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Watching in 2024 Have had my CELESTION 100s in the Mahogany finish, since around 1993/94. Fabulous imaging, and female voicing. Decent bottom end bass...not earth-shattering, but then you can just pair them with a good Sub, and voila. He's right, beautiful speakers

Amazing intro and review! How do you compare this one against Hegel H390?

ls3/5a far better...

I can't decide between Countour 20i or something british like Spendor 2/3 or Harbeth C7. currently have Dynaudio Focus 160 which is nice, little bit unrefined though!

try with same equipment, condition and music but take the Phonar Primus speaker, total different sound quality

LS3/5a better

I believe an integration of any supertweeter with the original system tweeter may be a way more challenging than integration of a subwoofer. The problem is in the very short sound wave lengths at hight frequencies. Those waves sum up unevenly and due to interference may cause huge frequency responce irregularities. Danni Richi with GR-Research shows that in details in his TH-cam video about supertweeters.

Play the speakers!

That intro editing was awesome.

The A-400 got rave reviews c1990. That inspired my buying an A-400x late 1990s (+ Rega Planar 2) thru my mate's Bose U-beaut spkrs .. he, my gtr buddy & I stood mouth gaping @ the unbelievable sound. FF 2024 .. long since sold the A-400x .. now have the original A-400, Systemdek TT, Pioneer CD with StablePlatter + LegatoLink and Australian Krix spkrs. Clean & airy sound 4 music & even movie-watching jerry-rigging a sub thru it .. morr than good enough. Now about 2 take delivery of audiophile Pioneer CT-91a cassette deck .. that my gtr buddy demoed back then .. seems the Universe sees fit 2 grant me such nice kit! Can't w8 2 hook it up. (The Systemdek sounds better thru my Kenwood Trio TK-250u amp .. the CD thru the A-400). That A-400 was marketed 2 u discerning Brits as a no-nonsense amp .. not even any tone controls .. entry-level audiophile amp .. i treasure it!

I’ve never a more weird piece of testing track. Absolutely bonkers choice. BUT a nice review nonetheless.

Which amp power is enough to drive them?

I was actually shocked at the "depth" difference between them - I've got tinnitus in one ear so it's often difficult for me to hear much difference between speakers anymore at this high end, but the Spendors were WAY way more "airy" and room filling to my ears. I personally much prefere that sound as it makes the speakers disappear and you also get a more realistic sense of environment in the recording (or at least perceptively you do). Good review that, cheers!

Sl600👍

Thanks for sharing.

These A's are just lovely indeed, and Kate's voice was incredable. They are better for sure.

The DAC1 uses the Benchmark UltraLock re-clocking system to help eliminate jitter. This circuit is based on the Analog Device AD1896 Stereo Asynchronous Sample-rate Converter (SRC) chip. Rather than using a PLL circuit to recover the sample rate from the incoming digital stream the signal is over-sampled. The SRC chip has a master clock of 28.388MHz and this is divided down (by 256) to generate a fix sample rate of 110.6kHz. This is passed to an Analog Device AD1853 Stereo, 24-Bit, Sigma-delta DAC. In theory the audio performance should be the same regardless of the sample-rate of the incoming digital stream (because of the inherent over-sampling). However, it is still beneficial to stream Hi-Res 24-bit files.

The Benchmark DAC1 and DAC1 USB accepts PCM format digital signal inputs up to 24-bits. At a sample rate of 192kHz Coax (RCA) or AES (XLR) inputs and 96kHz for the optical or USB. You just need to ensure that the stream is PCM.

Excellent side-by-side review. Enjoyed it very much.

Great review - thankyou.

Until 2 minutes in I was interested, but then came the listening and that is just a silly concept in this setting! Sure it may be the recording of two different set of speakers sound different, but the sound just has so far to go from the speakers covered till it hit my ears it is never going to a useful representation. And pretending otherwise is just misleading people.

Love your channel and your reviews. What is the part number for the Seas tweeters you have used in your SP2/3e speakers?

LS3/5A Win!

thanks for this video. I wanted to ask you you if you have a preference with BBC style speakers for stands which are open to the bottom of the loudspeaker Vs stands with a solid top plate? Thank you.

I want to try one of the DLs. Which one should I be looking for? The 4's? 6's? 8's? Which has the best midrange?

The Emit 20 is more lively, engaging and spacious sounding but lacks a bit of bass thump. The Evoke 20 is smooth and detailed yet well controlled and cohesive with its sound presentation. Good bass quality as well. It all probably depend on our personal taste in music and amplifier pairings. I couldn’t care less about the Contour and the Confidence. I think they look ugly and hideous respectively.

I think most of the speakers that you have borrowed and got togheter, have been either repaired, or with components changed ( dried capacitors?) , ALL of the LS35A, if in perfect working condition, should ALL sound the same regardless of manufacturer, just as long as they are both the same impedance ) ! As they are all made to the same specs, and have not been left out of the factory before they are tweaked to perfection , if you put a Rogers 15 ohm , with a Goodmans 15 ohm , they should sound EXACTLY the same 😉 !

