I installed a Celestion speaker unit on my bass amp!!

Sound House has a large lineup of speaker units by CELESTION that is considered to be the standard brand for replacement speakers. There are glowing customer reviews for CELESTION products where customers have said, “The sound got much better just by replacing the speaker unit,” or “Just change the speaker unit before messing around with the cable, effects pedal, or parts!!!” Since a lot of comments said that they were happy with the results, I have been so curious about CELESTION speaker units for a long time.

So this time, I changed the speaker unit on my bass amp, CARVIN/MB10 (discontinued), and I am so excited to show all of you how it went!

Here are my bass amp CARVIN MB10 and my custom-ordered CARVIN SB5000 bass.

They have been sitting at home for a long time, but I managed to carry them up to our office on the 6th floor. Lol.

And, this is the speaker unit I chose, the CELESTION/BN10-200X.

The cone looks so beautiful! Lol.

Here is the magnetic part on the back. This model uses a neodymium magnet instead of the common ferrite magnet, so as you can see, the magnet area is smaller and lighter in weight! My goodness, it only weighs 1.5 kg!

This picture shows the bass amp with the front grill removed. Before now I had never opened it since I bought it, so I was really shocked to see what it looked like inside!!

I didn’t expect it to be so dusty and moldy...
I would like to sincerely apologize to my bass amp. I’m so sorry that I haven’t taken good care of you much.

I removed all the screws that held the speaker unit together, but it did not come off easily.

The frame of the speaker unit was glued on the cabinet side, so I used a flathead screwdriver to remove the glue and finally managed to get it off. The sticker of the magnet was starting to peel off. I guess it must have been the humidity.

As I mentioned earlier, magnets on these units are different as you can see in the picture. The CELESTION unit is obviously lighter. The magnet is so small that it even worries me a little.

When I played my bass with this amp at home, I didn’t notice any problems with the sound, but looking inside, fortunately the cone wasn’t torn but it was discolored, and I could see it was pretty worn out.

I was worried about the positioning of the screw holes, but it turned out to be perfect for the new speaker unit. I was lucky that I was able to install it easily without having to make new holes or completely open up the inside.

Tighten one screw a little bit then move on to the screw on the opposite side. Repeat this process until all the screws are tightened, and the replacement of the speaker unit is complete. Now, let’s wipe the dirt off. If you’re going to replace the speaker unit, let’s also not forget where to screw into when removing the grill!! I don’t think you have to mark the positions but you can just take a picture of it. I wouldn’t have had a hard time putting the grill back if I had done it. Lol.

I know you are probably mostly interested in what my thoughts are, and I think that the sound got much better. Some people might say that it’s the placebo effect, but to be honest, this new speaker delivers the sound forward really well with a little more firmness and thickness, making playing bass more fun. In other words, it feels like having an external natural booster. In my case, the original speaker unit on the amp was badly damaged, so I’m probably getting back the amp sound rather than getting a better sound. Lol. I am also very happy that my amp now feels lighter with a light speaker unit. When I brought my amp up to our office, I had to take a few breaks on the way, but I was able to bring it home without taking a break. This may be the best thing that this speaker unit brings to a guy around 40!

I bet there are very few people who often take off the front grill of the amp to check the condition of the speaker unit. If you have an amp that has been with you for years, just perform a home check-up on it!! Just change the speaker unit and you may be able to get closer to the sound to your liking.

Please check out our Special Page for CELESTION (in Japanese only) that features a variety of content including a useful product selector, demo sounds, and videos.

CELESTION Special Page

P.S. By the way, this CARVIN/SB5000 5-string bass is a model that can be semi-custom-ordered. When I ordered it 10 years ago, I carefully selected the specifications from the wood and color of the body and neck, to the types of parts, and the material of the knobs. But for some reason, thanks to our excellent automatic ordering system, there are only three more basses in the world that are identical to mine. (Haha)