Celestion F12-X200 (Full Range, Live Response Driver) Released

  • Zilla cabs made me a 112 with one of these in it. Haven’t tried with a kemper (have one arriving Saturday) but sounds great using amps through a load box and two notes cab. Effectively revamping I guess but best at home tone I’ve had with a speaker. Sounds great. Have owned and sold clr, asm12, matrix q12.

    Hi Bke has your Kemper arrived already? Have you tried it with Celestion?

  • Actually, Mick Farlow (Xitone) said he'll be bypassing the crossover on the F12-X200 in favor of the crossover in the Dayton PPA800DSP. With the Dayton you have 12 parametric EQ filters (6 on each side of the crossover) that help you really dial in a real nice and smooth curve for most decent driver pairs.


    As AZRipp mentioned, it also means the Xitones are dialed in for that driver and will not sound right at all with another driver unless you get in there and play with the amp DSP.

    You can download the software from Dayton so that you can tweak the crossover on the Dayton plate amp to your liking or to fit a different speaker or cab. Parts Express also has the same Dayton plate amplifier used in the MBritt cab if you are inclined to roll your own. Just FYI.

  • Until we measure the parameters or disassemble the plastic protection on the magnet I can't be sure about the built in "crossover".


    I believe it's a cell to linearize the frequency response which is only a part of a complete crossover network that includes cells for linearize impedence, delay cells, filters...ecc...

  • Ok amici, tomorrow afternoon later we will begin measurements in free air and the possible disassembly of the two cones still to be broken in.

    Thursday I will receive the 2x12 and I will begin the assembly phase over the weekend. Measurements in closed boxes will follow.

    I promise you tons of photos and all the detailed account of how much the Google translator can give me :)


    Ciao !

  • Today we first measured the impedance curve. Immediately afterwards we pulled the plastic cover that covers the magnet and discovered the electrical circuit fixed to it. It soon became clear that there were two magnets. One of it is part of a 6 ohm tweeter that emits through the center of the cone towards the dust cover. The electrical circuit is a 18db high-pass for the tweeter in fact. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to pick up the 2x12 and I'll see how to mount the two woofers. Subsequently, once run in, we will measure the system's frequency response to see how linear it can be. Clearly, listening and comparison sessions with other commercial products will follow soon.

    In these first photos: the detail of the terminal block with 4 cables, two of which go towards the tweeter still hidden by the plastic cover https://postimg.cc/ZBB2PRNz and the measurement of the impedance curve of the whole system (woofer + tweeter) https://postimg.cc/R62r2fm0

    Here instead we have uncovered everything and here is where the second magnet and the crossover dedicated to the tweeter appeared

    https://postimg.cc/gallery/2l3m8d9x6/

    The latest photos: impedance module only woofer https://postimg.cc/DmYdkgR6 and tweeter only https://postimg.cc/nCjKHmJJ , tweeter measurement time https://postimg.cc/hhCM4gQ9 and 18db high pass crossover scheme https://postimg.cc/v1W3GV5B Ciao!

  • Exactly high-pass with a slope of 18 db/oct on tweeter and the woofer is fullrange.


    Now i preparing the cab, unfortunately there are holidays in between and the work will slow down...i need some tools that I don't have and I have to cut some wood panels.

  • Thanks so much for the pics, very interesting. Will be staring at these quite a bit going forward...

  • So the filter to protect the tweeter has a 1.5 Ohm pad resistor in series (for matching the power efficiency of the drivers) and the usual cap/ coil/ cap setup (one pole each) for the 18 dB hi pass filter. Very interesting, as that dude on Laugh In in ze helmet used to say.


    Depending on the frequency chosen for the cross over, the woofer might already be dropping off in amplitude in that range - lo pass may not be a significant improvement and phase issues apply of course with any analog crossover, plus extra components cost for the low pass filter. That arrangement also suits the sort of "defeatable tweeter" approach used in the PowerCab for example. Not an unreasonable approach for a guitar setup I guess.

  • So the filter to protect the tweeter has a 1.5 Ohm pad resistor in series (for matching the power efficiency of the drivers)

    I thought, you could do like on some bass cabs, off - attenuation 1 - attenuation 2. In this case off totally eliminates the tweeter from the circuit, only the woofer in operation remains, attenuation 1 is the original one, attenuation 2 a little more attenuated . I must say that listening to the tweeter, however, does not bother me at all, it is rather soft despite the case having a slanted panel and therefore I was listening in-axis rather than usually when the cab resting on the floor listening to off-axis. It seems Celestion they have done a good job after all.

  • I have seen that sort of setup in SWR bass cabs - tweeter defeat with a switch on the back panel. In the case of a symmetrical 18 dB crossover the bass low pass is coil/cap/coil and you have two coils with high power handling in series with the woofer. All those coils take up space and cost money so I guess that factors into the design as well. The tweeter protection is indispensible - full range into a tweeter will burn it out in no time. In hifi applications, with recorded audio, the typical 50% power point is about 300 Hz so the power handling of a tweeter with protection filtering frequencies below (say) 2.2 KHz can be much reduced compared to the woofer.

  • For now, do we do two counts about 2x12" cab?

