Celestion Ditton 66 dilemma

[Reid Malenfant]

Here's one thread that should stay on track :eyebrows:

I have a pair of ditton 66 studio monitors that at present i use in another room ;) I bought them cheap as i saw them advertised in a local Friday Adds magazine that given out at various newsagents. Having rung this chap up i decided to go & investigate, so off i went with a portable CD player & small amplifier...

Both HF2000 tweeters were shot, someone had been using an underpowered amp & clipped it, the bass & midrange drivers all appeared to be ok - some good news. The chaps description of the condition of them was frankly terrible, as that is how they looked :eyebrows: Veneer missing & lumps of chipboard at the bottom corners, so i beat the guy down to £30 from over £80 :)

As both tweeters were shot i thought i'd look about & see what i had a pair of that i could clamp in & try them out, i found a pair of plastic soft domes from a pair of Goodmans Magnums. Having fitted them & had a good listen i detected a midrange driver under a bit of distress, it turned out to be the voicecoil was rubbing on one side, judicious use of a small file to widen the hole in the paxolin mounting that the voicecoil if fixed to made it possible to re-align this & hey presto i have a nice sounding pair of speakers :)

Now i know these things can be worth quite a bit of money in good condition & fully working, these look a tad battered to say the least & the tweeters aren't original. Having looked on fleabay i nearly fell down when i found that these HF2000 tweeters are fetching nearly £150 a pair :eek:

The question is this, do i attempt to get them as near as possible to standard or do i do what i want to do which is build a new pair of decent solid enclosures & smash up the crappy (no kidding) standard ones that are the kind of thing i built 20 years ago. They really are rubbish, just chipboard & zero bracing & a lovely tock tock tock sound (& overhang) with a rap of the knuckles on the cabinet.

I'd also like to machine get rid of the aweful clamps that are used to hold the mid & treble drivers in place & use countersunk nuts & bolts. In other words turn then into a much better & more modern design which will undoubtedly sound better :eyebrows:

If the cabinets weren't so battered i might have restored them, but i think they are beyond restoration. I'll see about a few pics as someone may have a differing opinion on what can & can't be put back to as good as new...

Perhaps replies ought to wait until i submit pictures, as the question is down to can the cabinets be restored in all honesty. They'd need filling & new veneer which i guess could be done now i come to think about it. However if i don't intend to sell them then why bother getting them back to original condition when i can improve them for less??

:lolsign: Ah, dilemma :)

[aquapiranha]

I have never heard these but they do have a very big following. If I were you I would get them sorted as best you can within the realms of sanity and if you don't like them you could easily sell them on.

[Rare Bird]

Hi Mark
Well you got those cheap..Are they Mk.1 (Black fronts) or Mk.2 (Veneered Fronts)?

However those 'HF2000's are risky buying second hand & warrant silly prices..If you can get a cheap pair of 'Ditton 25',Ditton 44' or even 'UL10' they all have 'HF2000's

[Reid Malenfant]

I have never heard these but they do have a very big following.
Hi Steve, yes they do & they do sound pretty good indeed. They are limited to 70s thinking cabinet wise though where they could be improved no end ;)

I'll take some pictures tomorrow, you'll be (or should be :eyebrows:) disgusted at the way the mid & treble drivers are fixed to the baffle. Even the Ditton 15s you just advertised for free look like they have a better arrangement.

They do surprise me, in fact i'd go so far as to say they damn near astound me when they are given some power & they open up. I like them enough not to sell them tbh & this is another reason that's swaying me towards a quality rebuild when they should become astonishing....

I'll get those pics up tomorrow, warts & all :eyebrows:

Hi Andre, can see your post. They are the Mk 1 with the black fronts & not the prettier versions the Mk 2 with the veneered fronts. Again i'm not 100% sure i want to go the HF2000 route, why, because of the dirty great big terminals on the front of the drivers that will mess up the dispersion of the tweeters.

Modern day thinking says keep it all as smooth as possible to minimise difraction & other nasties. This is another reason i'm not that enamoured of the HF2000...

Oh, i have since discovered that they (HF2000) are 4ohm as well :doh: Not sure what the Magnum tweeters are but i don't detect any peak or dip in the frequency response.

