Weighty sound

Need a lot of power and are not that transparent or subtle

Not a bad speaker if you like your sound per pound. Awkward to move and need a lot of positioning. Great for a party but not for intimate listening. Also very power hungry and not very wife friendly. Your not bringing those bloody things in here! You get my drift. Ah well back to pounding the pavements!

Similar Products Used:

proac 2.5

Clean, sweet-sounding, musical, the harder you push the more they will perform and impress.

needs power and lots of it

I took my time before purchasing a new set of speakers and you have to look hard to find these. I had heard 10-15 sets of different speakers in this price range and above. I looked at everything from Polk Audio (1200.00 each) to Martin Logan prodigy (10,000 / pr) . Celestion A3's were the best speakers and presented the best value. These speakers never cease to amaze me. They eat Jazz vocalist and jazz instruments up. If you iike precise sounding speakers, these are it period. I power them with a Parasound HCA3500 (350x2) Biwired power amp and I love these speakers. Ive gone back into my archive of music and heard tracks that were ok before sound great. My sound room woke up with the combination of power and grace from these speakers. i can't say enough about them. I've heard
other speakers since and these are still the best.

I'm known for making smart purchases, but these are my crowning achievement.

If curious, my system is as follows:
Parasound 2200at 5 channel 220x5 (Side,center,rear)
Parasound 3500 350x2 (Front speakers)
Denon 5000 dvd player
Sunfire Theater Grand preamp processor

Celestion a3's DIpole sides, a4 center, a6 Sub, F1 rear.
conected by MIT T2 cables and wire.

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Infinity Overture, Infinity Kappa, Bose 901,

The Celestion A3 was the best sounding speaker anywhere near my price range. I auditioned PSB, Theil, NHT, Ariel, Audio Pysic, Infinity and Von Schwiekert speakers and selected the A3s because they image well, provide great dynamic slam (with effortless bass response) and provide a natural, grainless easy sound that I can listen to at any volume level. I spend hours listening and never feel fatigued or irritated by the sound. On small combo jazz or vocals they provide a wonderfully intimate and revealing listening window; on electic blues or heavy metal they will belt it out and give you that "live" feeling. You can feel the bass, not just hear artifacts of it. The A3's are also a pleasure to look at, I'm proud to show them off in my home. Highly recommended!

I purchased a set of A3s in april of 98 after benchmarking them against virtually every speaker in the same price range and found them to be outstanding in all aspects but one.I found that they require more power than I could provide with my adcom 5500 in order to get them to perform as I expected.I have since went with a new adcom 5802 and they are now doing what they are supposed to do.However several weeks ago The mid driver in the left speaker Quit working entirely and upon taking them in for warranty repair I was told a minimum of 5 weeks to have them repaired wich leaves me to wonder why a current product such as the A3 would take so long to get parts for?are other people having the same problems?I would also add that I do not play my music at very high volume levels so I know for certain that the damage is not related to clipping or abuse,once they are returned to me I will update this review as for now the qaulity of these speakers are in serious question.

These are beautifully crafted speakers that do about everything right:
I listen to them with grills off. Keeping the grills on seems to distort/muffle the music somehow.

Detailed without being overly bright. Create a wide and deep soundstage.
Bass reproduction is tight and fast. They can go real low without getting boomy or sloppy. I honestly think they can outgun most 12-inch sub that I have heard so far.

From rock to jazz to classical, they can rock real loud or whispher softly.
Solidly built and heavy weight at 100 lbs each.

The nice rose finishing is flawless - simply beautiful and pleasing to look at :)

I have these for almost a year now, and haven't got any problems with them like the earlier poster.

A very happy owner here.

Definitely 5 stars.

Other eqpt: Krell 300i, Rega Planet , DH-Lab cables.

