midrange making the speaker so unique on it's own and thus famous! I have to say that it has generally been good sounding through almost any type of cab, whether it be 412s or 212s or even single 112 cabs. The V30 is sort of like the SM57 of guitar speakers. They've become the standard sound and it's not necessarily a good or bad sound but definitely a workable sound.

In terms of headroom I have to admit there isn't much. Cleans are good but can lead to break up quite early depending on how it's used. This is of course what is known to help with the high gain applications, it breaks up earlier, which generally equals better for metal etc. More distortion is always better, apparently. It is generally a darker sounding speaker in comparison to other standard celestions for eg the G12T-75. Not REALLy dark but darker. And if paired with the right cab can sound great. I have found however that these speakers don't sound good to me, with the oversized mesa cabs. It's way too dark and actually sound too thick and muddy, notes become indistinguishable and the low end is all over the place, while the highs are generally fizzy. It could just be the character of the mesa cab itself too, I haven't had much luck with the oversized ones..

But in general this speaker is decent and has become the industry standard rock/metal high gain speaker. Definitely can sound good, but maybe not the most versatile.