Celestion ALNICO Celestion Gold Quick start guide

Brand: Celestion

Model: ALNICO Celestion Gold

Type: Quick start guide

This manual is also suitable for

G12 ALNICO GOLD

GUITARBUYER

NOVEMBER 2006

CELESTION GOLD

BRITAIN’S CELEBRATED VINTAGE GUITAR SPEAKER

EVOLVES WITH A CHANGE OF COLOUR AND A KICK

UP THE POWER BACKSIDE. MICK TAYLOR

CONSIDERS BLUES, GOLDS AND WONDERS

IF YOU’LL BE TURNING GREEN WITH ENVY

QUICKBLAST SPEAKER CELESTION G12 ALNICO GOLD

➔

GUITARBUYER

NOVEMBER 2006

The fabled Celestion Blue

sits right up there with

The Fender Stratocaster and

Gibson Les Paul as a benchmark

in classic guitar tone and

history. It was the ﬁrst

loudspeaker – ﬁrst known as the

‘Bulldog’ – designed speciﬁcally

for guitar, used most famously

in the original Vox AC30,

helping no end to create that

combo’s characteristic

shimmering highs, warm

midrange, captivating overdrive

and high perceived volume.

Rated at a mere 15 watts, it’s easy to

push the Blue to a sweet spot where

it’s working hard, in conjunction with

a low-powered amp, for a wonderfully

rich tone, chock full of harmonics. A

little power stage distortion, plus some

speaker breakup makes for classic

guitar tone, which is all very well until

you start using a more powerful amp –

the Blue simply can’t cope with

today’s 50 and 100 watters. Welcome

then, the Celestion Gold.

LITTLE BIG VOICE COIL

Quite why it’s taken Celestion this

long to redress the situation and offer

a tonal equivalent to the Blue with

higher power capacity, is something

of a mystery when you look at the

sum total of the tweaks. According to

the marketing materials, Celestion has

come up with a new voice coil, albeit

after extensive R&D and testing, that

brings the power handling capacity up

to 50 watts, while keeping the tone

and response of the Blue. There have

been tweaks to the cone too, but

Celestion is remaining tight-lipped

about the speciﬁcs. Critically, the Gold

retains the alnico magnet design,

generally regarded to be less muscular

sounding than more modern ceramic

types, but richer in terms of

harmonics, and less harsh for classic

rock, roots and blues tones. Most

guitar players will know the term

‘alnico’ from guitar pickups, where

this alloy of aluminium, nickel and

cobalt is used for magnets. It brings

similar sonic and dynamic traits to

speakers when compared with

ceramic magnets, though is said to

be signiﬁcantly more expensive.

Along with UK manufacturing,

that undoubtedly contributes to

the Gold’s high price.

To get an idea of how the Gold

sounds, we mounted it in a Vox AC30

Custom Classic, next to a reissue

Celestion Blue of the same impedance

and wired them separately, so we

could A/B test with different

ampliﬁers: the AC30 (set to lower

volumes), a Matamp C7 and the

Orange Tiny Terror. Upping the power

for the Gold, we used a Mesa Lone Star

and this issue’s WKZ Little Devil. For

comparison with the higher powered

amps, we used a Celestion Classic

Series G12H (30W) and a Mesa Black

Shadow C90 (90W), in separate

cabinets of roughly the same size,

materials and design as the AC30 box,

to try to keep the cabinet effect more

or less constant: obviously speakers

will sound very different in

different boxes.

FANCY A DRIVE?

With the Matamp C7 sat atop the Vox

cabinet, initial play testing conﬁrms

Celestion’s claims in that the Gold

indeed has the requisite richness and

musicality we’d expect from alnico.

The 15-watt Blue breaks up that bit

earlier as you’d expect, where the Gold

holds its ground with a handful of

watts from the Matamp. As the amp

breaks into power-tube distortion, the

Blue is adding to the drive colour with

its own ﬂap, while the Gold lets you

hear more of the amp itself at these

relatively modest power levels. It

QUICKBLAST SPEAKER CELESTION G12 ALNICO GOLD

CELESTION G12

ALNICO GOLD

PRICE: £239

BUILT IN: UK

TYPE: 12-inch guitar

speaker

FEATURES: 50 watts

power handling, 100dB

sensitivity, pressed steel

chassis, round copper

voice coil, alnico magnet.

Available in 8 and 15 ohm

variants

MOUNTING: Overall

diameter 309mm, overall

depth 165mm. 4 mounting

slots (7.9mm diameter),

cut-out diameter 283mm

WEIGHT: 4.2kg (9.3lbs)

CONTACT:

Celestion International Ltd

PHONE: 01473 835300

WEB: www.celestion.com

GBINFO

CELESTION G12

ALNICO GOLD

GOLD STARS

‘Blue’ tone, but at

higher power: nuff said!

BLACK MARKS

Extremely expensive

GBRATING

...

■ For the ﬁrst part of

this test, the Blue and

the Gold are wired

separately for A/B

testing in the same cab

■ This is all looks

remarkably similar to

the Blue, but inside

lies a beeﬁer voice coil

A FABULOUSLY RICH, HIGHLY

MUSICAL SOUNDING DRIVER

GBOPINION

■ All that glitters?

