Metropoulos Forum

Hi all, I'm new to the forum, hoping someone can help me out.

What are the celestion greenbacks that everyone wants/what makes them special?

How do they connect?
And the sensitivity at low volumes?

Thanks

"greenbacks" people talk about are the plastic covers on the old speakers from the 60's and early 70's.
The 'M' is a medium weight magnet (more mids, G12M) the "H" is heavy ( more highs and lows less mids).

G12M is warm and woody, the H more scooped. So you have to 1st decide which version you're after.
The chinese 'reissue' G12M celestion make are 'inspired' by the early ones, but aren't close IMO. Not abad speaker though.

I have compared original Pre-Rola celestion speakers to Scumback speakers (M Magnets, my favorite) and they are 'DEAD NUTS' as in, almost impossible to tell the difference.

Blind tested my band mates, same deal. FANTASTIC speaker, and amazing service. If you're after 'Real' 60's celestion tone, the Scumbacks are 'It'. the heritage celestoins are nice, but are much brighter and stiffer than originals IMO.

Big Mike wrote:"
I have compared original Pre-Rola celestion speakers to Scumback speakers (M Magnets, my favorite) and they are 'DEAD NUTS' as in, almost impossible to tell the difference.

Not in my experience. I have a quad of G12M with 014 cones, the M75s I "had" had no crang at all, very scooped sound and lifeless. Sorry to be a downer but what do you want me to do? Lie?

Coot Boy wrote:Not in my experience. I have a quad of G12M with 014 cones, the M75s I "had" had no crang at all, very scooped sound and lifeless. Sorry to be a downer but what do you want me to do? Lie?

Sorry to hear they didn't sound right to you. The M55's would have been like your 014 G12M's, not the M75's. The M75's are the the 003 cone recreations, so I wouldn't expect them to sound the same. The ones you had were the blue frame Scumbacks, I'm guessing?

Scumback Speakers wrote:

Coot Boy wrote:Not in my experience. I have a quad of G12M with 014 cones, the M75s I "had" had no crang at all, very scooped sound and lifeless. Sorry to be a downer but what do you want me to do? Lie?

Sorry to hear they didn't sound right to you. The M55's would have been like your 014 G12M's, not the M75's. The M75's are the the 003 cone recreations, so I wouldn't expect them to sound the same. The ones you had were the blue frame Scumbacks, I'm guessing?

Hey Jim, I'm not wanting to stir shit and I have resisted the urge to post what I said for over a year but really, I thought the ones I had were very flat. And yes they were the blue BAR B Q ones. Maybe I got duds? but it blows me out how there's so much love for your speakers when I remember the ones I had. Whether I had 55s or 75s, one would think both would still have something resembling the Celestion mids one expects.
It's funny though, I was definitely caught up in the hype, you read so much good about them, then you finally fork out the dough, which with shipping to Oz was a lot, $600 for the pair actually so you can appreciate how I might feel?
So you plug em in and your brain wants to think they are everything you read about, it took me a year or more to finally accept the reality that I was not liking them. I did my shirt in selling them as well.
Not to worry, I've moved on and learnt another lesson. I dunno, the ones I had just had no mid crang at all.
I'm a single coil guy, Strats, Teles and P-90s, so if your can't get crang outta them then wtf.

There have been more issues with the blue frame speakers since the 2009 time frame forward, than the older ones (prior to Ted Sr.'s death) before 2009. I've been doing a lot of reconing & replacing of the blue frame Scumback speakers in the last year, over 100 so far since May 2011 to satisfy client complaints and concerns.

So I can well understand if you had a pair that weren't up to spec. I wish you'd said something before and not kept it to yourself.

Scumback Speakers wrote:There have been more issues with the blue frame speakers since the 2009 time frame forward, than the older ones (prior to Ted Sr.'s death) before 2009. I've been doing a lot of reconing & replacing of the blue frame Scumback speakers in the last year, over 100 so far since May 2011 to satisfy client complaints and concerns.

So I can well understand if you had a pair that weren't up to spec. I wish you'd said something before and not kept it to yourself.

No worries mate, to me at the time they didn't sound like there was something wrong other than the lack of mids, I just figured that's how they're supposed to sound. Living on the other side o the world does have it's drawbacks.

I appreciate that, but M75's should have had PLENTY of mids, so there was definitely something wrong with them.

This whole deal of "quality control/tone inconsistency/long build times/shortage of parts/etc" with my speakers was one of many issues I took up with TA Weber last year when I flew back to Weber and met with him. He assured me he would get it dialed in, fixed and get people trained to build them right, yada yada yada.

Now you know why I build them here along with two builders who do great work and care about the product they make.

As a side note, I keep the "love letters" I get from clients who get their speakers and send emails telling me how much they love their Scumbacks. There are 435 of them I've received in 7 years. 111 of them have come in during the last 9 months since production started in California.

In any case, I'm sorry your previous pair of M75's wasn't up to spec, and I wish you'd contacted me about it.

EDIT: Cancel that 111 number. I just received my 112th love letter from a client who got his H55/H75-PVC 25w speakers.

I am trying to figure out what this might be worth. Any ideas? Thank you

tarabaker wrote:I am trying to figure out what this might be worth. Any ideas? Thank you

celestion.jpg

Probably not a lot. Not a super popular speaker. But that looks like an older one. People do seem to like those better.