Guitar Gear Review: Celestion A-Type Guitar Speakers – Everything Old is Newer Again.

I have a 1972 Fender Silverface Quad Reverb. Yes, you read that right, not a Twin Reverb but a Quad Reverb. This mammoth amp has been with me since I was a teen in the early ’80’s. Like every other teen of that era, I pushed this amp with every inch of heavy metal gain I could throw at it. The Quad Reverb being my first gigging amp it took a lot of abuse. The grill was lost, and ultimately the speakers were damaged. Other amps made it into my gigging rotation as my wounded Quad Reverb collected dust in the basement. Finally a few years back I decided to breathe life again into the old beast.

After restoring the Quad Reverb, I fitted it with four brand spanking new speakers. My original replacements were lackluster. The amp was overly dark, and dialing in treble just made the tone ice-picky. The balance the amp once had was gone. A quick web search brought me to many replacements options. Once I landed on the product page for the Celestion A-Type guitar speakers, I knew I had found my new speakers.

The OEM Fender Quad Reverb had a beautiful sparkle when played clean. As I said, I played metal with this amp, with the right stompbox this amp had a deep throaty bark. Celestion A-Type guitar speakers brought these dynamics of the amp back to life and more.

The fullness of the bass in these speakers is fantastic. Yes, I am a hard rock guy by my DNA, but I found the speakers played wonderfully also for Jazz and Blues. The headroom of these 50-watt powerhouses delivers deep round lows without ever getting boomy or muddy. As I said with the previous speakers the balance was lost. Celestion A-Type guitar speakers allowed me to crank the bass and get that thick bottom I love, but my highs were left intact.

I love to play delicate voicings high on the neck. With the Celestion A-Type guitar speakers, I was getting a chimelike tone out of the amp. The amp was its old self again however in a lot of ways better.

The additional headroom pushed my highs in a crystal clear, articulate manner. With chorus added the shimmer was mind-blowing. The speakers were allowing me to play to the amp. Instead of fiddling with knobs dialing in my tone, I could easily pull everything out of the amp I wanted. The speakers precisely articulated every technique and dynamic. One dynamic I was particularly blown away by is the sensitivity and response of these speakers.

Editors-Choice1Playing my Telecaster through this amp clean I was getting very tight snappy sounding chords out of the speakers. Chicken picking and country licks had a beautiful pop to them that would easily cut through any mix. However, when playing huge chords, I could hear them bloom. From the deep bass on the bottom of the chords to the highs on top. As I said, you can play into these speakers. They respond to the dynamics in your playing as if you were behind the wheel of a world-class sports car.

The Celestion A-Type guitar speakers come in 8 or 16-ohm, the speakers we tested were the 16-ohm version. These 50-watt firebreathers have a vintage looking 1.75-inch voice coil and boast a 98db sensitivity. Their flexibility makes them a great replacement speaker for all styles of music. You fanboys of American style amps will really dig them. These speakers are a definite upgrade on my OEM Jensen speakers and will eventually make their way into the rest of my American style amps.

You can find out more about the Celestion A-Type guitar speakers at Celestion.com, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.