I owned both of these speakers and I traded in my Celestion’s for the Proac Studio 100’s I much preferred the Proac’s.

I own a lovely late 80's pair of Celestion SL6si bookshelves. Mine do not have the copper tweeters which I heard are the major reason many people didn't like the SL600 from the get go. Also that the SL600 needed tons of power to just wake up their sound. I really love my SL6si's they are a lovely speaker, especially running with a hybrid tube preamp-class A/B amp. It's a really noticeable sound that I enjoy.

Sounds wonderful.

I own Celestion SL6si 1987 bookshelves and really enjoy them. There seem to be many iterations of similar sized Celestion two ways from the late 1980's, and I am not sure why so many and what any differences may be.

Hi, I am a huge Celestion fan as of late. I started with the DL4, then went to the Celestion 7mkii which I thought sounded exactly the same but with a smidge of bass that I felt was needed. Now I have some celestion 9s. The 9s sound completely different than the 7s. The receiver I'm using is the HK330b BTW. The 9s are smoother with a recessed top end compared to the 7s. However, the 9s never sounded shouty to me. The 9s also seemed to have better instrument separation. The 7s sounded very in your face in the best possible way. With the 7s I had to lower the treble on my receiver slightly. When I did they sounded great. Very revealing and powerful. However they are slightly grainy than compared to the 9s. With the 9s, I have to turn the treble back to flat. Then, I am picking true details in the music. Both speakers are 8 out of 10 but for different reasons. The 9s are objectively better but the 7s might be more enjoyable because they have such an effortless open sound. I enjoy the 9s because I constantly hear more nuances in the music. I enjoy the 7s because they get me into the groove. As of right now, I wouldn't part with either.

Semplicemente perfetto! E magico!

I using A-400 with Mission760

harbeth , sounds real

I've had a pair of these for years and would agree that they are on the polite / smooth side. But i wouldn't describe mine has ever harsh sounding. Maybe my crossover has seen better days, that's why I'm dreading the day that something fails in there. Mine are perfect for long listening and by far the easiest speakers I've had to live with

Great video. I have a pair of Q7 and really like them. What gear are you running them with.?

I had the sl6s for a while back in 88. I think the sl6 especially the first two versions excelled in the subtle delivery of their mid range. They kept everything controlled and that was their speciality. The aerolam or metal cabinet only really came into its own probably with the 700 & more so with its separate bass sub woofer. But really this was a different speaker by that time.

that's not a guitar speaker

i think the NAD 3020 is a lot more powerful than one would think, happily running B&W 120 watt speakers off one of these! the NAD has an excellent phono/ preamp section. Treble is slightly rolled off compared to modern amp (Rega Brio) so is good with older albums which sometimes can sound very bright .

Celestion, wow. One of the first speakers I ever heard at the first "real" audio shop I visited back in the 90s.

Found a pair of Celestion 11 on the trash the other day! Woofers are completely fine, twetters were both dented, left one badly so, completely pushed in. They made sound, but not a pleasant one. I've been able to push them out and get them fairly smooth by pushing with the end of a small rounded metal rod against a spoon. Not perfect, but sounds much, much better. The right tweeter wasnt as badly pusehd in, but it has a small tear. I think i'll replace them both with ebay diaphgrams, doesn't look too difficult. BTW, what an excellent pair of speakers, I'm testing them with a Yamaha CX-1/MX-1 combo, and they sound really well, maybe lacking a bit of bass, but I'm used to my Infinity Kappa 8.2i, with 12" woofers.

Great demo 👍

Would have been fun to hear your tweaked Celestion 100 in this comparison video. They sounded great in your sound test video of a few months ago.

THERE IS NOTHING CALLED A PASSIVE PRE-=AMPLIFIER. IT IS CALLED AN ATTENUATOR.

SL6se 🤟got my foot tapping !

In my country Q Acoustics are 250 euros cheaper than Emit 50 and it's just a sin not to buy them! ;)

They all sounded quite similar, but some sounded a tad more open than others. However I did think the female voice sounded very very slightly cuppy on all of them.. To be fair that could be You tube compression, the JBL monitors connected to my pc etc.. so I am probaly not hearing it as it is in your room. Regardless though really interesting comparison thank you

2-3 instruments and audiophile voice for testing - come on!

Remarkably similar sound to all 5 speakers! It's what one might expect from a great manufacturer such as Celestion, but what's most interesting (to me anyway) is the amount of refinement in even the oldest of these speakers. The journalists who wrote in all the hi - fi rags in the '80's proclaiming that these couldn't play a tune to save their lives were talking out of their backsides! Wonderful stuff! Thank you Kevin for this exposition.