I'm sure some of you here know Johan Segeborn and his marvellous youtube channel.
Anyway, I watched his test of an old Laney Klipp cabinet fitted with Goodmans Audiom speakers. It sounded like Sabotage era Black Sabbath - my favourite era!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US8UjS3FhOUI just had to have some of these speakers. I found a pair on eBay fitted in some old 1x12 cabinets, the 12P-G, proper guitar version with aluminium dust cap.
I picked them up from the previous owner yesterday. The sturdy old 1x12 cabs were for PA originally I presume. They are made of particle board and weigh an absolute ton. I will try to find something more suitable.
Immediately I wired a jack into one of them and was really excited to try them out. To speak the truth they sound nothing like Johan's amazing demo. But still I liked the sound.
They were definitely British in tonality, but different to Celestions. Less lowend, so they seemed brighter overall. I'm not sure if its down to the aluminium dust cap, or something else, but they have a raw edge to them. I really liked that. The mids are a bit different compared to Celestions, they seem a little more punchy maybe.
Still the honeymoon period, so I don't want to make any grand pronouncements, but they sound just as good as vintage Celestions in my opinion. I liked the edginess and we'll see what the future holds. The closest Celestion to these I feel might be the G12H-30. Probably I sound 15% closer to Iommi now - but still nothing like him!
Main priority will be to ditch the existing cabs! Actually, I already removed the speaker from one and threw it out.