[aquapiranha]

Looking forward to the pics. Warts and all.... ;-)

[DSJR]

I knew the 66's 551 and 661 (?) models and loved 'em all as good 70's speakers.

The pair you have could be restored, but keep them original. Why do you need to replace the driver clamps? Bolts will only crush the chipboard rather than make a decent coupling over what's there. The internal wires and crossover parts will need updating too.

Andr'e makes a fine point about the HF2000's. They're not that good in modern terms (narrow bandwidth) but it's what they had so see if you can find some tatty speakers the same as he mentioned.

[spendorman]

I knew the 66's 551 and 661 (?) models and loved 'em all as good 70's speakers.

The pair you have could be restored, but keep them original. Why do you need to replace the driver clamps? Bolts will only crush the chipboard rather than make a decent coupling over what's there. The internal wires and crossover parts will need updating too.

Andr'e makes a fine point about the HF2000's. They're not that good in modern terms (narrow bandwidth) but it's what they had so see if you can find some tatty speakers the same as he mentioned.

I thought that the HF2000 goes up pretty high, so by narrow bandwidth, I guess that you may be referring to the fact that they don't go very low, not much of a problem if used with a midrange unit that goes up quite high.

The HF2000 was used in the LS3/6 and other speakers as a supertweeter.

[spendorman]

Hi Steve, yes they do & they do sound pretty good indeed. They are limited to 70s thinking cabinet wise though where they could be improved no end ;)

I'll take some pictures tomorrow, you'll be (or should be :eyebrows:) disgusted at the way the mid & treble drivers are fixed to the baffle. Even the Ditton 15s you just advertised for free look like they have a better arrangement.

They do surprise me, in fact i'd go so far as to say they damn near astound me when they are given some power & they open up. I like them enough not to sell them tbh & this is another reason that's swaying me towards a quality rebuild when they should become astonishing....

I'll get those pics up tomorrow, warts & all :eyebrows:

Hi Andre, can see your post. They are the Mk 1 with the black fronts & not the prettier versions the Mk 2 with the veneered fronts. Again i'm not 100% sure i want to go the HF2000 route, why, because of the dirty great big terminals on the front of the drivers that will mess up the dispersion of the tweeters.

Modern day thinking says keep it all as smooth as possible to minimise difraction & other nasties. This is another reason i'm not that enamoured of the HF2000...

Oh, i have since discovered that they (HF2000) are 4ohm as well :doh: Not sure what the Magnum tweeters are but i don't detect any peak or dip in the frequency response.

Are the HF2000's marked 4 Ohm, or was that figure measured on a multimeter?

[Reid Malenfant]

Are the HF2000's marked 4 Ohm, or was that figure measured on a multimeter?
Ummm, lol. I couldn't measure either of the tweeters as they were both open circuit, IE dead. I'm just getting this 4 ohm information off of ebay as that is what one guy measured his HF2000s at...

Yes i understand that they all might not be equal which goes prove i haven't got much of a clue :eyebrows: From what i understand the bass drivers might well be 4 ohm, i haven't tested them or the midrange units in all honesty :scratch:

Doesn't it make life interesting :eyebrows:

[Rare Bird]

I knew the 66's 551 and 661 (?) models and loved 'em all as good 70's speakers.

The pair you have could be restored, but keep them original. Why do you need to replace the driver clamps? Bolts will only crush the chipboard rather than make a decent coupling over what's there. The internal wires and crossover parts will need updating too.

Andr'e makes a fine point about the HF2000's. They're not that good in modern terms (narrow bandwidth) but it's what they had so see if you can find some tatty speakers the same as he mentioned.

662's Dave, Yes Do the x-overs..The next set of tweeters will last then.

[spendorman]

Ummm, lol. I couldn't measure either of the tweeters as they were both open circuit, IE dead. I'm just getting this 4 ohm information off of ebay as that is what one guy measured his HF2000s at...

Yes i understand that they all might not be equal which goes prove i haven't got much of a clue :eyebrows: From what i understand the bass drivers might well be 4 ohm, i haven't tested them or the midrange units in all honesty :scratch:

Doesn't it make life interesting :eyebrows:

Hmmm! well, if he measured 4 Ohms DC resistance, the impedance will be a bit higher than that, so could well be what they call 8 Ohm units.

