Celestion 3000/5000/7000, Anyone remember these?

I have a pair of 7000s - absolutely gorgeous, will never part with them - but they need the right amp. Mine are biwired to a Camridge Audio A500.
Strengths: Soundstage (when set up and driven properly) clarity (particularly vocals) & dynamic range. The bass is virtually bottomless.

The one big weakness is that the ribbon is highly directional. Your ear needs to be in the same horisontal plane as the ribbon which means they're not so great for parties.

I have a set of 7000's running right now (written listening to Etta James' Mystery Lady CD). garryp is right, vocals ARE terrific. I've got them pared with a Velodyne ULD-18, the last of the MUSICAL sub-wofs they made. Wonderful paring.

I admit my amp might not be of the highest quality but it drives them nicely for me. --- Pre-Amp Sony TAE-9000ES Power Sony TAN-9000ES.

I've got them bi-wired with Kimber cable -- Blue/Grey/Black woven.

It's said that the ribbons can be difficult to obtain flat response from.

Also agree with 'garryp' about directionality of the ribbons. Encourages me to sit in the "Command Chair" with a glass of 'Grape Juice Plus" and do serious listening.

Thought I was the ONLY guy still running these!

Tim
S.F. Bay Area, California, USA

I also have a set of 7000's running in my listeningroom.
In my room they sound very clear with a good coherence between ribbon and woofers, with a great transparent soundstage.
When they get hooked upon a good amp, the dynamics will be astonishing!
But my room has some acoustic flaws in it.
The lower bass is there, but the upperbass is gone due to the room.
That results in an unbalanced timbre.
I will pick them up and relocate them, that should help.
I drive them with a Krell ksa 50s poweramp.
These are truely revealing speakers and I think that the parts used on the cross-over are ready for new and better ones.
And once these parts are changed, I think that they will be stiff competition for nowadays speakers (around the original 7000's pricetag)!

Mark
Oud Beijerland, the Netherlands

Yes I have these and am starting to wonder if they have had their day?

Quirky, you have to sit at armchair level to hear them properly. Stand up and quality, but not power goes. I like them though and would like to get more from them. I cannot be arsed though to stick piles of newspapers and housebricks around my lounge. That is for audiophile nuts and makes no more differance than standing up in front of the units.

To end, they are very good producers of sound. They pick up the music and fling it into the room. What else could we want? Well something of course, or we wouldn't be here would we?

I have a pair of 7000s coupled to a class A-B valve amp which I built using GEC designs, they sound extremely coarse and edgy with the transistor amps that I've tried. The bass is very controlled and very extended, on some early recordings one can detect vibrations from passing traffic! The treble is clean and and highly directional - having the ribbons buried in slots doesn't help but is of course necessary to suspend the ribbons between the magnet pole pieces. The achilles heel is the necessity for a matching transformer because of the very low resistance / impedance of the ribbon. As my PhD was in Electromagnetics I'm going to dismantle my pair and try and wind improved matching transformers, I think this is necessary as the fine detail is not as clear as from some speakers I have built using Bandor metal cone units; even so, the 7000s are better than Quad 57s and Tannoy Lancasters - I owned pairs of all 3 at the same time and the 7000s were audibly better.