    €138 for each speaker (x2)
    €250-300 for the 2x12 case
    €25 including wood, screws, glue, paint (not to be counted if you want to mount the speakers from inside the cab)


    I begin with listening, I have about 300 commercial profiles loaded on the Kemper, I will use two guitars, and I will make an A - B comparison with the guitar case excluding the cabinet.

    For now they will be the usual apartment volumes, later I will move to the room where I will be able to use higher volumes.

    Ciao!

  • So I tried the FRFR cab a bit (with apartment volumes without the neighbors calling the police), the same volumes I use the traditional guitar cab. The first fault I find in this FRFR is that the sound seems to come from the next room. While disabling any effect such as delay or reverb, this unpleasant feeling remains, confirmed by the fact that as soon as the traditional case is reconnected (2x12 Vox open back loaded with Black Shadow and Vox by Wharfedale) the sound is there, precisely, it comes out of the speakers and it is precisely where it should be. This issue of the point of emission displaces me a little. Secondly but not least the sounds: by using the cabinet section correctly you get more marked differences between one amplifier and another compared to using it with the traditional case but unfortunately the sounds are very aseptic, with a surgical precision that is not suitable for everyone those vintage-style sounds while they probably go better with modern-style sounds. They also lack something I could define as "life". With the traditional case the crunch sounds for example react at the level of dynamics exactly as a true tube amp would do, which I own and can connect at any time to verify. They don't make your heart beat, they don't convey emotions, they don't push you to linger on a sound for half an hour just to try to listen to all the nuances because they are missing ... they are rather flat and precise, they look much more like a bad amp transistor than a tube. They sound a bit fake and plastic. Reserve the right to make a new session of similar listening, after which I will transport the whole system to the rehearsal room where I will do the same tests at a bit higher volumes. It will take three or four days but it will be done and I will update you on the results. I could write to Celestion to see if I did something wrong in the project for example. Post Scriptum: I can't wait to compare my system with the J&F Paradigma. Ciao!

    Edited once, last by Jeeega ().

  • So I tried the FRFR cab a bit (with apartment volumes without the neighbors calling the police), the same volumes I use the traditional guitar cab. The first fault I find in this FRFR is that the sound seems to come from the next room. While disabling any effect such as delay or reverb, this unpleasant feeling remains, confirmed by the fact that as soon as the traditional case is reconnected (2x12 Vox open back loaded with Black Shadow and Vox by Wharfedale) the sound is there, precisely, it comes out of the speakers and it is precisely where it should be. This issue of the point of emission displaces me a little. Secondly but not least the sounds: by using the cabinet section correctly you get more marked differences between one amplifier and another compared to using it with the traditional case but unfortunately the sounds are very aseptic, with a surgical precision that is not suitable for everyone those vintage-style sounds while they probably go better with modern-style sounds. They also lack something I could define as "life". With the traditional case the crunch sounds for example react at the level of dynamics exactly as a true tube amp would do, which I own and can connect at any time to verify. They don't make your heart beat, they don't convey emotions, they don't push you to linger on a sound for half an hour just to try to listen to all the nuances because they are missing ... they are rather flat and precise, they look much more like a bad amp transistor than a tube. They sound a bit fake and plastic. Reserve the right to make a new session of similar listening, after which I will transport the whole system to the rehearsal room where I will do the same tests at a bit higher volumes. It will take three or four days but it will be done and I will update you on the results. I could write to Celestion to see if I did something wrong in the project for example. Post Scriptum: I can't wait to compare my system with the J&F Paradigma. Ciao!

    Hmmmm.


    I was hoping the review would be positive. I was seriously looking at this speaker for a DIY FRFR powered cab with the Dayton Bi-amped plate amplifier that Xitone is using in the MBritt cabinet. I apologize if this is covered in earlier posts, but Jeeega, did you build the cab for this speaker? If you did, can you post pics or links to the plans you used? I'm curious to see what kind of cab you have the speaker in, and what you powered it with. Also, do you think that the speaker could benefit from disabling the high pass filter and using an active programmable crossover such as offered with the above mentioned Dayton plate amp?

  • mmm.


    I was hoping the review would be positive. I was seriously looking at this speaker for a DIY FRFR powered cab with the Dayton Bi-amped plate amplifier that Xitone is using in the MBritt cabinet. I apologize if this is covered in earlier posts, but Jeeega, did you build the cab for this speaker? If you did, can you post pics or links to the plans you used? I'm curious to see what kind of cab you have the speaker in, and what you powered it with. Also, do you think that the speaker could benefit from disabling the high pass filter and using an active programmable crossover such as offered with the above mentioned Dayton plate amp?

    Me too :-/


    I used a Marshall box with a generous internal volume, it is amplified with the Kemper, I don't use external amplifiers. I also modified (or rather built from scratch) the baffle to mount the speakers from the outside and flush with the panel minimizing the deleterious effects of mounting them with a step on the edge of the woofer. Pics of everything can be found in previous posts.


    The high pass filter protects the tweeter and makes it work (actually) little. I have no acute problems (they are sweet and do not pierce the eardrums) nor of bass (full, full-bodied and present) but of perception of sound (it seems to come from the other room) and of sound quality (off, dead, lifeless, plasticky, fake). Could we do it again in a passive way? Sure. You could use an active crossover, surely, intercepting the tweeter wiring but I don't know what the advantages. In theory it should already sound like this.