A strange one is the Coles 4001G supertweeter, they call that a 15 Ohm unit, but it measures 23 Ohms DC resistance.

However (and my memory may not be correct) I though that the HF2000 (from Ditton 44) measured something like 6 Ohms DC resistance.

I believe that the Ditton 22, 44 and 66 use the same bass unit.

[Reid Malenfant]

Well i have inspected the enclosures & taken some pictures which i'll load up later, frankly i think the enclosurers are scrap :rolleyes: There are so many lumps of not only veneer missing but biggish chunks of chipboard as well. To fix them up they'd need filling in somehow & then the whole lot re-veneering imo :doh:

They really are a mess, i think i should build new enclosures for them :eyebrows: Lets see who agrees when they see the pics :lolsign:

In all honesty i could build much better enclosures for less than £60 & finish them inclusive of that price. I'm hazarding a guess that if i was to have them restored it'd cost a hell of a lot more than that & i'd still only end up with the same 70s flexi & noisy enclosures :mental:

Anyway, we'll see ;)

[DSJR]

I wonder if you can get good cabs with shagged drivers - the ABR's sometimes needed attention from memory, but this may be non Celestion ones..

The B&O 5702 was, from memory, a "squashed" Ditton 66 and despite still large size, sounded excellent and in a different league from the passive Beovoxes which followed on from that generation. the 3800 was a goodie as well, with its Goodmans/Celestion bass units (I'm sure I've seen them with 12" Celestion drivers).

[spendorman]

Well i have inspected the enclosures & taken some pictures which i'll load up later, frankly i think the enclosurers are scrap :rolleyes: There are so many lumps of not only veneer missing but biggish chunks of chipboard as well. To fix them up they'd need filling in somehow & then the whole lot re-veneering imo :doh:

They really are a mess, i think i should build new enclosures for them :eyebrows: Lets see who agrees when they see the pics :lolsign:

In all honesty i could build much better enclosures for less than £60 & finish them inclusive of that price. I'm hazarding a guess that if i was to have them restored it'd cost a hell of a lot more than that & i'd still only end up with the same 70s flexi & noisy enclosures :mental:

Anyway, we'll see ;)

From what I see you have obvious skills. No great difficulty to fill the imperfections in the cabinet, some would hate the idea, but quality car body filler is good (Davids P38). Re-veneering is not too difficult, they then should look very good. This way you keep the speakers near enough standard.

Still, if your cabinets are like some Ditton 44's that I bought which had been stored in a wet garage, new cabinets might be the answer. Mine had absorbed water, swollen in many places and split. They really were terrible.

I broke them up for spares as I have two other good pairs of 44's

[spendorman]

Just another thought, Ditton 44 produces pretty good bass from the same 12" as in your 66. I have often seen people breaking 44's on ebay. Your bass unit will fit, HF2000's fit if you get any, and in all probability the 66 dome mid will go where the conventional midrange cone driver is (even if a little modification is needed. You will probably get tighter bass than from a 66 cabinet and ABR.

[Reid Malenfant]

I wonder if you can get good cabs with shagged drivers - the ABR's sometimes needed attention from memory, but this may be non Celestion ones..

The B&O 5702 was, from memory, a "squashed" Ditton 66 and despite still large size, sounded excellent and in a different league from the passive Beovoxes which followed on from that generation. the 3800 was a goodie as well, with its Goodmans/Celestion bass units (I'm sure I've seen them with 12" Celestion drivers).
That's a possibility Dave, the ABRs are 100% fine in this instance (rubber surrounds inner & outer) along with all the other drivers except the missing dustbinised HF2000s.

Yes i have seen the same midrange domes used in B&O speakers, like you say it wouldn't surprise me if other drivers were also used :)

From what I see you have obvious skills. No great difficulty to fill the imperfections in the cabinet, some would hate the idea, but quality car body filler is good (Davids P38). Re-veneering is not too difficult, they then should look very good. This way you keep the speakers near enough standard.

Still, if your cabinets are like some Ditton 44's that I bought which had been stored in a wet garage, new cabinets might be the answer. Mine had absorbed water, swollen in many places and split. They really were terrible.

