SonicNorth AudioWorks

Here's a fabulous rare (giant) Celestion!

Brought in by a client in pieces (even the basket and magnet were disassembled), this is a Celestion C18 from the late 70s. These seemed to have all kinds of weird variants around this time and this one originally had an inverted butyl rubber surround that would have made it a true bass woofer with a pretty strong midrange roll-off. Although technically possible to restore to orginal, The client and I agreed that this had less utility than a more full range restoration. The outcome is an 18" "Greenback" (IYKYK). IMHO this should end up in a closed cab for dropped tuned guitar - a heavy chug-monster! A late 70s blackback G12H restored for the same client for scale. An epic speaker unto itself!!

Just sent this 8" 1930s Oxford Field Coil speaker home in its original Supro amp! This one was tricky. The original spider were pieces of phenolic/bakelite that held the coil in place. The restoration here required the replacement of these broken parts with a conventional cup spider and then best available parts that fit. I think it turned out looking pretty original and best of all, it works!

Ah, sweet restoration. Vintage Oxford 12K5-6 ready for service.

Hi Folks it's been a while. I had a couple of ToneSpeak Guitar Speakers 1250 speakers in to the shop this week. Before any further discussion, I really like these speakers. Fantastic construction (except for one minor thing on this pair), and I did an A/B in my '74 Fender Twin with its '72 Oxfords. I loved how the speakers didn't fundamentally change the tone of the amp at all, but overall had a wider frequency response, especially the fat low end that was fantastic. No shocker with a 1.75" voice coil vs the Oxfords ~1.5, doped surrounds, sturdy cone, bigger magnet. I have a small sample size, but I can say with confidence that I would put these in the Twin if I ever replaced the Oxfords. Really nice balanced tone. Maybe I'll try a mix with one of these to beef up the overall response? 🤔

The reason why they were brought in was that they were being tested in different cabinets and when they were front mounted, they were making all kinds of noise. Turns out the speaker surround/gasket glue joint was spotty in a couple of places on both speakers. A surprising finding given the very high build quality of the speakers overall. Unknown if this was due to the glue joint being starved, contamination on the basket lip that prevented the glue from adhering or something else, but with some extra Moyen rs-3087 we should be back in business for front mounting. Of course, with proper snug rear-mounting, this would never have been an issue.

Otherwise, great stuff ToneSpeak Guitar Speakers! I'm going to dig into your product line and see what else you have to offer!