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Celestion Ditton 44 Speakers

Does anyone have or ever had Celestion Ditton 44 speakers? I saw a pair at a thrift shop, excellent condition, cheap, and could not resist buying them. I am currently have them hooked up to my store system (In budget minded virtual systems). Any comments about them? Has anyone ever replaced or upgraded the capacitors in the crossovers of vintage speakers?
My comments after a week of listening: Very listenable; no listening fatigue; punchy bass (they have a 12 inch woofer). However, they are noticably somewhat "muddier" than the CAMBER speakers I have been using. Not lots muddier, but somewhat muddier. By muddier, I mean less precice sounding. (The Celestions are three way speakers, and the Cambers are two way with a 7" woofer, and that may partly explain why the Celestions sound muddier.) I will hook the Cambers back up when I get around to it. However, I would like to try the Celestions in a room that is more appropriatly set up acoustically. If you look at my virtual system, there are serious issues with the room of my store system, but that is where I listen most.
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seandtaylor99
1,262 posts
 
I had a friend who owned them, and they sounded very enjoyable (especially for the price) with lots of deep bass. I do also remember them sounding muddy, also, compared to newer speakers. I guess you get what you pay for.
Neither of us tried any mods, but assuming you got them for a good price you'd have little to lose. There are loads of part shops on the web and I'm sure other agoners who can give good advice with regard to modding.
lhlb
2 posts
 
These were very pleasant speakers in a system I had in the U.K. over 20 years ago! You are right, one can listen for hours without fatigue probably due to the treble driver, which was thought to be very sweet back then. As I recall, trumpet, horn and sax came over the midrange very realistically and the soft-roll base had plenty of punch. These speakers worked well for many types of music but I remember them best for the ability to work with close-in jazz. However these units, good as they were, were of a different technological time. Driver materials have improved so much that I think regardless of your cross-over tweaks you'll not improve greatly over the factory sound.
The treble unit, though sweet, rolled off beyond 18k as I remember and the midrange was a paper driver. You might want to rotate the base units 180 degrees, top to bottom, to help with the coil alignment. For me, I say accept them for what they are; a nice pair of older, cheaper speakers. lhlb
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ivanj
35 posts
 
I had a pair of Ditton 66 and I thought they were great. The larger the amplifier the better. You need a real attention grabber of a big SS amp, like a krell, to make these puppies listen and then they are great. Back then, we used Crown DC300a or big BGWs. They were great on classical but could really boogie.
jperry
2,433 posts
 
I have a pair of Ditton 66 speakers for my cabin system. I think they still sound great. The bass is a little thick, but a high damping factor solid state amp can help. Good luck.
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