Deluxe reverb speaker - switching from Cannabis Rex to Celestion Gold

noisepolluter

This is mere curiosity - I absolutely have no complaints about the CREX sound, and it seems to be a great platform for a tweed-voiced pedal.

However, purely hypothetically, would a Celestion Gold be brighter/darker than the Cannabis Rex? More aggressive mids? I’ve noticed they seem to be a popular replacement for DRRI stock speakers along with the CREX, as long as being an option for ‘boutique’ tweed builders, so am curious.

jellybelly

The gold will be brighter especially in the upper mids, with less bass and a bit of a looser feel. The CRex isn’t as dark as people suggest, it just lacks the really high highs that a lot of other speakers have. There are few speakers that do the full frequency distortion thing as well as the CRex IMHO. 

thomasw88

I had both speakers at different times in a deluxe reverb.
  TBH, they both sounded great.
 if I was going to get another of those amps again, I'd probably just go for the cannabis rex as it was cheaper and didn't sound any 'worse' to my ears..   sorry can't be any more precise than that.

Dominic

C rex will be much less piercing
 I think it is softer and better matched to DRRI

noisepolluter

Thanks for the responses - I was at a guitars-only practice tonight and had the DRRI at the point where it was still clean but compressing a bit, and the drive was coming from the pedal. Seemed to be no shortage of bite to the proceedings  so unless a Gold happens to come my way super cheap I’ll stick with the CREX. It is quite a loud speaker and I still have yet to hear the amp way up with it...

crunchman

Gold can be very piercing.

If you want a change from the Cannabis Rex then a Weber 12F150, or 12A150 if you want alnico would be good.  WGS probably have some C12N/P12N equivalents that would be good as well.

horsehead

I have the WGS Reaper in mine and it's lovely, good mid range, cuts the high end down but without losing it and overall spot on

brooom

I disagree that the gold is piercing, well I more or less disagree, the thing is that the gold requires a lot of break in time (over 100 hours, I've been told), when new it feel stiff and the high frequencies are a bit piercing.

I think the eminence / alessandro GA-SC64 12" would be a nice speaker for a deluxe reverb. But this is based on my experience with their 10" model.

crunchman

brooom said:

I disagree that the gold is piercing, well I more or less disagree, the thing is that the gold requires a lot of break in time (over 100 hours, I've been told), when new it feel stiff and the high frequencies are a bit piercing.

I think the eminence / alessandro GA-SC64 12" would be a nice speaker for a deluxe reverb. But this is based on my experience with their 10" model.

I had a Gold several years ago that I tried in 3 different amps if I remember correctly.  It was piercing in all of them.  I had it long enough that it would have been broken in.

For those who say it's like a high power version of a Blue it's not.  The Blue is lot sweeter in the high end.

ICBM

crunchman said:

For those who say it's like a high power version of a Blue it's not.  The Blue is lot sweeter in the high end.

I would describe the Gold as more like an alnico V30 than a high-powered Blue.

I tried a Gold - well broken-in - alongside one of the V30s in my Mesa Trem-o-verb combo, and there was surprisingly little difference between them - it has the same sort of upper-mid peak and dark very high end. It doesn't have the 'roughness' of the V30, and isn't quite as tight at the low end, but otherwise it was quite similar, and a good match.

I've never heard one in a Deluxe, but I did also try it in my Mesa Blue Angel, which isn't that far away in voicing - it was OK, but the very distinctive voicing seemed to override the amp too much, so I didn't keep it.

57Deluxe

I don't like the Golds - they can be rather characterless. You don't need more clean headroom in a Deluxe, you need more readily available 'edge'.

ICBM

57Deluxe said:

You don't need more clean headroom in a Deluxe, you need more readily available 'edge'.

Unless you want clean headroom .

But in that case the best solution is 6L6s, a solid-state rectifier, and the stock Jensen C12K.

Misty

I tried a Gold in my DR when I had it, in the end decided I prefer ceramic in that amp. I remember Ted Weber advising the same thing.