• Sick! Sick! Sick!

  
  As reviewed by All 4 JC on 11/4/2009

  I bought this speaker to replace the stock Mojotone speaker that came in my Savage Macht 12. Mind you, the Mojo was happening but had a little too much Greenback raspy breakup tone going on. This Gold Alnico is kind of like a '54 Cadillac. It's big, heavy and about as vintage cool as you can get. It's rated at 50 watts, but whatever you throw at it, you'll be pleasantly surprised. The only drawback if you are considering using it as a replacement speaker in your combo. Make sure you have rearward room. This thing is a fat speaker, the bell is huge and sticks out about 2" more than a regular Celestion. The plus side is that the clarity is unbelievable and the break up comes on right when you need it and sounds phenomenal. It's way expensive, but if you are into vintage, boutique tone. This is like having two Alnico Blues in one package. Oh yeah, it takes a little time to get used to it, about the time you are going to put your guitar down, you realize. Wow! This is bad to the bone. Hah! I got a Gold Alnico. This is somewhere in the middle of a Vintage 30 and a 25 watt greenback with Fender smooth. Go ahead, get it, stick it in your Matchless or your Orange or your Dr.Z or even your Marshall. Bottom line, it's warmer than the blue and can handle more watts. Go for it, you know you want it.

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• Best tonal purchase I have ever made

  
  As reviewed by Shawn Fussell on 8/27/2012

  Let me first start this review by saying that as of the date of this review, I have been playing guitar for a total of 21 years. And over half of that time I have been blessed with being able to play professionally. Everything from Metal to Country, and anything in between. Obviously, tone is everything and sometimes can be the deciding factor in an audition your hoping to land, and even the crowd your trying to please. Even though everyone in the crowd doesn't know why things either sound good or bad, they still know what does and doesn't. Shamefully I say it took me all of those years to decide for a speaker upgrade in my Marshall 800 1x12 combo that is my 'go-to' amp I have used since I bought it 12 years ago. I thought this thing sounded fantastic just by itself. I play a custom built Telecaster and I tell you I never 'heard' it until I put the Celestion Gold in my amp. After all the fancy pedals, pick-up upgrades, best cables, etc., no other addition or modification made more of a difference than replacing the vintage 30 with the Celestion Gold. I instantly heard the rest of the money I invested in my rig when I fired it up for the first time. I think another review of this speaker said it was like 'taking a blanket off of your amp...", and I strongly agree with that statement. The highs were cleaner, and the lows were tight. Anyone who plays guitar has heard that muddiness that builds up on the heavier top strings when you do any palm muting or when chunking up an open string chord. This speaker cleaned all that up to recording studio quality even in our practice room. The tones are balanced and brings out every nuance of your favorite guitar rig. It made me enjoy and WANT to practice more on my off time because of the clarity and the ear pleasing upgrade to my already loved gear. My only warning to anyone looking at this speaker is that if you have anything in your signal chain that DOESN'T sound good, this speaker will tell you all about that, too. I replaced my tube screamer with something more cleaner and less noisy because I heard the 'cheap' in the mass made pedals, no true bypass, stuff.that was hidden with the Vintage 30 (which is a great speaker, too. but nowhere as clean as this one. Another interesting fact about this speaker is that where I was usually running my pre-amp gain on my Marshall combo (50 watt) anywhere between 12 and 2 o'clock, I now run at about 11 and get a much better sounding overdrive. It made the overdrive more transparent and instead of disguising your guitars natural tone, it enhanced it. It can also make a note feedback as fast as you want it to. I can probably say that if your a sloppy player your not going to like this speaker much. But if you have spent hours perfecting that riff or that super lead, you really haven't heard just how good you are until you hear it through a Celestion Gold in my opinion. Before you spend the money on the cable of the month, or the fancy pedals...you might of only needed your axe, a good cable, and a great amp talking through a Celestion Gold. You'll want to match the speaker as close to you amplifiers output that you can. The Marshall I use is a 50 watt combo so I obviously took the 50 watt version of the Gold. They also have a 15 watt for smaller Fender combo's, etc.

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