I broke them up for spares as I have two other good pairs of 44's
Funny you should mention garages :doh: That's exactly where these were & it does look as though there has been some water ingress as well as a good battering. I use Plastic Padding Elastic which is also a car body filler :eyebrows:

Just another thought, Ditton 44 produces pretty good bass from the same 12" as in your 66. I have often seen people breaking 44's on ebay. Your bass unit will fit, HF2000's fit if you get any, and in all probability the 66 dome mid will go where the conventional midrange cone driver is (even if a little modification is needed. You will probably get tighter bass than from a 66 cabinet and ABR.
Actually you'd be pretty impressed by how tight & deep the bass is from the 66s. The cabinet is undersized so this tends to force the speaker to perform more like a sealed box with a slower rolloff & more gradual phase change than if it was an optimum ported enclosure for the 12" bass unit. No doubt this is the reason they opted for ABRs as to tune a smallish enclosure low & still allow enough air movement would need a big port & a very long one indeed ;)


Pictures coming up shortly after cropping & resizing & loading to Photobucket :)

[spendorman]

I stopped using Plastic Padding Elastic many years ago as I found it to be more hygroscopic than P38.

P38 does have a fair amount of elasticity, unlike some other car body fillers.

[Reid Malenfant]

I stopped using Plastic Padding Elastic many years ago as I found it to be more hygroscopic than P38.

P38 does have a fair amount of elasticity, unlike some other car body fillers.
That's interesting & something worth remembering, cheers for mentioning that :)

Ok here is the horror show :eyebrows:

First up those bloody awful clamps that hold the drivers in! Last thing you'd ever see on a modern enclosure, must be bad for dispersion & imaging. Lets just say it could be done a lot better :lol: Notice also the huge gap between the mid driver & enclosure, that could be a lot better to. Finally the bass driver isn't even sunk in flush to the cabinet :lolsign:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Ditton%2066/Picture001-1.jpg http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Ditton%2066/Picture002-1.jpg

Here we go with the what might as well be rat attacked woodwork. I haven't found all the missing bits as i couldn't get to one half or more of one enclosure :doh: Second pic shows it's nearly gone through the whole chipboard sheet :eek:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Ditton%2066/Picture013-1.jpg http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Ditton%2066/Picture011-1.jpg

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Ditton%2066/Picture007-1.jpg http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Ditton%2066/Picture006-1.jpg http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Ditton%2066/Picture005-1.jpg

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Ditton%2066/Picture004-1.jpg http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Ditton%2066/Picture003-1.jpg


I think what i'm going to do is make a new pair of enclosures, i'll probably keep these in case one day i feel like getting them back to looking like new. This should kind of satisfy everyone :eyebrows: Definately me as i'll be listening to something that sounds a lot better as well as looking nice :lolsign:

[spendorman]

Cabinets look bad, but not as bad as my 44's were. I reckon that even with my average skills, I could fill and re-veneer those cabinets.

A tub of P38, Surform, some Evostik, matt black paint and veneer,should have those looking very nice.

Nothing wrong with making new cabinets, but keeping the old ones as well, just takes up more room. If you are lucky enough to have plenty of room, no problem.

[Rare Bird]

Thing is if your going altering units & cabinet they aint really '66's anymore..If you sourced another pair of those supertweeters & most importantly rebuild the crossover, you'll be suprised..It's more than likley it's the old crossover components that helped caused the tweeter to get damaged.

[Reid Malenfant]

I own a 3 bedroom house & there is one of me :eyebrows: Right now i don't have the room as i have to clear out 2 bedrooms, a 16 x 8ft shed, a greenhouse, a garage & a summerhouse :lolsign: As well as another living room :eyebrows:

Once i have done that of course i'll have rather a lot of room :)

[Reid Malenfant]

Thing is if your going altering units & cabinet they aint really '66's anymore..
Ok then, lets say i could call them 69s :lolsign:

[spendorman]

I own a 3 bedroom house & there is one of me :eyebrows: Right now i don't have the room as i have to clear out 2 bedrooms, a 16 x 8ft shed, a greenhouse, a garage & a summerhouse :lolsign: As well as another living room :eyebrows:

Once i have done that of course i'll have rather a lot of room :)

It soon fills up again!! lol

[Rare Bird]

Aye took me a year to clear out a 15 ft Sq room of stockpiled hi-fi