you could always go for the KISS strategy, in which they used walls of 4x12 cabinets...with speakers in one out of every four cabs.
i like to call my Electar Tube 10 + 2x12 cabinet the "Mini Stack." you'd be amazed how much air you can move with a 10-watt amp with a beefed-up output transformer (which probably gives me the equivalent of a whopping 12-14 watts or so) and 2 12" Jensens.
texarock said: Welcome to my world of madness......
Oh my god.
Simply awesome.
I guess a 4x12 cab doesn't fit in a regular car does it?
Texarock, my dreams look like that pic you posted...
I like the Magnatone stack. The really cool thing to do would be to slave them all to one master tremolo oscillator, so you could get all of those cool vibratos in sync.
I have Vox AC30CC2 and 4x12 extension cab, although the extension cab is not usually plugged in. So it is mainly for the good look and for raising the amp high enough for me to hear it better ;)
I used to use a Fender Tonemaster with a 4x12 and 2x12 cab, outboard reverb unit. It was all such a damn pain to lug around.
Just got a range of good Fender combos now - the most I take out is a Tweed deluxe and a '65 Deluxe RI and use them together. My Vibroking and Twin are used individually. I'd never go back to large separates unless some fool was prepared to haul them around for me 
Hey Rocketman, I use an AC-15 for practice too. So I got an AC-30CC2x for bigger rooms. It is plenty loud by itself, but lately I have been running it together with one of the new Super Rever reissues using a Voodoo Lab amp selector. Now it sounds like a really loud AC-30 with more bottom end. The AC-30 still dominates the mids and the high end. It is a LOT of fire power for two medium sized amps. (I still use a dolly though, they're heavy).
I used to use my 100w Hi-Watt Custom with a slope front Marshall 4x12 - bags of volume etc.
However - over the last two or three years I have used my Mesa F50 and for for average sized venues it's been enough - for bigger venues probably also good enough - depending on how loud out drummer wanted to be - but miking up is safer.
My 22w Mesa is more than enough for the pitiful clubs I play. I would like to get a 2x12 cabinet for it just for kicks. In college when I played bass, my rig was an Ampeg SVT or was it SBT. Anyway it was a SS head preamp with 2 Ampeg 8x10 powered cabinets. Massive sound. And I could lean against it if I'd had too much to drink.
There's no denying the WOW factor of the stack, regardless of what make. The real consideration, aside from cost, is that some poor schmuck is gonna have to carry the monster, and provide transportation for it.
Before you crank that stack up at home, remember, a 1 watt amp is enough to get you evicted or visited by the gendarmes.
That being said, I loved my old Dual Showman---until I had to carry it up four flights of stairs.
I craved Blue Cheer's wall of Marshalls way back when.
one of my favorite sounds i ever got on guitar was playing a Strat through the bass player's Ampeg SVT with the big 2x15 cabinet. the Rolling Stones were using SVT stacks on the 1969 tour IIRC.
i was killing time in GC the other day and played bass through an SVT stack...i assume the new ones aren't a patch on the old ones, but it was still nice and earthquakey.
ah well........ the bassplayer just decided to use a much smaller amp in the future....... So it would be kind a dumb for me to bring a wall of sound with me to gigs. And I think they are too big, those stacks. I will just upgrade to a normal AC30 I guess.
For practical purposes, the idea of pairing a closed-back 2-12 amp and a 1-12 combo makes some sense, as does putting a closed 2-12 or 1-15 extension cab under a combo.
Either provides more logistical, transport, and toting challenges than a humble combo but ought still to be manageable even for us old guys.
And well worth it for the tonal benefits, even at low-ish volume. (Especially when playing quietly, I find a bit of low-end authority provides some aural satisfaction.)
I've played (very badly) through some crazy rigs. When I think back on it, somehow whatever the era, I played against prevailing trends. In the 70s when clean-toned pop had given way to hard rock crunch, I had ridiculous arrays of crystal-clean stupid-loud gear.
There was the 100-watt Kustom pleated head atop a single-18 reflex cab upholstered in padded black vinyl with shiny tacks in a diamond pattern, paired with a 2-12 Bandmaster cab. The reflex cab must've been 3'x 3'x 5'. Thank God I know of no recordings of it; it had to sound as stupid as it ... sounds. Guy on my floor in the dorm was selling his bass cabinet to get something smaller. It was cheap.
