Demystifying Celestion Guitar Speakers
Greetings internet! This is a transcription of a video I did on youtube back in December 2020. I've learnt more about guitar speakers since then so I have more to say and some other tweaks in how I view things but broadly speaking I think it's quite a useful document if you want to understand Celestion's 12" guitar speaker range. Some models have been discontinued since then and there's some new models around too.
Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeLUe11C-ac
Alex from Barefaced Audio speaks:
Hello internet. It's me, Alex from Barefaced, and here I am to educate you about Celestion guitar speakers and try to demystify what, on first impression, is a massive, complicated, and confusing thing.
Guitar speakers are inherently non-linear devices. They don’t behave like most other speakers used in the modern world. If you try to make them behave like most modern speakers, they don’t sound like guitar speakers anymore. The electric guitar needs the colourations caused by the inherent non-linearities of guitar speakers.
A Bit of a History Lesson – Alnico Origins
So, here’s a bit of a history lesson. The Celestion Blue Alnico was essentially the first guitar speaker that Celestion were making, and it's based on a speaker from a radiogram—or a radio, or something like that. So it’s an old 1950s speaker design.
Now, it's got a very light cone, it’s got a very light voice coil. It’s very honest under very small signals. But as soon as you put more power into it, that light cone flexes, and that small voice coil goes beyond its sort of linear motion. And it creates very distinct coloration—very distinct character.
The other thing that happens with Alnico magnets is: Alnico is not a very stiff magnetic material. When you make a permanent magnet, some magnetic materials create a very rigid magnetic field, and some create a much softer magnetic field. Alnico creates quite a soft magnetic field.
So, when a voice coil has current running through it and creates its own electromagnet, that electromagnet pushes back against the magnetism of the Alnico magnet—and the Alnico magnet actually weakens when it's being pushed. What that means is you get a subtle compression effect which rounds off and smooths the edges. It’s that quality, caused by Alnico magnets, that makes Alnico drivers sound very nice on guitar. It softens things up, sweetens things up. It’s a great sound for a lot of guitarists.
The downside is that Alnico is a much more expensive magnetic material than the ferrite ceramic magnets used in most speakers. There are also neodymium magnets—also expensive—and they’re actually a stiffer, stronger magnet than ceramic. So, the Alnico is kind of a friendly, guitar-sounding magnet.
The Alnico Family – Blue, Ruby, Gold, Cream
If we look at the Alnico range, we have four Celestion Alnico 12s: the Blue, the Ruby, the Gold, and the Cream.
What happens as we go between those is simply that the cone gets stiffer. So the cone flexes less under greater load, and the cone’s power handling goes up. When I say "cone’s power handling," it’s really the voice coil’s power handling—it’s the thermal power handling. But Celestion are stiffening the cone to withstand the greater dynamic load on it.
So basically:
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A Ruby will take more power to break up than a Blue,
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A Gold takes more than a Ruby,
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A Cream takes more than a Gold.
You can essentially scale what you need based on how loud you want to play and what amp you’re using.
As you increase the speaker’s power handling, you're also tending to increase the bottom end a bit—because you're making the cone heavier. But that also means you're losing some treble detail and midrange accuracy and precision. So, the Cream isn’t as detailed as the Blue—it’s a smoother, fatter-sounding speaker.
But if you put 90 watts into a Blue like a Cream can handle, you’d toast it. Even pushing much more than 15 watts into a Blue and it’ll start breaking up more—it’ll go beyond that sweet spot of dirtiness that guitarists crave. Beyond that point, it just turns into horrible, pointless mushiness.
There’s a sort of optimum amount of dirt we want from a guitar speaker. Guitarists might add dirt from fuzz pedals, distortion, breaking up valve amps, and then the speaker adds its own breakup. But there’s a point where it just becomes mush.
So that’s the Alnico posse. They’re all very expensive drivers—no way around it. Alnico is pricey. It’s not used much outside of high-end esoteric guitar speakers and maybe some heritage hi-fi. But the deficiencies of an Alnico magnet actually sound good in a guitar speaker. These are basically 1950s-ish sounding speakers.
The British Rock Side – Greenbacks and Beyond
Now, over here we have the G12M Heritage—a Greenback. That’s really the original Celestion rock speaker. That’s the sound of the early ‘60s—the classic British sound.
Now, I wouldn’t really characterise the Alnico speakers as the British sound—they’re more the Vox sound. But they’re not the Marshall sound, which I think more people associate with the term “British tone.”
To explain why we use the Vintage 30 as the default speaker in our Barefaced AVD 12" range: the Vintage 30 was Celestion trying to develop a ceramic speaker that behaved like their Alnico range. It sort of sits somewhere around the Gold—loud, clear, not quite as detailed as the Blue.
Think of the Vintage 30 as a ceramic Celestion Gold. It’s a very loud speaker—100dB sensitivity. That means when you put electricity into it, it gives you more output than a speaker with a smaller magnet. It’s got good power handling (60W), and a lot of clarity.
Some people complain that the Vintage 30 can be harsh in the highs. That’s because it has the frequency response of the Alnico drivers—lots of highs, lots of mids, lots of lows—no big gaps. But it doesn’t have the Alnico magnet’s softening effect, so it doesn’t sound as sweet.
The upside is it cuts through a mix very well, and it can take a lot of different sounds. You can throw loads of effects at it and still hear what’s going on. It’s loud, versatile, and affordable—especially important when you’re building 2x12s.
