Celestion alnico shootout vid

Cirrus

Saw this, apologies if it's already been linked. One stood out for me throughout, interested to see what others think. Always surprises me how much variation there can be.

guitargeek62

From listening blind I kept choosing the SC75, Cel. Gold, and then the Silver #1 in that order for different tones.  Silver #4 with the recone was consistently my least favourite

Lebarque

Without even listening to it, Blue is best. :0)

Pabcrane

I found I liked the Gold and Silver #3 consistently. Runner up was Silver #1

Modulus_Amps

I didn't like most of the sound samples, by the end of it non were my favourite and I could choose a different speaker from every set of riffs.  I don't know if that is the speaker or the amp settings, probably the amp set up. Meaning an EQ tweak here and there would make any of the speakers work well.

The Gold at 5:12 and 13:15 sums up why I think its not a great speaker, there is almost a mechanical buzz in the speaker when driven.

The blue was disappointing, would have been interesting if he had a new blue to try too.
The scumback was meh, There is something honky in the mids on some sound samples
Silver #4 was the worst of the silvers with the recone

I think out of the remaining silvers the #3 was the best followed by #2 and I would stick both of those in the AC30.

shady

Silvers 2 or 3 for me as well I think. 

I've never been wowed by Golds or Blues in any demos I've listened to and the Scumback wasn't tweaking my nipples at all, along with silver 4.

I thought all samples with the Les Paul sounded better.

guitargeek62

Heh - interesting differences above, though I wouldn’t consider most of the tones that I like particularly ‘mainstream’ for tFB, so maybe that’s not a surprise?!

bertie

Modulus_Amps said:

 
The Gold at 5:12 and 13:15 sums up why I think its not a great speaker, there is almost a mechanical buzz in the speaker when driven.

The blue was disappointing, would have been interesting if he had a new blue to try too.
The scumback was meh, There is something honky in the mids on some sound samples
Silver #4 was the worst of the silvers with the recone

I think out of the remaining silvers the #3 was the best followed by #2 

I think I'd agree with all of that

Cirrus

Silver #3 for me was the winner, nice open mids while still having thickness and top end, I think would really please me in a band situation.

The reconed silver was a bit of a shame. Thought the blue was quite muffled sounding. The scumback was more different to the silvers than the gold was, I think it's interesting how much forum panache it has as being authentically vintage, it just sounded a bit raspy/ fizzy to my ears in comparison.

I agree, would have been nice to have a modern blue in there as well.

The gold, I have quite a lot of experience with. In some contexts I prefer it to a blue (LOVE it in a marshall combo), but where a blue/silver sounds just right it'll usually sound too boomy down low and metallic up top to me.

ICBM

Silvers #1 and #3 for me - bright but full and balanced, slightly different from each other on different sounds but hard to say one sounds better than the other overall - then Silver #2 which is a bit duller. The reconed Silver #4 was oddly muddy and muffled, the Blue surprisingly congested-sounding, the Gold brash and trashy, and the Scumback nasal and 'notchy' - I didn't like any of them.

I'm not certain what's going on with the Blue since they don't normally sound like that to me, and in fact don't sound substantially different from original Silvers.

pluckbuddy

I haven't listened to it in detail but my initial impressions after a brief listen are that the gold represents decent value given the rarity of the others and that it's likely to be the most robust. I'd be tempted to just buy that if I was choosing out of these and get on with my life. I heard clarity where others heard harshness. It might warm up in time anyway. 

I did have a gold once though and sold it because I didn't really love it. But I was playing a tweed deluxe then and didn't love that either!

ICBM

pluckbuddy said:

I haven't listened to it in detail but my initial impressions after a brief listen are that the gold represents decent value given the rarity of the others and that it's likely to be the most robust.

The Alnico Cream is the same price but has almost double the power rating of the Gold - 90W - and doesn't have that harsh top-end as far as I've heard. It's a pity he didn't test it as well, although that may be because the rating seems like overkill for an AC30. (It isn't, if it sounds good.)

pluckbuddy said:

I did have a gold once though and sold it because I didn't really love it. But I was playing a tweed deluxe then and didn't love that either!

I had a Gold too - it didn't sound as brash to me as it does in the clip, but I also didn't love it. To me it sounded quite like an 'alnico V30' - I had both in the same 2x12", so was able to directly compare them - the Gold was slightly brighter but also smoother, it didn't have the crunch of the V30. Overall not terrible, but not that inspiring either. I also heard it in a tweed-type amp and it sounded horrible! But the amp was not much better with a speaker I love, the Heritage G12H-30.