I bought these speakers about 1 year ago and have ben nothing but imprested.they have verry nutral sound that is hard to find at this price range.
I am driving them with 2 se-40s and one se-100 with plenty of power for the
highest dinamics.As manny of you know golden tube amps have ex. sound
quality but are verry week in the power department.So I must rate their
real world eff. as ex. Sound stage is outstanding for the money.

where's the bass, for $3,499 you would think it would be a full range speaker, even with it's 3 x 8" woofer and 2 ports this speaker is lacking in lower bass, I just don't mean 20hz, there is not much there at 40hz, very nice high and mids. And this is also suppose to be a HT speaker, it will never do.

awesome build quality, very clean mid and highs, warmth
the weight

the weight
bottom end (20 hz)

Another awesome product from celestion. Would be better categorized as a music speaker instead of for home-theatre. The upper and mid range in these speakers is second to none, almost up to par with the HF 2000 tweeters in the ditton 66's. Overall a very good speaker, just need a bit more oomph in the very bottom end.

I mentioned the weight in both the pro's and con's category. A bonus for build quality and cabinet neutrality, a minus for those who can't sit still. If you're like me (the component tweaker from hell), these speakers will give you a good workout.

Similar Products Used:

celestion ditton 66's
Paradigm monitor 9's and 11's
Energy Verisat v2.8

Smooth highs, defined bass, raw output capability, slick cabinetry

Large and heavy

Listened to many others: NHT 3.3 sounded good, extreme cabinet depth made placement problematic. Vandersteen and Thiel seemed to dry and analytic for rock'n'roll given ten grand cost. Rejected several $1500 and up 'audiophile' speakers since 6.5" woofers had no hope of producing the impact required.

No local dealer so couldn't listen to the Celestions. Based on comparing reviews of the Celestions and speakers I did manage to hear, they seemed like the ticket. Bought a set of 'B stock' from Audio Advisor. Arrived with minor cabinet dings in inconspicuous places, what I expected from talking to the sales rep. Price was right....

They're huge, over 100 lbs. Given the rest of the stuff in the room, there was no remotely easy way to get them in place with the carpet spikes on - would have had to set them in place vertically with access only from 1 side. A project for another day...

Sound review has come caveats:
- Got maybe 100 hrs. on 'em and may not be fully broken in yet.
- 'Real world' concerns like furniture and doors severely limited placement options. Placement is clearly non-optimal.
- Room has two walls of windows, lots of large framed art under glass, ceiling that slopes left to right. Previous speakers have had severe standing wave problems at some locations, and imaging has never been the greatest due to sidewall reflections.
- Spikes are not installed (yet).
- Power is by a Pioneer Elite home theater receiver with 120x5 wpc. Sources are Pioneer Elite cd changer, Hitachi DVD player, both with TosLink interconnects.

Treble is best described as 'smooth'. Crossover points are totally indetectable as pitch changes. No audible sizzle or other distortion, lots more detail than my previous rig. Vocals and midrange percussion (woodblock, etc.) are both clear and full-bodied. Most telling is the absence of listening fatigue. I can play these louder and longer than anything else I've had the pleasure of listening to at length and I'm ready for more. Even with speakers from the hi end of 'mid-fi', like Advent Heritage or JBL L-100s with Vifa tweeters, my ears eventually tell me it's time to turn it down, but not with these.

While receiver is fairly high end, it's got solid state amps that can't be of the ultimate quality due to the includion of 5 of them and the fact that a considerable percentage of the receiver's cost went into all the goofy DSP capabilities. I expected a tiny bit of the high frequency harshness associated with gear like this, but my ears can't find it. Sure seems like Celestion designed these with solid state equipment in mind, so using tube amps to 'mellow out' the sound of these speakers may be to much of a good thing. If there's any fault to the high end, it might be a bit to much of the British reserve, particulary in the 'presence region' of the midrange. I'm accustomed to a bit more 'bite' in my rock, but it's likely that my ears have been trained by cheaper gear. These sure sound a lot more real.

Bottom end is tight and detailed, even on stuff like Sublime that's got a pretty 'thumpy' recording quality. Feed 'em a signal with a whole lot of bass, like most any reggae, and they'll pound out enough bottom end that resonances turn stuff like metal file cabinets into crummy 1-note musical instruments. Gotta move that thing....

