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Celestion Ditton 44 Speakers - Any good?

No gimmick at all. As Robert above says, the ABR is a passive unit that moves by the pressure inside the box, it's what helps the 25 & 66 go as low as they do.
 
44's are ok but not as good as the 66's .... best buy at the moment IMHO are IMF TLS80 speakers ... you can get a good used pair off ebay for under £600 ... these are 4 way transmission design speakers

If you are after a real bargain, get a pair of old B&W DM2a speakers (the 1st version and not the series II) ...

these are 3 way handbuilt transmissions which use the same tweeters and supertweeters as the old spendor BC1 but have far better bass as they are transmissions ... (you can actually feel the bass) ...

they perform best with an amp of approx 100 watts+ @8 ohms ...paid £50 for mine off ebay ... they normally sell for under £200 ....

there were a pair a few weeks ago on ebay - mint condition - never received a bid and the starting price was £24.99
 
dim_span said:
If you are after a real bargain, get a pair of old B&W DM2a speakers (the 1st version and not the series II) ...

these are 3 way handbuilt transmissions which use the same tweeters and supertweeters as the old spendor BC1 but have far better bass as they are transmissions ... (you can actually feel the bass) ...

they perform best with an amp of approx 100 watts+ @8 ohms ...paid £50 for mine off ebay ... they normally sell for under £200 ....

there were a pair a few weeks ago on ebay - mint condition - never received a bid and the starting price was £24.99
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Agreed, now the price will start to go up!

I have four pairs of DM2a. Four DM2a's double double stacked per channel. Bass is INCREDIBLE!

P.S. DM2 is almost identical to DM2a, main difference is the "a" has switched adjustable level control of the HF1300 tweeter.
 
Radfordman said:
Agreed, now the price will start to go up!

I have four pairs of DM2a. Four DM2a's double double stacked per channel. Bass is INCREDIBLE!

P.S. DM2 is almost identical to DM2a, main difference is the "a" has switched adjustable level control of the HF1300 tweeter.
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the B&W DM2's are better than the ditton 44's IMHO but not so sure if they are better than the ditton 66's .... I will get a pair of 66's in the new year as I have the space ....

heard a pair when I was a teenager ... was connected to old krell amps ... all I can say is ... flippin heck! ... I was blown away! ... thought I was at a live concert! ... guy played a Black Sabath LP which was recorded live ... thought I was at the concert!
 
Better start saving if you want some 66s.

Latest pair to hit ePay made two grand :eek:
 
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would not wish to be a party-pooper at this ditton-fest.

however, i'm old enough to recall that they were never as good at the lower end as Tangent speakers (or of course LS-3/5's), or at the higher end as some B&W's (already spoken about in this thread) or the Acoustic Research AR-3a improved.

also, i seem to recall there were often quality problems - uneven performance across unbits, and higher-then-average faults.
 
Thread resurrection ,
I had a pair of Ditton 44s bought new from Dixons in Runcorn about 1973.I kept them until I moved abroad in the mid 80s. about a year ago I saw some for sale near me for a good price, they sound just as good as I remember.
 
Some of real budget models were good, the UL6 very good but most of that range under discussion (haven't heard 66) were bloody awful IMHO. Soft, slow, woolly and coloured. Spendor BC1's or 2's or Rogers Studio 1's or Export Monitors are in a completely different league.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Some of real budget models were good, the UL6 very good but most of that range under discussion (haven't heard 66) were bloody awful IMHO. Soft, slow, woolly and coloured. Spendor BC1's or 2's or Rogers Studio 1's or Export Monitors are in a completely different league.
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+1
I had a pair of ditton 25s (Soft, slow, woolly and coloured) moved them on very quickly, worst speaker I ever owned
Alan
 
Never heard 25s, though they seem to have two tweeters rather than a mid-band driver! The 66 are very good IMHO.
 
jonesi said:
Looking to try some speakers with bigger bass drivers, the Celestion 44s certainly look the part but are they any good? I'm also looking for something that's easy to drive and not too demanding on the amp. I don't want to spend a lot, £200ish, any recommendations?
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Dynaco a25
 
Remarkably my Mother (she is 85) has fond memories of Ditton 44s. Back in the late 1970s until early 80s she was the AV Technician at well known, out in the country, public school. As a student it got me some holiday work doing night watchman, or breakfast service to the boys.

Her domain was a rather nice theatre, terraced seating sloping down to a small stage with a projection screen and proudly out front, on proper stands, the Dittons. They certainly had space to breathe and I though they sounded great. I cannot remember anything about the rest of the kit. Nor can she. But she loved what they did.

For years she 'borrowed' spare kit from me - for a long time she had a shonky Cassette player into my old A & R A60 feeding some AR94s. She like those too, though probably never turned them up.
 
337alant said:
My Ditton 25 had the 10" bass +ABR, 2 x HF2000 and a coles tweeter Afaik

Here is a picture of mine


Ditton 25 by Alan Towell, on Flickr

Alan
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Those are the same, very early, model of 25 I picked up locally a year or two back. Sadly one of the HF2000s was blown and the HF1300s weren't functioning properly due to a crossover fault so rather than going to the bother of refurbing them I stripped and parted them out. If they'd been the later version with veneered fronts and were in better shape I'd have probably been more inclined to restore them, but I still wouldn't expect them to be in the same league as the 66 which has an excellent domed mid driver.

I've owned 44s as well, which I also ashamedly robbed for parts for my 66. The 44 is a pleasant and inoffensive speaker to listen to, but compared to the 66 it has significantly more colouration in the bass and midrange. I attribute this not only to the different driver compliment but also enclosure resonance.
 
I had 66s for a while and they were not very good at all. No deep bass and no treble impact.
 
337alant said:
My Ditton 25 had the 10" bass +ABR, 2 x HF1300 and a HF2000 tweeter Afaik

Here is a picture of mine
Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant three tweeters!

PS I’ve never heard a pair, but given they use the same bass unit as the 44 and 66 (and ABR of the 66) and both these have a proper midband driver I’d expect them to sound a bit sucked-out as they clearly have to run the bass driver up a lot higher to meet the HF1300.
 
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