Digital profiling and tone emulation technology is more popular than ever, and guitarists who use it require a speaker with a full-range, flat and accurate frequency response. General-purpose pro audio speakers are specifically built to deliver a very neutral response, which is ideal when it comes to sound reinforcement. However they can be somewhat clinical sounding, lacking the organic character and feel that is the hallmark of a great guitar speaker.
Conversely, traditional guitar speakers deliver the desired feel and musicality of the playing experience. But this comes at the cost of accuracy because they are purpose-built to generate tonal coloration through harmonic resonances: which can undermine the work the profiling/modeling rig is already doing. Celestion’s F12-X200 brings together the best attributes of both worlds into what Celestion like to call Full Range Live Response.
The F12-X200 is a coaxial speaker that delivers a frequency response from 60Hz all the way up to 20kHz. The higher frequency part of the signal is reproduced using a Celestion compression driver that has been integrated using a high quality crossover circuit, enabling the F12-X200 to reproduce the full spectrum of audible frequencies, for the most accurate output possible, whatever the playing environment or set-up.
Designed to produce a neutral output, the lighter moving mass and straighter sided cone — of a type commonly used with guitar speakers — still gives the F12-X200 the feel and live response of a traditional guitar speaker.
The F12-X200 works like any guitar speaker upgrade; it’s designed to be “plug and play” so that users can drop it into any regular open or closed back guitar speaker cabinet and be ready to go. Together with amp and profiling hardware a player will get all the tone that they have programmed with little or no additional coloration that would come from a traditional guitar speaker.
For those who would like to go a step further and squeeze every ounce of performance form the speaker, Celestion now offers a custom cabinet design. Specifying 18mm birch plywood for optimum sound quality and ruggedness, the DIY cabinet is also vented to further extend the bass, extracting maximum performance from the speaker’s full range capability.
While it wouldn’t generally be recommended to use a traditional guitar speaker with a vented cabinet which could risk low frequency over-excursion and damage to the speaker’s cone, the F12-X200’s pro audio parentage means there’s no risk of over-excursion at the lowest end of the frequency range.
The F12-X200 DIY Cabinet Design is available on Celestion's website, together with other cabinet reference designs.
www.celestion.com
