Celestion Ditton 44

[ditton works]

Hi
Just bought a mint mint pair of late Ditton 44's
Complete with original packaging.
T2616 bass driver.
Sound superb.
Does anyone know the production years of the Ditton 44?
I've had three pairs and I know the first pair I owed (black front) were bought in 1973.
I just wondered what year the latest pair could have been made.
I think 1979 at a guess.
Can anyone offer more on this please?

 

[BilboBaggins]

The pair I bought my son are like yours. I agree, later date. I had also had a pair of the earlier version that I recapped, and what a difference!

Look closely at the driver in my avatar. It was the woofer in my first set of Ditton 44s.

 

[ditton works]

The pair I bought my son are like yours. I agree, later date. I had also had a pair of the earlier version that I recapped, and what a difference!

Look closely at the driver in my avatar. It was the woofer in my first set of Ditton 44s.

Thanks bilbo
A recap is on my list of todo's as are my 66's
Earlier 44's have the t1600 and hard wired crossover.
I couldn't detect any sonic differences between my earlier or later versions. Could you?

 

[BilboBaggins]

The problem for me is that the two sets of speakers were years apart and being driven by different amps. I find in general, that the Ditton line of speakers are current hungry. That is why I mentioned the quad 303 or Yamaha M-40 power amps. They are both good high current amps and dittons just sound that much better with them. As well, the first set was still early in my learning curve, before I had the gear I have now. I did notice a big difference as a result of the recap. There are some excellent threads in DIY Audio on recapping both the Ditton 44s and the Ditton 66s. Quite a few flavours of crossovers too, in the different variants. Look up AlanB. He knows what he is talking about when it comes to the Dittons.

I have my schematic somewhere for the early 44s I had. I'll see if I can find them. There might be more details on them there. That was about 5 or 6 years ago.

 

[BilboBaggins]

Check out Crossover Nightmare over at DIY Audio. Member Alan-1-b is an excellent resource, and I think this thread should be quite helpful for you. Alan-1-b also helped with a Ditton 66 recap job.

Here are the Ditton 66 and Ditton 44s I originally had. Did not work that well with the McIntosh MAC1900. The receiver wasn't designed for high current loads like the Dittons.