The perfect Celestion speaker for a Hiwatt cab

[Majorlead78]

When it comes to Marshalls, Celestions are the definitive speaker. With Hiwatts, the Fane Purplebacks are THE speaker.

Here's a topic that doesn't get mentioned too often & in some situations, a very taboo subject: Using Celestions with the Hiwatt amps. Just about every Celestion sounds great through a Marshall but not every Celestion works well with a Hiwatt.

From what I heard & read, two Celestion speakers sound great with a Hiwatt.

1. G12H-30 - The original 55hz Greenbacks are supposedly the closest to the Fane Purplebacks. I'm not too sure about the 75hz.
2. G12-65 - Someone in the Vintage Amps Forum said these speakers "sound very much like the old Magnesium frame Fanes."

If you had a Hiwatt head, say either a DR-504 (50 watts) or a DR-103 (100 watts), with a Hiwatt cabinet (the original Hylight rear-loaded cabs) but wanted to use speakers that were very close to the old Fane Purplebacks, would the two Celestion speakers that I mentioned above work with the Hiwatts? Or are there other Celestions that'd be better to use? I heard the G12-80's (or Classic Leads) & the G12K-100's could be two other candidates, maybe even Scumback speakers as well.

David

[Lefty Lou]

I have a Hiwatt cab with the dark red or "purple" sticker Fanes. I used to own an old Marshall 50 watt MV 1x12" combo that came stock with the 12" 65 watt Celestion, and I also own a Marshall 2061CX cab with G12H30 Anniversary speakers, so I can speak from experience. Nothing but a Hiwatt 50 watt cone is going to get you there. You've also got to consider many recordings of your favorite british (guitarists/groups) were recorded with fairly new speakers such as Celestion, Fanes, Goodmans, etc. which makes it much harder to audibly compare worn in vintage cones to brand new cones.

[louis]

I have a 1977 Hiwatt DR 103 and made a small clip this
week with a Fuzz Face and a Fulltone MDV 3,
it's not high quality recording as it was done with my I-phone
and you hear my strumming.

The cab is loaded with G12M Pre Rolas and while I'm waiting
for a Fane loaded cab , they did a great job pairing with the Hiwatt.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU9rdiUn7nQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Louis

[shakti]

I have a cab with almost every type of greenback Celestion (20w T1221, 25W T1221, T1511, T1281) as well as a cab each with both major Fane types, i.e. both 14000 gauss and 17000 gauss ones. Don't forget that "50W Fane" doesn't really tell you the whole story. As with Celestions, there are different magnet sizes, so you could compare the 14k gauss ones to G12Ms and the 17000 gauss ones to G12Hs.

IMO, none of the Celestions sound anything remotely like the Fanes. The two Fane types sound more like each other than any of the Celestions do compared to the Fanes. The Fane speakers are much cleaner and tighter altogether, and more full range. This particularly applies to the 17k gauss models, which are extremely loud/efficient. No wonder they were Pete Townshend's weapon of choice. They do sound cool with distortion, but not as sweet and guitar friendly...more hi-fi in a sense, but with an incredible clean-up.

All that being said, you can get cool results by using Celestions with Hiwatt amps. Jimmy Page famously did just that with his custom 100W SAP amps and T1281-equipped cabs. In fact, a regular DR103 into a cab with T1281s comes dangerously close to nailing his live '69-71 sound, just missing a touch of gain. And Hendrix used his Sound City One Hundred amp (essentially the same as a Hiwatt CP103 aka "The Who amps) with Celestion equipped Marshall cabs. If you check the recently released clips from Miami pop '68, you can see him using a setup with four cabs (some of them with "Bass" corner logos, i.e. with T1511s) along with one Marshall (probably '67 style 100-watter, possibly a black fag JTM100...at least Noel clearly has one on his side of the stage) and one Sound City One Hundred.

[louis]

Nice post Shakti ,thank's for the input !

One thing though I need to say is that a month ago while having
a 68 12,000 Replica , played it through a 1978 Hiwatt Fane loaded with 125155's
and the sound was absolutely amazing ,tight but very chewy , wish I could have done a
clip back then.

The other way around like you've mentioned is when Page played with a JP Hiwatt with
G12H 's 4x12 cabinets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB8JXBTmHXY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Louis

[Lefty Lou]

I have a cab with almost every type of greenback Celestion (20w T1221, 25W T1221, T1511, T1281) as well as a cab each with both major Fane types, i.e. both 14000 gauss and 17000 gauss ones. Don't forget that "50W Fane" doesn't really tell you the whole story. As with Celestions, there are different magnet sizes, so you could compare the 14k gauss ones to G12Ms and the 17000 gauss ones to G12Hs.

