The Celestion kid strikes again.....!

[Clive]

Marco, those capacitors are old and as suggested could do with replacing. Bear in mind that sometimes putting really good capacitors works fantastically but at other times said capacitors whilst having the same capacitance as the originals will be quite different in their ESR (resistance). This can change crossover points and possibly phase - but nothing that will damage anything. Having given that warning I'd suggest some ClarityCap MR.

[Ian Walker]

"as unknown to me, some f*cker came out of the blue and placed a £1300 bid just before I'd upped my max bid to £1500"

That was the sellers bezzy mate

[Marco]

Drats - scuppered by a devious scouser's dasterdly plan!!

Marco.

[Alex_UK]

"as unknown to me, some f*cker came out of the blue and placed a £1300 bid just before I'd upped my max bid to £1500"

That was the sellers bezzy mate

At least it wasn't Ian trying to bag the same speakers for the same reason - now that would have been funny!

Look forward to hearing them Marco, they're a speaker I'd considered - well, until some numpty paid way over the odds for them and prices will have rocketed - 15XR's still haven't recovered to normal levels on ebay since the last time you bought speakers!

[Marco]

Hi Clive,

Marco, those capacitors are old and as suggested could do with replacing. Bear in mind that sometimes putting really good capacitors works fantastically but at other times said capacitors whilst having the same capacitance as the originals will be quite different in their ESR (resistance). This can change crossover points and possibly phase - but nothing that will damage anything. Having given that warning I'd suggest some ClarityCap MR.

Thanks for that, and noted

However, I'm unsure if the crossovers in my pair are identical. One would certainly presume so, although they will most certainly be of a similar vintage.

Can anyone work out the cap values from the pic - or does anyone have a circuit diagram, or know from experience what they are?

Clarity Cap MRs are what I used in the crossovers of my Monitor Golds, so I know how good they are, and those are the ones I will use if I decide to tweak the Celestions.

The thing is though, they sound amazing as they are and seemingly don't lack any clarity, nor do they have a rather tubby old-fashioned sound (quite the opposite!), like the MGs did before I upgraded their existing crossovers....

I can also say that about my 15XRs, which are entirely original and sound simply wonderful for their size.

Perhaps Celestion were simply very good at matching the right capacitors to their drive units, sonically in terms of voicing them, regardless of if they are the best available now, bearing in mind that their speakers in those days were built from scratch from the ground up as entirely their own designs?

Sometimes with these things you just hit upon the right recipe and get the 'seasoning' spot on.

It's a difficult one to judge whether it's worth the risk (and expense, as CC MRs ain't cheap) of f*cking them up when they sound quite wonderful as they are now..............

All sensible suggestions, though, will be gratefully received!

Marco.

[Marco]

Hi Alex,

At least it wasn't Ian trying to bag the same speakers for the same reason - now that would have been funny!

Look forward to hearing them Marco, they're a speaker I'd considered - well, until some numpty paid way over the odds for them and prices will have rocketed - 15XR's still haven't recovered to normal levels on ebay since the last time you bought speakers!

Lol - indeed that would've been a serious giggle!! Hope you like them when you hear them, dude.

Regarding your other point, yes, but my job here is to inform people of what's good, vintage or new, particularly when it offers high SPPV, so they too can benefit from the discovery of an amazing product by trying it themselves - not to worry about inflating prices (not that Ditton 66 Studio Monitors being superb is news to anyone here!)

Incidentally, if anyone would like to read a PDF file of the original brochure from 1973, it can be downloaded here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?6asa528p5yomsao

Marco.

[Alex_UK]

Regarding your other point, yes, but my job here is to inform people of what's good, vintage or new, particularly when it offers high SPPV, so they too can benefit from the discovery of an amazing product by trying it themselves - not to worry about inflating prices (not that Ditton 66 Studio Monitors being superb is news to anyone here!)

Just having a bit of fun, bud - the 66's certainly don't need any encouragement to sell, and especially in the walnut (which is what I'd be after) I reckon, as they are timeless to look at, too.

[Alex_UK]

Lol! Show me a near mint pair of Studio 66 monitors which have sold recently for a couple of hundred quid, particularly ones finished in walnut?



Marco.

Not mint, not walnut... If they really DID sell for that then someone got a stupendous bargain! (And now I'm thinking F*ck, why didn't I spot those before!)

[Reid Malenfant]

The crossover looks quite good actually Looks like a 24Db/octave low pass feeding the bass driver, the mid is fed by a 12Db/octave high & low pass from what i can make out. The tweeter looks to be fed from an 18Db/octave high pass filter, interestingly the caps feeding the tweeter look like metalised plastic of some form or another.

The only nasties are on the mid & bass units. It looks like the mid is fed via a 24uf & 6uf in parallel & there is a cheapy directly accross the driver itself at 4uf (by the looks of things - from what i can see ).

If i was going to change anything it'd be the caps on the midrange, but seeing as you know the tweeter caps are of reasonable quality & not cheap reversible electrolytics you could upgrade those as well if you wanted to with no worries about ESR & phase shifts

[RochaCullen]

Hey Marco,

That review you saw on Gumtree is posted by a guy from Cork, Ireland. As I live in Cork I would love to know who this guy is, since he always has some serious kit for sale on Gumtree.

I wonder has anyone on this forum spoken to the guy, or know who he is?

Nathan