Celestion alnico blue

[Willabe]

Huh, so this is what all the hub bub is all about with this speaker.

I've had this speaker sitting in it's box never used for at least 7 years. Put it in a Mojo single 12" open back Baltic birch cab and ran my stand alone verb and Champ 5F1 through it. Played both my Strat and my Heritage LP for slide.

Sounded much closer to a Marshall sound, a lot of crunch with much more breakup/dirty sound than my WGS alnico 15" or the Tone Tubby 12" alnico with hemp speaker cone.

I will say it really made my middle Strat PUP honk like I've never heard from it before, has some nice top end chime, but other than that,      ........ meh, not really for me. Although I can hear why guys really like it. 

[HotBluePlates]

Huh, so this is what all the hub bub is all about with this speaker.

For the longest time, that was the only Alnico speaker available from Celestion. Maybe even the only mass-produced guitar Alnico speaker altogether before the Italian Jensen reissue series.

Compared directly to Celestion's ceramic speakers, the high-mid is less pronounced as there's more low end warmth. All still sound British.

The differences would be more apparent if all speakers were driven to ~15w, as the Blue would be compressing differently at that point than the 25-30w ceramic speakers.

Regardless, there's no one-size-fits-all for speakers. And not every amp suits every speaker, or vice versa.

[Ed_Chambley]

It is the only speaker that sounds like it does.  It was initially a radio speaker and Celestion was asked to make it for guitar.  Being a low watt speaker has a tad to do with it, but they do not perform as well on an open back.  Partially open back to completely closed with a 3" port works best.

First, you have to like EL84's.  Not saying that is the only tube, but is the one most times pushing it.  The Blue has the ability to keep the EL84 more open sounding while the tube distorts, but as you found it does lose a little on the bottom.

If you have some foam rubber or batting, put it between the back of the cabinet and a wall to simulate a ported closed back.  Like a Vox amp the open back is not very open.  Also, the change in break-in is very drastic.  They mellow out a lot.  I have one in a Tweed Deluxe and closed the back, made a couple of cap changes and the chime everyone speaks of became a roar with the 6V6 tubes.

You will not get the full experience with one of them unless using it in a band situation.  Very easy for me to cut through a loud drummer with a 15 watt amp and a Blue.  As with anything else they are not for everyone.  If you want to sell it let me know.  They are so efficient I can hear my hands are dry during the winter.

[jojokeo]

I just installed a Blue a couple of days ago after messing around back and forth btwn speakers with my custom tweed (no longer a 5E3) amp that I had been running originally with a heritage G12H 30 55Hz to a Red Fang then a Tubby red frame alnico which also sounded good with the band. But we've recently started to dial down the volume a tad while tilting the speakers upwards more attempting to get a better mix overall. Believe it or not at a certain volume in this situation the Tubby and Blue were actually very close in many ways but in the end & overall the Blue just has more harmonic content, clarity, & chime the Tubby cannot produce with the stiffer & darker cone. If I'm to be playing the amp in lower settings I want that sensitivity, transparency, and sweetness that the Blue provides - especially playing humbuckers too. Another thing that helped me to notice a large difference in the clarity and accuracy of the speaker was when I performed some winter maintenance on a few guitars with set-up & intonation adjustments. The tubby gave me a much harder hard time hearing those small incremental changes and getting things set more correctly & easily.