Celestion Ditton 110 crossover re cap

I opted to re cap the Celestion Ditton 110's with Solen metal polyester caps, out with the old electrolytic 10% caps and in the 5% caps. Now they have opened up.

I have had a chance to let these caps burn in and now these speakers have really started to shine. The sound has really opened up in the mid range and high end. The imaging is spot on. Listening to Norah Jones, Come Away With Me and Norah might as well be in my room, that's how clear and precise these speakers turned out.

Current Bliss

NAD Model 30, Braun L1030, Braun L830, Dual CL390, Visonik Euro 7, Braun L830's.

Never will I see a collection like this again, so it must be documented.

Braun L830

Along side of the current Braun L1030's I have had the pleasure of working on and auditioning, these Braun L830's came back with more work to be done. Yet another Deiter Rams design speaker, this version images across the mid range and treble region as well as the L1030 but the bass is not as full due to the cabinet size.

A full re cap with two Solen 47uf, 20uf, 5.1uf and a 4.3uf caps were upgraded, no cheap feat but worth every cent.

These speakers are singing along side the L1030's and with all four speakers being driven by my Myryad amp it is pure HiFi bliss, this audiophile has never heard sound this good except for once when I heard a massive Infinity system with ribbon tweeters ($10,000+) at A&B Sound as a young teenager.

Braun L1030 Speakers

I have had the pleasure in re capping a pair of Deiter Rams Braun L1030 speakers along side of a pair of L830's, probably two of the best vintage audio speakers available in terms of sound and styling.

The Braun L1030's are simply a beautiful speaker with deep tight bass, clear as a bell mid range and spot on sparkling highs.The cabinets are an absolute gorgeous walnut veneer with curved edges. The stereo imaging that comes out of these boxes needs to be experienced first hand, words alone can not describe the sound.

The crossover was re capped using Solen caps including a massive 47uf cap, 10uf cap, 5.1uf cap and a 3.3uf cap, by no means are these caps inexpensive.

Is it worth the investment into this speaker? 100% it is. I would pretty much stop at this speaker if it was a permanent part of my collection, I would be hard pressed to find a better sounding and visually appealing speaker than this model. The Solen caps open up the speaker to new heights with clarity and transparency, it really is amazing.

These speakers are scheduled to be picked up soon and I will cherish every moment that I have with them....

Braun L830 crossover upgrade

I spent the better part of 4 hours recapping two pairs of Braun L830 speakers with a swap of woofers thrown into the mix.

The white pair of Braun's got a full compliment of Solen polypropylene 5% caps and the better aesthetics woofer while the veneer speakers got the other woofers and full compliment of Solen metalized polyester 5% caps.

Let's see what I am dealing with..

 Patients on the operating table....

 Before the re cap..

 After the re cap, those 47uf caps barely fit.

Second white Braun....

The veneer Braun's before they go back together.

Both pair of speakers are now burning in the caps at low volume.

Hanging out in a good crowd, EPI 100V's that just got a make over and the Tannoy Oxford Gold that got a cap upgrade.



Never has the collection been so deep, diverse and exciting.

Tannoy Oxford Gold

Along the lines of the yesterdays British invasion was a pair of well regarded Tannoy Oxford Gold speakers.

This is the second pair of Tannoy's that I have owned and the first real pair of English real pair, as opposed to this Tannoy/API C-6 version that must have been made under license for the Canadian market.

Tannoy is famous for their dual concentric driver units and the Tannoy Stratford, Cambridge and Oxford were the first units to see the separation of the LF and HF units.

The Oxford speaker, according to many sources on the web were used as studio monitors across England and perhaps elsewhere.

I have already installed a new 2.2uf Solen 5% cap in the crossover of which it looks like the woofer is crossed over on a first order basis with the tweeter second order as there are two inductors and only one capacitor.

The cabinets are a little beat and will need some love when time permits. Also the foam grills were not to be found which indicates that they probably disintegrated over time.

So how do they sound? well at 93db efficiency and the amount of workmanship that went into these speakers they do sound pretty damn nice. Bass is solid with 10 inch ported woofer, mid range is present and forward and the highs spot on. Once again this is a speaker that puts you in with the musicians as they paly the music.

The original brochure can be found on this link.

Celestion Ditton 110 speakers

This little pair of English speakers came home yesterday, a pair of Celestion Ditton 110 speakers.

A very nice sounding well balanced and neutral pair of bookshelf speakers, typical British sound that is very polite, with nice imaging.

One dome was slightly dents in and a quick shot with the vacuum cleaner popped the dome back out to the best it will get.

These speakers are not as exciting or in your face like Mission speakers that reside with me but more along the lines of the few pairs of B&W speakers that I have had.