Again we're not talking about just a 50 watt cone either. Nobody seems to take into account old cones versus new cones As Well as all the many other variables that come into play.

IMO, none of the Celestions sound anything remotely like the Fanes. The two Fane types sound more like each other than any of the Celestions do compared to the Fanes. The Fane speakers are much cleaner and tighter altogether, and more full range. This particularly applies to the 17k gauss models, which are extremely loud/efficient. No wonder they were Pete Townshend's weapon of choice. They do sound cool with distortion, but not as sweet and guitar friendly...more hi-fi in a sense, but with an incredible clean-up.

All that being said, you can get cool results by using Celestions with Hiwatt amps. Jimmy Page famously did just that with his custom 100W SAP amps and T1281-equipped cabs. In fact, a regular DR103 into a cab with T1281s comes dangerously close to nailing his live '69-71 sound, just missing a touch of gain. And Hendrix used his Sound City One Hundred amp (essentially the same as a Hiwatt CP103 aka "The Who amps) with Celestion equipped Marshall cabs. If you check the recently released clips from Miami pop '68, you can see him using a setup with four cabs (some of them with "Bass" corner logos, i.e. with T1511s) along with one Marshall (probably '67 style 100-watter, possibly a black fag JTM100...at least Noel clearly has one on his side of the stage) and one Sound City One Hundred.

[Majorlead78]

Nothing but a Hiwatt 50 watt cone is going to get you there.

I fully agree, but the only problem is that the old Fanes are getting harder to come by. I'm waiting for Fane International to reissue the Fane Purplebacks, but that day may not happen.

Louis I saw your clip on YouTube & to be honest, the G12M's with the Hiwatts sounded really good. That was a surprise. I was always under the notion that the G12M-25's would've sounded terrible with a Hiwatt amp. I can throw that theory out the window.

Shakti, Jimmy Page's live sound from '69 to '71 was awesome. I think he should've stayed with the Hiwatt heads with the Marshall cabinets. I saw the clip with the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival on YouTube. I didn't know Jimi & Noel Redding were still using or "experimenting" with the Sound City heads along with the Marshall Super Lead heads. I was under the impression that they were using nothing but Marshall heads at that time.

Alex Lifeson of Rush was doing the Hiwatt head/Marshall cab combination from 1978 (maybe 1977) to '81. He was using the DR-103's but what speakers were loaded in the Marshall cabs could be anyone's guess.

All that being said, you can get cool results by using Celestions with Hiwatt amps. Jimmy Page famously did just that with his custom 100W SAP amps and T1281-equipped cabs. In fact, a regular DR103 into a cab with T1281s comes dangerously close to nailing his live '69-71 sound, just missing a touch of gain.

I was thinking. Maybe if the 12AT7 in the Phase Inverter is replaced with a 12AX7 in a DR-103, would it nail Page's '69-'71 sound?

David

[Lefty Lou]

Nothing but a Hiwatt 50 watt cone is going to get you there.

I fully agree, but the only problem is that the old Fanes are getting harder to come by. I'm waiting for Fane International to reissue the Fane Purplebacks, but that day may not happen.

All we need now is for Jim Seavall of Scumback Speakers to have Ted Weber's son to reverse engineer some stellar purple back Fane speaker samples, like he did with his collection of old Celestion speakers. Then you could finally have your speakers.

Louis I saw your clip on YouTube & to be honest, the G12M's with the Hiwatts sounded really good. That was a surprise. I was always under the notion that the G12M-25's would've sounded terrible with a Hiwatt amp. I can throw that theory out the window.

Shakti, Jimmy Page's live sound from '69 to '71 was awesome. I think he should've stayed with the Hiwatt heads with the Marshall cabinets. I saw the clip with the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival on YouTube. I didn't know Jimi & Noel Redding were still using or "experimenting" with the Sound City heads along with the Marshall Super Lead heads. I was under the impression that they were using nothing but Marshall heads at that time.

Alex Lifeson of Rush was doing the Hiwatt head/Marshall cab combination from 1978 (maybe 1977) to '81. He was using the DR-103's but what speakers were loaded in the Marshall cabs could be anyone's guess.

All that being said, you can get cool results by using Celestions with Hiwatt amps. Jimmy Page famously did just that with his custom 100W SAP amps and T1281-equipped cabs. In fact, a regular DR103 into a cab with T1281s comes dangerously close to nailing his live '69-71 sound, just missing a touch of gain.

I was thinking. Maybe if the 12AT7 in the Phase Inverter is replaced with a 12AX7 in a DR-103, would it nail Page's '69-'71 sound? David

The schematic and notes regarding this amp are floating around on the web. The Catalinbread RAH pedal is basically the preamp and tone stack section of Jimmy Page's famed DR-103 HIWATT amp.