For the right kind of

amp, without a doubt

OFFERS A SIGNIFICANT

TONAL IMPROVEMENT TO

ANY NUMBER OF AMPS

GUITARBUYER

NOVEMBER 2006

never sounds constipated or strangled,

though, like some higher powered

speakers can before they’re working

hard. It’s much the same story with

the other ampliﬁers, in that the ‘sweet

spot’ – where the amp and speaker are

working together best – comes at lower

power with the Blue, even if there’s

not a huge difference in perceived

volume. We’re dealing with a very

efﬁcient 100dB (measured at 1 watt/1

metre) for both speakers, remember.

Upping the power, it’s time to

disconnect the Blue and compare the

Gold with the more powerful drivers,

and it’s here you start to hear a more

marked difference. Celestion’s G12H is

a highly regarded speaker, but

compared with the Gold it has a less

vocal-like quality to the mid range;

less ‘Brian May’ factor is how it strikes

me. Its reaction under distortion is

■ There’s a great deal of

confusion when it comes to

power and volume: put simply,

a 100-watt amp or speaker is

most deﬁnitely not twice as

loud as a 50-watt equivalent.

When buying a replacement

speaker, you should be aware of

a number of things to, help point

you in the right direction.

■ POWER HANDLING:

Measured in watts (W). The

maximum wattage the speaker

can take. If you exceed the

stated rating, you risk blowing

the speaker. A 100-watt

speaker on a 20-watt amp may

return a clinical feel. Conversely,

a 50-watt amp into a 50-watt

speaker is likely to cause the

speaker to distort more and

colour your tone.

■ IMPEDANCE: Measured

in ohms (Ω). Critically

important, because amps

are designed to operate

at a speciﬁc impedances.

Mismatching them with

the ‘wrong’ speaker load

may cause damage to the

amp. Be aware that wiring

multiple speakers in series

or parallel results in different

impedance ﬁgures.

■ EFFICIENCY: Measured in dB

at 1 watt / 1 metre (dB).

Nothing to do with either of the

above, but drastically affects

sound. Decibels work on a

logarithmic scale, meaning that

roughly for every +3dB

increase, the volume doubles.

You soon see the tonal

signiﬁcance of two speakers

rated at 97dB and 100dB

respectively, though bigger is

not always better, Many people

like the sound of less efﬁcient

drivers, while some players like

the direct power delivery of a

modern, efﬁcient speaker.

A QUICK GUIDE TO WHAT MAKES YOUR EARS BLEED

VOLUME, POWER & EFFICIENCY

different too, in that the G12H stays

tighter, dare we say somewhat more

clinical-sounding than the Gold, also

very much the case for the Mesa C90

which sounds downright clunky in

comparison at low power.

Now we’re into Marmite territory,

though – love it or hate it – because

the fact of the matter is that some

guitar players like their speaker to stay

tight, focussed and deﬁned, and some

don’t. For example, hard rock and

metal (and testosterone-fuelled blues

or country players for that matter)

tend to like high-power speakers. JBLs

were a popular mod for silver-face

Fender Twins, and 200-watt

ElectroVoice drivers have turned up in

amps from Mesa Boogie to Marshall

and beyond over the years.

Conversely, many classic rock and

blues-rock guitarists like an element of

break up and colour from the speaker,

favouring drivers like the much lauded

Celestion G12M Greenback, older

alnico-magnet Jensens and of course

the Blue. The Celestion Gold falls

squarely into this latter camp,

meaning that partnering it with the

‘right’ amp is critical for your own

musical nirvana. That’s to say only

you know how much you want your

speaker to colour your tone. To put

you in the ballpark, we’d say the Gold

is ‘cleaner’ than a Blue or a Greenback,

slightly smoother and more ‘vintage’

sounding than the 30-watt G12H, but

not as ‘clean’ as a Vintage 30 or indeed

pretty much any other higher

powered speaker. My own personal

view is that the Gold is going to work

fabulously with Hand-Wired Marshalls

and amps of that ilk, particularly the

2061X head. I’d also bet a pair would

sound magic in a ’65 Reissue Fender

Twin, too, or indeed on the end of

most 40-80-watt classic-style Fenders.

Higher-powered Voxes and their many

derivatives as well, for that matter.

CONCLUSION

The Celestion Gold is a fabulously

rich-sounding, highly musical driver

for classic rock and rock’n’roll, that

does exactly what it says on the tin: it

retains the tone of the Blue, but with a

higher power handling capacity.

Naturally, it takes more oomph to get

it singing, but once it is, the Gold

offers a signiﬁcant tonal improvement

to any number of amps – assuming

you want speaker colouration in your

tone, of course – not to mention a kick

of extra perceived volume thanks to

that 100dB sensitivity rating.

Price is the thorny issue; alnico

magnet material and ‘made in

England’ means you need to be made

of money and, as such, it’ll be a

painful outlay to upgrade something

like a Fender Blues Deluxe or, gulp,

any 4x12 cab. Boutique, vintage-type

combos and reissues are the more

likely targets, with this driver making

enough of their sonic complexities

and high quality components to

warrant the investment. Brilliant,

but only for the discerning. GB

■ As you can see, the Gold’s alnico magnet is a

different shape to a standard ceramic magnet.

Measure your combo before you try to ﬁt one

QUICKBLAST SPEAKER CELESTION G12 ALNICO GOLD

Celestion ALNICO Celestion Gold Quick start guide

Brand: Celestion

Model: ALNICO Celestion Gold

Type: Quick start guide

This manual is also suitable for

G12 ALNICO GOLD

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Celestion ALNICO Celestion Gold Quick start guide

This manual is also suitable for

Celestion ALNICO Celestion Gold Quick start guide

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