Celestion Ditton 15 XR Speakers

[Ray P]

The first proper 'hifi' speakers I bought (from Comet, circa 1980) were Celestion Ditton 15 XRs. By a strange coincidence, I've been given a pair of them by a neighbour who is having a declutter, so some nostalgia has kicked in. They're in remarkably good condition cosmetically but are missing tweeters.

This morning I quickly hooked them up in the kitchen to see if any sound emanated from the boxes and they don't sound too bad considering - there's nothing much wrong with them that a pair of tweeters and some TLC won't sort out.

I did a little research online and found a YouTube video of a guy who had restored a pair using some tweeters he sourced from AliExpress that he considered sounded good, so I'll order a pair of them (cost about £40 for the pair, delivered). I think the only other expense will be replacement crossover caps, otherwise I think they just need a good clean, light rub down with some fine wire wool and some renovation wax to bring the veneer back to life.

Not sure what I'll actually do with them yet, perhaps an upgrade to my niece's Morduant Short bookshelf units.

[Ray P]

I've stripped the speakers down to start with a good clean.

The drive units were a devil to remove as the gasket material had transformed itself into a glue like substance. They're out now though and I've managed to scrape the gunge off.

Mildly impressed with the cabinets; the carcass is made of chipboard but internally there's an additional layer of MDF-type material and even some bracing.

The Chinese tweeters are on order.

[Ray P]

I've confirmed that the 8in bass drivers are original and they're in good shape, the only anomaly being that the original black doped finish has faded to the brown you can see in the image I posted previously.

The passive bass radiators are also OK, other than some brown gunge on the metal surrounds, which is discoloured glue from the rubber surrounds and just a cosmetic thing.

[Ray P]

Very simple crossover. I've got some modern 4.7uF film caps in my spares box so I'll replace the old ones.

[Morgan Jones]

I looked them up, wondering if the tweeters were Celection HF1300 and had been stolen for BC1s, but no, the tweeter was something else. As were the descriptions of the loudspeakers on Fleabay. Never read such claptrap in my life. I'm guessing that Fleabay sellers use AI to write the descriptions. Still, it makes it easy to distinguish between them and genuine sellers who know what they're selling.

[Ray P]

Thanks Morgan. IIRC from my research the tweeters were HF1000 units. They seem prone to failure and I couldn't find any used, so alternative replacements seems the way to go.

The sound on the Youtube video with the refurbishment featuring the Chinese tweeters sounded reasonably balanced so simply buying a pair seems like a low-risk, reasonable value punt - I really don't want this project to become a money sink. here's a link to that video - note the guy has used replacement passive bass units too.