The Greenback Family – M vs. H
So, these are the 60s-sounding British speakers:
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G12M Heritage,
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G12M Greenback,
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Creamback.
The G12M Heritage is more similar to the original; the modern G12M has slightly more sensitivity and power handling. If you want that 60s sound but don’t want to crank to Cream-era levels, this is your speaker. Great for recording, home, or small gigs.
The Creamback is basically a Greenback with more power handling. It evolved to cope with louder amps. You lose a little sensitivity, but gain robustness. Two Creambacks in a 2x12 = 130W power handling. You can throw a 100W head at it without worrying.
Then we have the Neo Creamback. Different magnet type, different geometry. Doesn’t sound identical to the ceramic Creamback—but pretty close. The joy is it weighs almost nothing. In a Reformer, Radical, or Uprising cab, that’s a featherweight rock machine.
The V-Type and the "H" Series
Now you may have noticed this little thing—the V-Type. If the Vintage 30 is a ceramic take on Alnico, the V-Type is what happens when you say:
“The Vintage 30 has too much clarity, it's too harsh and forward in the mids… but the G12Ms are a bit too mellow or muddy for what I’m doing.”
The V-Type is the halfway house—between Vintage 30 and G12M. It’s smooth but clear. A great choice if one is too much and the other not enough.
Now… this H here—what does that mean? It signifies a heavy magnet. The M is (I assume) for medium-sized magnet.
A heavier magnet increases the magnetic flux through the voice coil. That means more movement when current flows—so, more output.
But people often think “heavy = more lows.” Not true. When you increase the magnetic flux without changing anything else, you actually get less bottom end. You’re overdamping the design.
So, the G12H variants have more going on in the mids and highs. They’re fundamentally louder, but tighter in the lows—not as warm as the G12Ms, but with more output. We’re talking 96–98dB sensitivity here, compared to 100dB in the Alnico family.
They’re all still around 30W power handling. The magnet's heavier, but the power handling isn’t really higher than the Greenbacks.
The 55 and 75 in the names don’t refer to power—they refer to the resonant frequency (Fs) of the moving parts. So:
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55 Hz = chunkier, fatter sound → rhythm guitar
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75 Hz = more top end → lead guitar
The G12H-75 Creamback does refer to 75W power handling though—that’s a proper RMS rating. As you go up in power handling, you need more power to hit the speaker’s sweet spot—but it can also take more, so it works better with louder amps.
The Redback, and Scaling Up Sound
Then we’ve got the G12H-150 Redback. This is even higher in power handling. As you go from the Heritage 55 → Creamback → Redback, you’re getting a fatter, thicker, smoother sound. Heavier cone, heavier voice coil, more bottom end, less top-end sparkle.
And just like adding more speakers (1x12 → 2x12 → 4x12) gives a bigger, smoother sound, moving from 30W to 75W to 150W does something similar. Put a Redback in a 1x12 and it behaves more like a 2x12 or even a 4x12.
Combine that with Barefaced AVD design and you’ve got a serious amount of weighty, loud tone in a small cab. A 1x12 can do a lot.
If the G12M and friends are early 60s, these heavier ones are late 60s rock machines—more pushed tones, more saturation, more bottom.
The Always-Dirty Zone – 80s, 90s, and Beyond
This group here—these are the “always dirty” speakers. The '80s guitar rock speakers.
As we go through this group, power handling increases, output increases. They get smoother in the top end—because if you're putting loads of gain into the speaker, you don't want it adding more top fizz.
These are your 80s and 90s rock beasts. There’s a historical development here, a tonal evolution—moving toward more distortion, more volume, more output.
The Outliers – A-Type and Neo 250 Copperback
Finally, we have the oddballs.
The A-Type is Celestion’s American-voiced speaker. Think Fender-ish, Jensen-ish. It makes life simple—if you want that smooth, open, scooped tone, here’s your Celestion answer. Reasonable power handling (50W), decent sensitivity, and it doesn’t need tons of power to sound good.
Then there’s the Neo 250 Copperback.
Yes, it handles 250 watts. Yes, it’s 100dB sensitivity. So it’s the loudest speaker here—even louder than the Redback.
But it doesn’t really sound like a guitar speaker. It sounds more like a PA mid-bass driver. Or like the EVM12L—which is iconic because it’s so un-guitar-speaker-like.
It’s honest. Clear. Rolls off in the highs naturally (being a 12" speaker). But it won’t colour your sound—it’ll show the truth. That’s great if you want to create new sounds or play brutally heavy music. And because it’s neodymium, it weighs next to nothing.
Stick it in a Barefaced Reformer AVD 1x12, and you’ve basically got 4x12 output in a tiny cab. Metal. Grunge. Doom. You name it.
So… What Have You Tried?
Hopefully, this has made some sense. We’ve grouped Celestions by type, magnet, tone, and era. There’s logic to the madness.
So my questions to you:
Which of these have you used?
Which do you like?
Which do you use now—and why?
Have you tried any of these in a Barefaced AVD cab? I’d love to hear how they compared to a conventional cab.
I’m guessing most of you got a Vintage 30 in your AVD cab—that’s the default. But we’ve sold cabs with all of these. I don’t know if you’re watching this, but I hope you are.
Please let me know what you’ve found—what’s surprised you, what you’ve learned. And if you’ve got any speaker-related topics you’d like me to cover next, drop a comment.
Thanks for reading (or watching). I’m Alex from Barefaced, and we make cool stuff. See you soon.