When I scaled down from that mad rig, it was to a 6-10 Acoustic brand (remember them?) cab, I think with an overpowered Sunn head of some description.
And it wasn't a stack, but I did a lot of playing in the late 70s and into the early 80s with a Bandmaster head and cab. I still have the cab, loaded with 12" JBLs from the 60s; wish I still had the head.
Bassist I worked with in that era had an SVT with both cabs, which he insisted we all show up at his house before gigs to help him load; he also had a Super Beatle he'd sometimes take for one of the guitarists to play through.
Later I came into a 2-15 blue metallic pleated Kustom bass cab, which makes a nice companion for the Bandmaster cab when I'm feeling stupid.
But most gigs now are just a 1-12 combo.
Is playing through Too Much Amp like being young again?
< a 6-10 Acoustic brand> The Acoustic 150 heads were crap, but the speakers in those cabinets were really great speakers. They were 16 ohm Alnico Eminence that were specially designed to handle the DC offset of those vintage solid-state power amps. They sounded fantastic. BZ
When I had that cab, I thought it sounded good as well, without having any idea why or any basis of experience to compare it with other gear.
I wish I could remember what head I was using. It may have been the Bandmaster or the Kustom 100 and not a Sunn; if there was an impedance mismatch I would have been oblivious. Guitars included a Melody Maker with a humbucker at the neck and an early Fat Strat kinda overwounder at the bridge and an early import red hollowbody.
It was all fat and punchy and meaty and bright. I just didn't play very well.
I believe an extension cabinet with an AC15 is impossible? Or at least the combo speaker wouldn't work?
And it would be sort of funny; right now I have the AC15 on a stand facing up, with an extension cabinet I would need the cabinet on the stand I guess, and the AC15 next to it. Or if I put the amp on the cabinet I would have less sound compared to what I have right now.
VOX...well, how about the new AC100CPH head,
and a "Beatle" cabinet, from North Coast Music. Or, even the Valvetronix 120, on the same cabinet! Certainly big enough (4X12), '
and a dolly stand, to boot. OR...you could get two of the standard VOX 4X12 cabinets, and stack them! 
CB
The days of the full stack Marshall & Ampeg V-4s is only a memory for the guys & venues I'm playin' now. Even the HRDeluxe can be too much for some of the small room gigs. So, I've now got the ultimate in an "Old guy stack". A BluesJr on an On-stage stand, w/ the HRDeluxe leaning under!
(The Deluxe dailed-in for The Falcon w/ the Jr for the Strat.)
s/Vin
how about this stack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_GgowniQWk&feature=related
check at the end of the video
again, one of the last visual of john lee hooker i havehe's playing some jazz fest.sitting in his chair,tapping his foot,jaming w/ an orange 1/2 stack, never sounded as good-
I can fit my whole stack in my Cadillac. One 4x12 and the head in the trunk, one 4x12 in the back seat, and I can get two guitars, my pedalboard, mic stand, and wife in there as well. Gonna have to get an old Cadillac to go with that stack.
"BillyZoom:
I like the Magnatone stack. The really cool thing to do would be to slave them all to one master tremolo oscillator, so you could get all of those cool vibratos in sync."
Hella easier to use a Stereo Maggie and run a speaker tap into the pa and pan one side hard right and the other hard left. That would be a thing of sonic beauty.
Stacks are great. I like them mainly because I am pretty tall, and really do not like having to bend to set my tone, or have my amp on these wobbly chairs. I find them easier to pack in the trunk as well. You also have more choice in speakers, plus it looks well..., it looks great. As in sound, I cannot imagine there being a big difference in a combo or head+exact same speakers in a cab, though the shape of the cab would have an effect on the sound.
As for my stack, I ditched my JCM 900 SL-X 2100 head for a Hughes and Kettner triamp we had laying around, :D, and man, I don't think there is any amplifier that is so versatile, and does it all so well as this.. this beast. 3 channels, 6 tones, reverb, master volume. With the Boss FDR-1 pedal in between the guitar and amp, I get just the tone I always was looking for. Blew all the Fender tube amps it shared the stage with right out of the water. This amp is over the moon! Definition, clarity, pure sound, I can get any tone from trebly twang, to supersurf, to psychorama gain. 100 watts is more than enough for any venue we might play.
This thing is a piece of art. The ultimate stack I suppose.
A picture I found on the web: (not mine)
I will have to bring my cam to the rehearsal room, and take some picures.
Anyway, stacks are the way to go.
