Quote Originally Posted by Macca View Post
They look pretty tidy. Andre's favourite Celestion IIRC
I think his favs were the 33s and these, one of which I used to use as a centre speaker (forget the model number):



But as far as the 15s go, yes he preferred the originals

These just sound lovely mate, stupidly good for £89... You'd need to put a zero on the end of that and head well up towards £1k to get the sort of sound these Ditton 15s are producing, for smallish stand-mount speakers.

Yup, they're superior to the XRs (even modified/upgraded as mine were) - simply because they use better quality drivers. The top end in particular of the HF1300 ultimately has more texture and clarity than the soft-dome units on the XRs, and even though the measured frequency response rolls off as it does, 'dull' they ain't!

There's a lovely 'crisp and sparkly' openness to their treble response, and the midrange is fabulous, making vocals sound rich and sonorous, but also unfailingly believable and lifelike. Bass hits harder and deeper too, than it does with the XRs, and it's also more rhythmic and tuneful with it.

The only thing I would say is I can still detect the telltale 'signature' of electrolytic caps, which imbue the presence region with a touch of hardness and a slight 'nasal' quality, which I know would disappear by fitting some quality polypropylene ones, such as I did to the XRs, but it's nothing major.

Dunno if the crossovers in these are the same, but once I get more used to their sound I'll investigate that area, and possibly also replace the speaker terminals with something better, as things have moved on rather drastically in that area!

I'm only getting away with using the rather flimsy stock ones, as I use Chord Sarsen speaker cable in this set-up, which is very thin (but good quality): https://www.hifix.co.uk/chord-sarsen...able-per-metre

Anyway, off for another listen - I may be some time!

Marco.