Celestion Alnico Gold 10" 16 Ohm

I don't come and rate too much stuff I buy here, but this deserves a review. This is a top quality speaker and will go really well in your guitar cab, period.

I play rock solo through to folk accompaniment on a 2018 Les Paul Standard and custom Telecaster with a wide range splittable humbucker, so a mix of vintage rock solo through to single coil out of phase and then some more jazzy humbucker stuff. My amp is a Mesa/Boogie MiniRectifier (10W/25W). Of course your mileage will vary, depending on your guitars, amp, cab, what speakers you had in there before and your playing style. But these are top class guitar speakers.

The long version: I have a self-made cab 50x58x30cm (H/W/D) that I built ten years ago to go under a 1980 Musicman 210 RD combo. I originally used the Musicman 10" speakers (swapped out of the combo where I put vintage 30s) but recently decided they were a bit muffly sounding. I decided on a mix of the G10 Creamback and the Alnico Gold 10, both 16Ohm but wired in parallel to give me an 8 Ohm cab.

The main difference (of course) is the dynamics and definition, superb, and the totally balanced tonality from bottom E to high up on the fretboard - perfect. They really bring out superb chime-like clear guitar, and respond so well to solo work and picking - a big improvement over the old MM drivers that I had re-used. Reverb, delay, etc all sound fantastic, simply perfectly captured and presented. If I push my amp into overdrive (which the MiniRectifier does very well, both a vintage crunch and more modern drive) these are also totally faithfully reproduced with no harshness. I haven't yet been able to play loud enough to make the speakers clip and anyway with the MiniRectifier only going to 25W maybe never will - but that's not totally my style either. Pretty sure that the Creamback will handle that well anyhow.

Another less obvious plus point: the Creamback is pretty light, the Alnico medium weight, the two combined save over 2kg compared to the MM speakers. And two 10" Creambacks are about the same weight as a single 12", though I think I would rather go for a versatile two way cab with different speakers than a 1x12; this way I can also get two slightly different sounds for recording too. No more 12" envy. The Creamback is about €100 less than the Alnico Gold, but the combination is stunning,

Altogether very happy with this purchase, beautiful well made speakers with wonderful sound reproduction. They even look great! Pity they are inside the cab :D

Made my Les Paul's neck pickup sound like a Strat! No mud, pure sweetness! Great little speaker, I use it in an external cab with a Marshall Studio Classic and a Mini Jubilee. And with Strats, clarity without harshness. Distortion sounds just great. Initially it sounded a bit nasally but very soon this trait went away.

Half star subtracted because the gasket of the speaker was damaged (lifted upwards) in two different places upon arrival. But I guess it did not affect anything.

All in all - worth the money!