SPECIFICATIONS

Enclosure type: two-way sealed cabinet

Frequency range: 75-20,000Hz

Drive units: 130mm bass/midrange, 25mm tweeter

Sensitivity: 86dB SPL at I metre for 1 Watt

Power handling: 60 Watts programme

Nominal impedance: 8 Ohms

Dimensions (I-I X Wx 13): 310x 185x 215mm

Weight: 4kg

Manufacturer: Celestion International Ltd., Foxhall Road, Ipswich, Suffolk IP3 8JP

UK retail price: 09 per pair in simulated black ash or walnut T HIS brand new loudspeaker was I first shown at the recent Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show and had its UK debut at the Bristol Show in January (see "New Products" in March and the Bristol Show report in April). At a retail price of just under £100 it takes on a host of rivals in this highly competitive price region. That it offers something altogether special is apparent from the first few moments' listening—as I implied in the show report—but of course it is not until one hears a product at home in a familiar, tried and trusted environment that a reliable assessment is possible.

The diminutive Celestion 3, like the similarly new DL12 Series II, is the work of a talented young designer at

Celestion, Martin Roberts, who was given the unenviable brief of producing a substantially new design whilst keeping to a very tight budget. These constraints meant a reappraisal of where best to spend the money and the upshot was to keep to a simple, conventional vinyl-covered particle board enclosure, to eschew fancy gold-plated connectors and the currently fashionable trend to use four terminals for optional bi-wiring or biamplification configurations, and to spend money instead on developing a brand new bass/midrange driver to complement a variant of the titanium dome tweeter which had been developed for the new DL range.

This new bass/midrange driver uses an extremely elegant polycarbo nate moulding which forms the front baffle mounting plate and the rear basket (including the magnet and terminal mounts) in one piece. A 130mm (five inch) felted fibre (paper) cone is used with a convex rubberised dust cap. This is terminated by a convex rubber roll surround at its edge and a corrugated fabric 'spider' inside, in front of the voice coil. The 25mm (one inch) tweeter is similarly attached to a polycarbonate baffle plate which matches that of the bass/ midrange driver. The dome itself is guarded by three curved integral polycarbonate bars, although it remains fairly exposed in the interests of sonic purity and could be damaged irreparably by any small probe such as a Biro point or a child's wayward finger (perhaps I should say wayward child's finger); the instructions do, however, warn against this. Both drivers use substantial ceramic magnets and the crossover is a simple four-element affair (first order lowpass, second order high-pass, based on 5kHz), its two chokes (one aircored the other iron dust-cored), capacitor and resistor being epoxyfixed to the back of the inset plastics terminal board on the rear panel and the connections hard-wired. The external terminals take bare wire ends, spade terminals or 4mm plugs.

The sealed (infinite baffle) enclosure is made of relatively thin, 12mm, particle board (18mm is common), the inevitable flexing of its walls being taken into account in the design; Celestion's laser interferometry system (as documented in "Meet the Manufacturer" in November 1988) has helped tailor this to best effect, of course, although with such small panels the movement is in any case fairly well controlled. No internal bracing is used but the enclosure is about half filled with BAF (Bonded Acetate Fibre) wadding. The top, bottom and two sides wrap around fractionally inset front and rear panels and the perimeter of the front is gently mitred to relieve the otherwise plain box profile. Most of the front panel is taken up, and reinforced, by the drivers' 4mm-thick baffle plates, a small free area at the bottom being occupied by a quite subtle plastics badge. This badge is repeated on the grille cover which is a stretched open-weave fabric on a skeletal plastics frame. Four flat lugs on this fit into rubber slots at the top and bottom of the front panel, this giving a much neater visual effect when the grill is left off than do the usual empty retaining lug sockets.

How it performed

The Celestion 3 is intended for bookshelf or stand mounting near the rear wall, the corresponding bass enhancement of this placement intended to complement the inherently limited LF extension ( — 3dB at 75Hz) of this sealed 8 litre cabinet. Stand mounting is preferred and high quality 610mm (24 inches) high stands are obtainable from Celestion (model LS24). The sensitivity is quite good (86dB for 1 Watt at 1 metre) and the nominal impedance of around 8 Ohms presents an easy load. Amplifiers rated at between 10 and 60

Watts into this impedance are suitable.

The usual pink noise test revealed an even lateral dispersion with a progressive but very smooth HF roll-off with movement away from the main axis. The vertical plane was also remarkably smooth although the best balance was achieved, as expected, with the tweeter at about ear level.

Sonically, the Celestion 3 is something of a revelation at the price and it performs extremely well either close to the wall or, as I always prefer, some way out into the room. The corresponding penalty of a sacrifice in bass extension is to my mind more than outweighed by the opennness and almost tangible three-dimensional image which is then created; it has a quite uncanny ability in this respect. Small boxes tend to give good imaging anyway but the Celestion 3 is remarkable, with effortless presentation of subtle detail and precious little sibilant edge to mar the effect. Voices, both speaking (BBC Radio 4 broadcasts) and singing (e.g. the Josquin Missa La sal fa re miGimell CDGIM 009, 3/87) are very true to life, some slight emphasis at around 260Hz notwithstanding, and while orchestral music is inevitably compromised by the LF roll-off, what there is is so well controlled that in practice the absence of any real 'weight' is readily accepted.

The Celestion 3 is a remarkably coherent loudspeaker and sets a level of performance which I, certainly, have not previously experienced at this price level. Unobtrusive, selfeffacing and unfussy, it will surely provoke some worried head scratching amongst the opposition.

IVOR HUMPHREYS.