Anything by Morphine is a good bottom end test. When their late (drug o.d.) bassist starts pounding out the chords you can actually pick out the individual notes instead of getting the blat and thump that mid-fi gear turns this into. Likewise when the late (drug o.d.) bassist for Blues Traveler launches into the solo on 'Crash Burn', you can hear the subtleties of his fingers moving on the round-wound strings.

I was in some garbage bands in my youth, and still have an all-tube Fender amp along with a guitar and bass. For rock'n'roll purposes, that's what I want the bottom end to sound like. After decades spent listening to all kinds of gear, and regardless of their other limitations, I've felt that my ancient JBL L-100s ('60s studio monitors with 12" woofers) came closest to duplicating the texture and weight of a Fender bass played thru a Fender or Marshall tube amp. After many hours of 100 db contemplation, and keeping in mind differences in speaker placement, the A3s match them in detail with even more low end extension.

Impact on percussion can vibrate your guts, yet has incredible detail. You can easily tell when the drummer rolls across different tom-toms in his kit, even when it's way back in the mix. For those of you into Vou-Dou, it's easy to tell the congas from the djembes on the Boukman Eksperians disks, although I had to see them live from 10' away to know what a djembe is supposed to sound like (just don't ask what (who?) the skin is made of). On the A3s these wood-bodied drums sound round and full, like a real drum rather than something mechanical. It's immediately obvious when the drummer has a double bass in his kit, and I can sometimes tell who's faked it via sequencers. Occasionally I think I can tell who's using Zildjian cymbals instead of lesser brands, but this might be wishful thinking....

Sheer output capability is incredible, and might be the only reason to go for the A3s rather than one of the smaller Celestions. When pounding somewhere near 100 wpc into them, there's no sign of strain at all - it's just as clear and clean as at low volume yet really, really loud. If you're trying to replicate The Who's 'Live at Leeds' in your living room, after a couple cuts the volume and impact should make you feel sorta stunned. These'll do it.

This is where the 100 lb. weight and incredibly solid construction pay off - play them loud enough to shake everything that ain't bolted down, put your hand on the A3s and feel.... nothing. Remarkable.

Using A3s alone, imaging seems fine. Instruments are distinctly placed across the soundstage, vocals are nailed to the center, and it's tough to tell where the speakers are with your eyes closed. Take this with a grain of salt, since I'm more into envelopment then soundstaging. Instead of having the music sound like it's coming from a stage in front of you, I'd rather have it surround me as if I were on the stage among the performers. I actually like using the home theatre receiver for music since it's designed for envelopment and lets me run speakers near all the corners without worrying about impedance problems. Now if they'd only mix music as discrete 5 channel....

For home theatre use, there's some definition to the dinosaur footsteps and stuff along with enough subsonics to structurely endanger the room. Yea, some subwoofers may do better, but for less than $1000 I haven't seen it. For music, it's gonna take an extremely well matched, high end sub to avoid detracting from what the A3s do by themselves.

Overall, a superb rock'n'roll speaker. I actually like them better than some of the $10K speakers that, while they may be outstanding under other circumstances, simply didn't have the balls high volume rock demands. If you have a smaller room or neighbors that call the cops on you, and therefore don't regularly use a 600 watt receiver at half power, the smaller A2 or A1 are definitely worth checking out.

Current system has A3s in front, JBL L-100s with Vifa tweeters in the rear, and an NHT AudioCenter 1 as center channel. Bliss.....

Similar Products Used:

Advent Heritage, modified JBL L-100, CSW New Ensemble, lots of mid-fi gear

Pure sound, reality, Natural reactions, beauty looking

heavy weight for moving

I am using belows;
- Power Amp : MBL 8011
- Pre Amp : MBL 5010CM
- CDP : Myryad MC-100

For excellent driving Celestion A3, You must use powerful Amplifier.
First time using A3, I used low power intergrated amplifier.
In that time I felt lack bass. and I changed AMP by advicing celestion local dealer.
In this time, I am satisfied for all.
Powerful AMP will take you enough bass even in low volume.
Celestion A3 is masterpiece speaker.
If you don't like booming bass, I really recommand A3.
You will feel live concert music in you room.

Similar Products Used:

JBL, Tannoy